Helen Thomas
Helen Thomas was known for being one of America's most distinguished journalists until a recent video taped interview, during which she found her train of thought careening down the following slope ...
That's All She Wrote
After years sitting front and center in the White House press room, peppering the last 10 US Presidents with (increasingly crazy sounding) questions, Thomas was asked to answer a highly sensitive question of her own. Here's how that went:
She resigned the next day.
You ask somebody their opinion and you get it! Then you go and complain about it. WTF?
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesVery simple: you don't ask the question unless you are prepared for the answer.
When you think their opinion is retarded? Well yeah. I guess you're one of those people who thinks freedom of speech equals immunity from critique.
This isn't really a "critique". It's just an idiotic and incorrect implication that what she said is antisemitic. Maybe they're one of those people who thinks freedom of speech means she shouldn't have to resign over a very valid and fair statement made when asked for her personal opinion?
I strongly oppose the mainstream reaction to her comment, but let's be serious, here. It was hardly a well-thought-out statement. The original subject matter was Israel, but she finds herself at the end endorsing what logically amounts to the expulsion of all people who happen to be Jewish from Palestine (using the broader definition that includes what is currently Israel). I don't think there was any antisemitic motive in what she said. The error of her solution is that it fails to challenge and therefor tacitly approves of the racialization of the land of Palestine that is the basis of the Zionist regime there. The progressive answer is not to endorse one racial/ethnic group over the other, but to call for the abolition of the apartheid and the racial state.
So if hitler said "My opinion is white people are ftw, kill ze rest"
would you say
"You ask somebody their opinion and you get it! Then you go and complain about it. WTF?"
You know what? f**k THIS SHIT. I don't f*****g care anymore. I hope they all kill each other. I don't care who is right or wrong or at fault anymore, I'm tired of the pointless arguing. f**k all those desert dwelling morons. Neither side can claim the moral high ground at this point.
ReplyThe jews lives in Palestine before the holocaust you say? Thats true. So as christians and a few other religions too. But that doesnt mean its theirs and they have a right to take away other peoples land just because they suffered casualty. I fall the other groups, religious affiliations and races who have suffered casualties and had been wronged in the past did the same thing by grabing land from others, does that make it ethically right? Where does your reasoning come from? Im sure all will use the bible as an excuse..but that is just morally reprihensible and deep inside, if you were on the other side of the barrel you would definitely understand why the palestines are the way they are right now. The jews have no right taking their land from them. The US and Britain certainly did not have the right to sign this off either. At the time they thought thats this people were just easy to kick out because they were poor and who gives a s**t about them really. But they were all wrong and now we are all paying for their mistakes. When will you wake up people.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesAlright, let me try to illustrate the problem with a small analogy:
Think you and all your extended family are living in a huge house, that was built by and has belonged to your ancestors for centuries. Someday an armed gang breaks into your home, destroys a lot of your stuff and finally take you and every member of your family away for use in several hard labour shops far away from your country, leaving your house standing but desolate. As the years pass, the members of your family manage to escape and try to rebuild their lives in whichever country they ended, dreaming of someday going back to home. However, one day someone rounds up all of you and throws you into a basement; your women are raped and abused, your children are used for experiments and most of you are killed in horrible ways.
A few years later the cops break into that basement and free the few of you that are still alive. However, you have no possessions nor a real place in the countries you were trying to survive, so they decide to ship you back to your old home.
When you get there, though, you find that a band of homeless people moved in, shortly after you left. Perhaps you'd feel bad about them, but in truth, you and your family have suffered enough already to even contemplate giving up the one thing you have left in the world to some strangers. The cops that liberated you decide to let them live in a small wing of the house anyway, and hope you can get along, then leave. However, it turns out that the very moment you get installed back at home, your new "housemates" decide that you have no rights to the house and start damaging your side of the house and hurting your already decimated family, hoping to scare yo away (though the most radicals amongst them would much rather have every one of you anihilated because they bear for your family an almost equally irrational hatred as the guy that thrw you in that basement.)
