John A. Farrell

Helen Thomas Should Have Quit Sooner

June 8, 2010 RSS Feed Print

By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

I don't know what the rabbi thought she would say when he stuck the video camera in the face of an 89-year-old Arab-American lady and asked her what she thought about Israel. It is not the first place I would go to get a testimonial about Israeli pluck and virtue.

Old age deteriorates mental powers. In Western culture, since long before Shakespeare, old folks are portrayed as daffy for good reason, and for no fault of their own. The vessels bringing oxygen to the brain shrivel. Brain cells die. Codgers blurt out crazy things. And Helen Thomas did.

But to post her remarks on the Internet? Well, there was only one reason to do that, and it had its intended effect. Thomas was called vile and reprehensible, and pushed into retirement. And now both sides in this 60-year-old conflict, Arabs and Jews, can spend the week saying "See! They hate us!" God forbid we should let the wounds heal, not when we can tear at the scar tissue and rip off the scabs and start the bleeding again.

Of course, Thomas should have known better. She was a smart, tough, brave reporter for many years. Former Rep. Patricia Schroeder once summed up official Washington, as it was when she came to Congress in the 1970s, as the "Planet of the Guys." That's the city Thomas faced, and she shattered many barriers against women in her profession. But she hung around too long. She should have retired but wanted, I suspect, to keep doing her life's work and die at the keyboard, instead of in some home for the aged. You can't blame her, but if there is any lesson here, it's about going out on top. Take your victory laps while you can, before they have to help you off the track.

The world has been graced by Jewish intellectualism. So has American journalism. Thomas, the daughter of Lebanese immigrants, was a rare reporter of Arab descent and perspective. She showed her skepticism about U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East over the years, especially as she got older, and crotchety, and wrote as a columnist, not a reporter.

Perhaps, given her career-ending remarks that Israelis should "get the hell out of Palestine" and go home to America--or to Poland and Germany, two lands renowned for their histories of persecuting Jews--she has harbored uglier feelings that she kept from the public, as the code of her profession required. Or maybe not. Maybe she was just being old.

Tags:
Palestine,
Germany,
Poland,
Helen Thomas,
Israel,
Middle East,
aging

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In the first place, Thomas wasn't fired for her criticism of Israel; she was fired for her over the top remark that Jews should "go back to Germany and Poland." Considering that Nazi Germany initiated the Holocaust and that Poland was the location of all six death camps the remark seems to imply what she feels all Jews deserve. This is offensive to say the least.

A news agency can't retain someone who makes such remarks any more than they can retain someone who declares publically that "all Blacks should be sent back to Africa." It's unprofession at best and at worst outright bigotry. News Agencies have their reputation and credibility to protect. I've personally seen frequent harsh criticism of Israel in the broadcast media especially during times of severe military conflict. But these criticisms are specifically directed at Israel and the issues in question, not Jews themselves. And these critics certainly never made offensive and unwarrented suggestive references to the Holocaust.

steve of IL 6:31PM June 13, 2010

Oh my goodness. Here we go again. Charges of anti-semitism ringing through the airwaves against someone expressing a view against the state of Israel and the way it conducts its affairs. I take it that none of you have ever been to an all jewish country club or a country club where jews are excluded and have never heard comments made in these places when no one was looking or prying. The fact of the matter is is the lady is old. Probably a little bitter about the ways things have gone down since 1946 and just spoke before she considered the consequences. Is it not good to get these things out in the open. To here the way people really think and then have a lively debate about things that are to often just pushed under the table. I would imagine there are similar views hidden in the largest most lucrative board rooms in america. Give me a break . The lady is old. She has the right to say what she feels. Maybe a little too much rhetoric but wow what attention she got on the way out. You people are just too paranoid for me. People say things when they get mad that they really don't mean to say and don't really believe in. We have all done it. You cannot judge her on one comment.

For example my father fought in WW2. He hated the Nazis but did not entirely believe in the creation of the state of Israel in the first place. Its done so we have to live with it but oh what a problem it has caused he used to say.

George Larkin of OK 4:09PM June 13, 2010

"The Book of Genesis (Genesis 10:2 – 5) identifies Ashkenazim “Jews” as being a people in Europe. Do the research!"

I have done the research and the proper term is Ashkenazic Jews. Neither Ashkenazim nor Europe is mentioned in Genesis. How absurd!! You're not worth responding to.

To the fool who insultingly calls himself Goldberg when this is not his name consider this. Most of your out of context "facts" are wrong or distorted. In the first place, israel's nuclear program began with French aid in the early 1950s, not in the 1960s after Kennedy's death. In fact, it was the French that built the Dimona reactor in the Negev. US aid to Israel didn't drastically increase until after the 1973 War. Before that it averaged in the low tens of billions a year.

Your other claims are really absurd. So Israel is to blame for Social Security's insolvency and the lack of a universal health insurance program. You must be nuts. By the way your US casualty figures for the Iraq War are way off. Over 4,000 soldiers were killed in Iraq. Talk about disrespecting the troops, you don't even care about getting the casualty figures correct. Furthermore, Israel had nothing to do with the Iraq War; it was about oil, US hegemony in international relations and corporate contracts for Iraq's reconstruction. Nearly $100 billion were extended to US corporations since 2003 when we invaded and occupied the country; that's 75% of all the aid Israel has received since its inception over 60 years ago.

You blame al Qaeda on Israel? Al Qaeda was a product of the Soviet-Afghan War. Israel had nothing to do with it. Also, your claim that Israel caused 9/11 is equally stupid. No one believes that. The idea that high gas prices at the pump are Israel's fault is equally laughable. High gas prices have more to do with oil futures speculation, OPEC, corporate gauging and good old supply and demand. Guess you never studied economics much. The war on terror has nothing to do with Israel either. The Jihadists just don't want the US in the Middle East.

Of course, Israel distracts us from ecological concerns, Brilliant. The US media spends virtually no time discussing Israel at all and for the last ten years Israel has been completely ignored by both the Bush and Obama Administrations.

Finally, I want to address the question of the Arabs in Israel. The 4 million Palestinians that endure a brutal military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza deserve freedom and an end to the illegal occupation. But the conditions of the Arabs in Israel with Israeli citizenship have the best standard of living of any Arabs in the Middle East. They have free access to the best health care system in the world, the enjoy greater literacy, income, educational opportunities and even freedom. They can vote send representitives to the Israeli Parlaiment and serve as cabinet ministers and judges. This was not possible for Blacks in Aparthied South Africa.

Your ugly rant was quite ignorant.

Steve of IL 9:00PM June 09, 2010

John A. Farrell

John A. Farrell

John Aloysius Farrell is a contributing editor at U.S. News & World Report. An award-winning Washington reporter, he has written for The Boston Globe and The Denver Post and is the author of Tip O’Neill and the Democratic Century and an upcoming biography of the great American defense attorney, Clarence Darrow.

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