So tell me: would you suffer this people? Would you give up your home and go to beg in the streets or just wait until they manage to kill all of you? Wouldn't you fight back? Wouldn't you -after many years of conflict, realising they will never stop- start attacking proactively? Wouldn't you try to expulse from your house the people that presents a daily danger to the remnants of your long-suffering household?
Maokun, that is a very well-thought-out and well-written analogy.
Maokun, why do you hate our freedom?
Your analogy would be more accurate had you mentioned that the cops also gave the families a shitload and of guns and assistance so that they can get rid of those pesky "housemate." Regardless of the analogy, I am a Palestinian, and even though my opinion is biased, I'm going to give it to you anyways. Most of the Jews that live in Israel now are not in fact direct descendants of families that suffered during the holocaust. The holocaust is an awful and tragic thing, but Palestinians should not be held responsible for it.
People are afraid to criticize the s**t that Israel does for fear of being labeled anti-semitic. People need to be able to make a distinctions between Jews and the State of Israel. One is a religions affiliation, while the other is Political entity. You can be sympathetic to jews and still oppose Israel and its policies.
Okay, nice clipart and introductory paragraph. We approve. Feel free to write the article now.
ReplyThere's an obvious uncomfortable feeling while viewing this. However, there is a valid point made, its a complicated situation, and the Jewish people that now inhabit palestine did displace the Palestinians to form Israel (think American Indians and Europeans). They do also currently attack Palestine with as much vigor as the palestinian 'terrorists.' Does a claim to land that was left over a dozen generations ago really justify any of it?
Reply Hide All See All 6 RepliesLittle history lesson.
Palestine was created around 1930 - 1940 (somewhere around that) by dividing up the remnants of the Ottoman Empire. It was the be divided equally between Jews and Muslims.
Basically what the Jews got was like 1/8th of the lot, and out of that prospered, and the Muslims were given the rest and didn't.
Now the Muslims want the Jews out.
When the Jews withdrew from the Gaza strip and ceased firing, the Muslims moved in and started to bomb into the Jewish land.
It's all pretty simple history (if not dumbed down by saying it was Muslims and Jews, it clearly isn't that black and white).
A simple google search of "The History of Palestine" or even a youtube search will tell you everything you, and everyone else should know before commenting.
The videos include American journalists based in Palestine speaking how what we hear is censored to be slanted in favour of the Muslims.
george those journalists say its censored and they are rigth it , they just lie abt whose side it is for.... the following wud be correct if nt for the fact tht those jews where nt inhabitants of palestine/ ottoman empire , they were immigrnts who moved in the 30's
the arabs got angry tht these people who had no claim to tht land where given it... tht land belonged to the people who had been living there for thousands of yrs and they were kick out to make way for jewish immigrants, many form poland and america, rember this was before the holocaust and there was no anti- jewsih hate goin arnd at tht time......
so basically to let u understand this here is a hypothethcial situation if illegal mexicans came into america then, where given U.S. land by the u.n. because u knw legal mexicans have been arnd for a couple of hundreds yrs.... hw upset do u think the people who inhabited tht land wud be
and i think a simple gogle search is why u keep stumbling into american propoganda.......lol are u tryin to be decieved or what ?
The line "what we hear is censored to be slanted in favour of the Muslims" really should be enough to sound an alarm. While there certainly is no end to antisemitist elements in the West, I can't think of a single one that'd favor the Muslims over the Jews. Anyways, tricky's right in saying you really shouldn't be getting your information from Google, much less YouTube.
The pre-Israel Palestine was established just after WWI by the Brits, following their victory over the Ottomans:
"His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."
Despite the cooperative tone of the above declaration, the Jews and the Arabs basically fell into bickering over the land as soon as the dust had settled. Jewish nationalist started making claims to all of Western Palestine (the Eastern areas, "Transjordan", would later become modern Jordan) and migrating in increasing quantities to all of the area, somewhat reluctantly backed by the Brits. As fascism started to rear its head in Europe, the migration flow increased explosively, promting the Arab population to revolt against what they perceived as a take-over of their lands. By the time WWII came rolling around, thousands of Arabs and hundreds of Jews and Brits were dead from the numerous conflicts.
Things came to head after WWII, as refugees from Central Europe started flooding the area. The Brits, fearing an all-out civil war, attempted to put halt to the migration, but this only promted paramilitary Zionist groups to take up arms. The Brits suffered numerous terrorists attacks, and as their economy was in the toilet, finally chose to withdraw from the area entirely.
UN initally attempted to partition Palestine to seperate Jewish and Arab states, but the Arab community opposed the plan fiercely and a bloody civil war broke out soon after the decision was declared. The jews came out on top of the initial conflict and declared the birth of the independent state of Isreal, their borders based on the original UN partition, and the state was quickly recognized by most Western nations.
At this point the Brits had completely withdrawn, which the surrounding Arab states saw as their cue to attack. This phase of the conflict eventually also ended in a slight victory for Israel, serving to finalize the borders of the nation (which now significantly exceeded the area allocated to them by the parition plan), with Egypt and (Trans)Jordan occupying the remaining Arab territories of Palestine, now limited to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Both of these areas would later come under Isreali occupation as the result of the Six-Day War.
So the point of all this is that Isreal never had any right to what is now referred to as Palestine, other than their claimed mandate to the "Holy Land". Zionists had been demanding the land since the dawn of century, at which time the Jews were still a clear minority in the area, and I tend to think they were going to get it one way or another, international treaties be damned. Over half a million Arabs were expelled from their homes by (proto-)Isreali forces around the time of the formation of the state, a trend that would continue in the areas occupied later on.
I'm definitely not laying all of the blame on Isreal, of course. It's certainly true that it was the Arabs that were the aggressors in the initial war, and that Jordan and Egypt were mostly holding on to the lands out of spite, doing nothing to establish a Palestanian state and even denying the inhabitants citizenship in their respective realms. I also don't think Israel's actions in any way justify the subsequent terrorist attacks on civilians (which you'll note was also the Isreali nationalists' weapon of choice while they were still the underdogs).
Two wrongs don't make a right, is what I'm trying to say. :P
(Altho now that I think back, Jordan DID grant the people of West Bank citizenship, didn't they? *checks* Yep. I seem to recall the game plan was mostly to supress any trace of Palestanian nationalism, tho.)
Thank you for all that, Negative_Creep. The only place I disagree with you is that I hardly think you can count the Arabs as the aggressors in the first war, since it was a necessary defensive action in the first place.
wheres the writing?
ReplyShe is HIDEOUS. Just plain awful to look at and one duuuumb asssss bit-hey, what's this red dot over my che-
Reply...
f**k all of you Israel haters. They can't break wind without the antisemitic "international community" going into an uproar. What about the rockets that are fired into Israel, almost daily? Are those OK? I'm sure hamas is nothing but rainbows and sunshine, right?
Reply Hide All See All 15 RepliesYeah and f**k you back.
There's nothing antisemitic about being in an uproar about Israel when they are doing something that is WRONG. That card is pulled far too often.
Go preach your hate somewhere else, bitch. I'm sure when the islamic militants take over the world they'll get around to fixing those misogynistic/homophobic/intolerant issues they have, right?
And those rockets, that inflict at least 100x less structural damage and loss of Israeli life than Israel inflicts on Palestinians, are fired against a country with one of the most powerful armies in the world for fun and out of spite, not in protest of the land stealing, illegal settlements, thousands of unjust imprisonments, the murder of civilians and children on a daily basis and the forced almost unlivable conditions of the blockade, right?
Your definition of antisemitism would embarrass any holocaust survivor. Also, Islam is a Semite religion so being for Israel's systematic extermination of a Palestinian existence is really more antisemitic than being against what they are doing as a country.
Your stupidity astounds me... please get a 4th term abortion.
no, Palestinians don't have the right to kill civilians. but neither has israel.
and since it's the Israelis who invaded palestine i have less sympathy for them (and don't start with that 'jews lived there 2000 years ago' BS. according to that logic no white men has any right to own any land in america, afrika, australia etc.)
defiant the only stupid one here is u, twinklestar just gave adozen reasons for his point of view , what did u give fear mongering,propoganda and loads of hate,
Am nt suprised tht what he saids astounds you ,simple routnines and actions tht wud otherwise constitute a normal person's everyday life astound you, i bet you aren't even potty trained you neatherdal and am also sure u wudnt understand the irony of You calling anyone stupid seein tht u suffer from fetal alchol syndrome.... pls go back to dunkin ur head in the toilet u call fox news and wht the rest of the world call american propaganda , or Junk news
Oh -- it's all about disproportionate damage. It's not fair. Hmmmm..... Seems to me if you want to avoid being stomped on, one should avoid hostilities in the first place. The last time I checked, wars and conflict are not "fair," the idea is to inflict as much damage to the other son-of-a-bitch as possible.
Still waiting for the "religion of peace" to practice some, instead of throwing rocks, preaching hate ("Jews are filthy animals!"), and enabling terrorism.
Wrap your two brain cells around this: Palestinians target civilians and also use them as shields, with Israelis it's collateral damage. Is there even a counterpoint to that? Dipshit.
Collateral damage is a term created by the U.S. military and is used to justify "unintended" damage and civilian deaths. It's basically like saying the civilians killed in our military actions were "in the way" when the military was trying to make something explode, hence their deaths couldn't be prevented. It is a cold and calculating way of disassociating the general public from the fact that the "good guys" are killing innocent people. But when the enemy kills their enemies people, its an atrocity and we don't like atrocities now, do we...
There's your counterpoint, retard. BTW, maybe try independent thought. It's people with your kind of hive mentality that are manipulated by the media and take PR spin and propaganda as fact. Read/watch something other than major syndicated news broadcasts and newspapers that are usually pushing some political agenda.
And also, try walking without dragging your knuckles on the ground. You may find that in time, your knuckles will heal and that pain you feel in your hands while you fap to gay bukkake will go away.
You're absolutely right, Defiant. If someone doesn't want to get hurt or stomped on they shouldn't attack others. Except...OH WAIT! ISRAEL STARTED THIS CONFLICT.
Do your f*****g research before you open your mouth.
You're right, Defiant. If someone doesn't want to get attacked or stomped on they shouldn't attack others. Except...oh right, the Israelis are the aggressors here. So yeah.
gotta say, defiant.. you're kind of an idiot. do you even live there? Do you attend government meetings and military briefings from both sides? are you on the front lines, in the heat of conflict?
didn't think so. therefore, you should just shut yer yap and realize that in a conflict like that, no one is in the right
Hey defiant, you dumbfuck... do you live in the conflict zone? do you attend every government meeting? do you go to every military debriefing? are you fighting on the front lines?
i didn't think so... so why don't you just shut yer yap and accept that in this conflict, everybody is in the wrong. In other words, but Palestine and Israel are out of line
why are my replies being deleted...? he wonders aloud
It has nothing to do with who is doing damage to whom and who is doing disproportionate damage. It is all about the fact that Israel is an outlaw state full of violently resistant squatters. Any damage that the Palestinians can do to these criminals is justified, whereas any violence perpetrated by Israel only compounds the heinousness of their previous crimes. And if you go and say that this is antisemitism you're a f*****g moron because Israel is not the Jewish people.
AND THEN THE YETI ATE HER!
ReplyThis makes me moist.
Pretty disappointing coming from Cracked. It's not funny and it's pretty pathetic the way it's implying she's antisemitic. I think the only thing you can say about her comments are perhaps she should have worded them better. Perhaps this topic page would be better if it was a chart showing what is going through America's head that allows it to continue supporting a country responsible for war crimes in Gaza and piracy against an international ship carrying civilian peace activists that resulted in the killing of one of your citizens, just to mention a couple of the terrible things Israel is responsible for.
ReplyAt the risk of wearing out an already pretty tired meme, Y so srs?
Because making fun of someone for not supporting the slaughter of thousands of civilians in what is essentially an open air prison is pretty low class?
I don't know why cracked writers try and go for political comedy when all they know is dick and fart jokes.
ReplyA Canadian perspective. My government was the only one among 47 UN nations to NOT condemn the israeli military offensive in gaza. As embarrassed as i am to admit it, , my current government is so far up israels ass right now we can see the top of your head.
ReplyGood god, Bing, I don't want photos of that aging Hutt of a woman.
ReplyYeah, that was actually seriously weak as stories go. The build-up made me expect that she was going to call the guy sugar-tits or deny the Holocaust or something. She's not an anti-semite. She's just not.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesNow, I do totally agree that she phrased her argument in a profoundly ignorant way, but the argument itself is perfectly valid. The Holocaust was terrible, but it doesn't give the Jews the right to do the exact same thing themselves. The fact is their ancestral home is no longer their home. Other people live there now and by trying to take it back they're only hurting innocent people. The Palestinians are not terrorists, they're trying to protect their home, and if the Jews don't want to fight they should leave.
It would be like if the Chinese government declared tomorrow they were giving the US back to the native Americans and sent in soldiers and bombs to kill every US citizen who wanted to stay in their home. Would that be right? Would Americans who resisted be evil terrorists?
I think it says a lot about how far up Israel's ass America's head currently is that a respected journalist actually had to resign over such a tame comment.
This, exactly. This has nothing to do with the Jews being Jews and is instead about them acting like entitled jerks.
Well, keep in mind that Jews had been buying up large chunks of near-desolate property in what is now Israel since the turn of the century-- there was a big homecoming movement at the time. The bulk of Israel proper actually did belong, land-wise, to Jews.
Really, I think this concerns very tiny amounts of non-Jewish land, the fact that the aforementioned bulk of land is legally a Jewish country, and the pissed-off people on all sides. Everyone in Palestine has been raised to die to kill Jews for so long now, nobody remembers what its like to do anything else. It sucks for little Palestinians and Jews living in legitimate lands- nobody ever wins a religious or cultural war without massive genocide and lots of space. Schmucks on both sides need to start acting right, but its not going to happen. Nobody is being rational anymore- everyone is acting out of rage and paranoia.
...And this is why a topic like this requires detailed discussion, not random statements easily taken out of context made during a Jewish celebration. It sucks that Helen went out on this note- she actually was quite an tough journalist at one point.
There was a time when they tried. Remember Ariel Sharon and Yassir Arafat sitting down and talking things out? Sure it was all a show, they were just pretending to like each other as a stipulation for America helping them, but that's all they needed. Eventually the haters would die or retire and new generations who had lived in peace would be in charge and the false peace would become real peace.
George W. Bush allowed the war to continue. He told Israel they would receive American support without the need for peace talks, and he told Palestine they would never receive support from us again. What reason did they have to keep the peace anymore? None.
I had a lot of hope for Obama. I even voted for him myself because I thought he could make things better, but he seems intent on just continuing Bush's ridiculous policies.
C'mon..they should do something for her, a whitehouse dinner ceremony or something, girlfriend cant go out like this!
ReplyI'm a bit disappointed she resigned. She could certainly have said it better, but her basic argument (it would be better to give up on trying to get the Promised Land back) isn't completely without merit, and she had the right to make it.
ReplyWhere's "Palistine", exactly? Is it some kind of promised land Jesus left in his scriptures?
ReplyShes just old. Old people always say crazy things
ReplyI like the short ones sometimes.
ReplyHelen Thomas is not anti-semitic and she didn't mean to say anything that sounded anti-semitic. Many Holocaust survivors only went to then Palestine, because the U.S. and Great Britain had Immigration quotas that kept out Jews and the major Zionist organizations steered Jewish immigration toward Palestine. Thomas was ambushed by that guy and she was probably upset at the Israeli attack on that humanitarian flotilla and the fact that Israeli settlers are illegaly stealing land in the occupied territories.
ReplyThe press corp is throwing Thomas under the bus, because she wrote a book calling the Washington press corps hacks. She, unlike other Washington journalists, has questioned the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She apologized for mispeaking and the whole thing has been blown out of proportion.
I completely agree.
Also, nobody ever seems to make the distinction between Israel the nation, Judaism the religion, and Jewish the race.
Anti-Semiticism is a prejudice against a race of people. Criticizing Israel is criticizing a nation.
Questioning Judaism is questioning a belief, beliefs can be wrong.