Farewell, Helen Thomas

Helen Thomas retired today and I am genuinely sorry to see her go. Although I disagree very vehemently with Thomas on most issues, she was a valuable asset to American Journalism. She was direct and unafraid. She asked questions others would not - even of those who shared her political sympathies. I remember well her questioning of Robert Gibbs on the White Houses's unprecedented control of the press. She said not even Nixon had tried to do what the Obama administration had. Because Thomas's liberalism is well known, the criticism meant more coming from her than it did from a conservative. It would have been hard to argue that Thomas was just playing politics. Journalists willing to set aside politics for a moment for the good of the country are invaluable. In this instance, that is what Helen Thomas was.

Furthermore, Thomas made politics interesting. Her fiery exchanges with Ari Fleischer helped establish my love of politics and I am grateful for that. Thomas was a journalist many conservatives loved to hate. I admit that I was one of these. I was glued to C-Span whenever I noticed Thomas asking a question. While I agreed with Fleischer most of the time, I loved the debates, the back-and-forth and the visibility of the practice of Democratic rights.

I also admired Thomas's commitment to real journalism. While she was very obviously biased, she was, at least, willing to truly pursue stories. She was not an arm-chair journalist, rather, she seemed to love being on site, doing a reporter's job. That is becoming somewhat of a lost art, but Thomas with her wit and intelligence, was a true master.

I believe that Thomas's comments regarding Israel were wrong. But I think that, if Thomas's view of the world were right, her comments would be too. Those on left who oppose Israel, yet have chosen to throw Helen Thomas under the bus ought to be ashamed. Thomas, I think, believes what she said. She sees Israel as an oppressive nation and the Palestinians as innocent people, defending their homeland. Were this true and were there not more to the story, Thomas would have been absolutely right to say what she did. And she has the right to voice her opinion.

Thomas is wrong about Israel, which benevolently treats its enemies' wounded and which has every right in the world to exist. Its people have fought and died for that right and they have undergone more persecution than I suspect Thomas can fathom. Meanwhile, the Palestinians have broken almost every cease-fire and turned down generous peace offers. But why not allow the discussion of it? Why not simply challenge Thomas's statements publicly? Why not show her she is wrong rather than trying to have her silenced? I think the answer may lie in this excerpt from an article in The Economist:

She had become one of those people who, during question time, needs to be reminded to make sure their comment comes in the form of a question. She seemed more concerned with making her own point than hearing the president's or holding him to account. And, frankly, her columns weren't all that interesting (when was the last time you read or heard about one?). Julian Sanchez sums it up well: "Her banality is way more offensive than anything she's said about Israel."

I could not disagree more. It is precisely what she said about Israel that is the problem. Helen Thomas is less banal than most of the press. She is unpredictable and interesting. And even if she were banal, how could banality be more offensive than antisemitism? The idea is ludicrous. Yet Sanchez may be right. Maybe Thomas was not thrown under the bus because she was an antisemite. Perhaps she was thrown under the bus because the left felt that her questioning had gotten old.

I wish I could believe that Thomas now faces criticism from her side, simply because the left is appalled by antisemitism - but I don't. The Obama administration has gone out of its way to snub Israel. It originally excused antisemitic and other racist comments from Obama's pastor, Jeremiah Wright. But maybe the administration, like Sanchez, had grown tired of Thomas's questions. Maybe what really sunk Thomas was her willingness to question those on her side. And if that is the case, I'd like to say thank you. Thank you, Helen Thomas. I will miss you.

Comments

[KB]

Miranda: Great post! You are more sympathetic to Helen Thomas than I am inclined to be, but I rather think you have a point. She did produce a lot of interesting exchanges. But there is a problem with the role she came to play as the "Dean" of the White House press. It is indeed their role to ask provocative questions. It is not their role to editorialize, which is pretty much all Thomas did in later years.

I agree that those who decided now to throw her under the bus aren't being very honest. She has been saying things like this for years. I was very interested to hear Charles Krauthammer's comment on Fox. Is it really the right thing to do to fire Ms. Thomas for expressing an opinion, however loathsome? She was, after all, merely answering an unsolicited couple of questions.

Ms. Thomas' remark that "the Jews" ought to go back where they came from is certainly offensive in light of the history of the Holocaust and Zionism. To suggest that someone whose parents and grandparents were born in Israel has to leave merely because she is a Jew, that smacks of antisemitism. I think that Ms. Thomas discredited herself because she pulled off the mask, and reveal the antisemitism of the Left.

[Isabella Mofaz]

Dear Miranda,

I am curious to hear some eveidence regarding your statement about "Israel, which benevolently treats its enemies' wounded" when Israel in fact hits Palestinian civilian under the protection of the UN and uses phophorous bombs to burn them. I would also be very interested in learning about your evidence about how "Palestinians have broken almost every cease-fire and turned down generous peace offers" when anyway most the land that was left to them under the UN resolutions is occupied by hating jew settlers and divided by thick high aparthide walls depriving the of a decent and free livelyhood.
I look forward to your enlightening feedbac.
Thanks you.

[Ron]

Helen Thomas exercised her capacity and right of free speech and paid the price for it. In the U.S., the price was public humiliation, an apology for exercising that right, and her job. In other jurisdictions, the price of free speech can be the speaker's life, so Thomas is fortunate; she is still alive, at least.

So free speech is not free in circumstances where those opposed to what is expressed have power over the speaker's life and livelihood; the speaker pays a price. As for what Thomas actually said, it is the product of a geriatric mind that seems to have lost much of the power of reflection it might once have had.

[Miranda]

Dr. Blanchard: Thank you. You are right, of course, that a reporter should report more than she editorializes. However, that sort of reporting no longer seems to be the norm. Everything has become more social and opinion-oriented. Thomas was at least open about her biases and I have to say I prefer that to the style of, say, Joe Scarborough, who is as liberal as he is conservative. I agree that Thomas's statements are antisemitic - however, I think that she sees today's Palestinians as yesterdays Jews and today's Israelis as yesterday's Nazis. She thinks she's telling the Nazis to leave town. If she were right, she would be rather noble. As it is, she's terribly wrong.

Ron: Well said. You are right, but I still question those who turned so quickly on Thomas, yet were so slow to apologize for Wright.

[Miranda]

Isabella: Thank you for stopping by and also for your questions. My answers are rather lengthy, so I hope you don't mind me breaking them up into two parts.

Regarding your first question:
Evidence for Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is abundant. Here are just a few of the sources detailing it:

Here is a BBC article, which claims that, in one year, Israel admitted and treated over 7,000 Gazans in its hospitals.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7375439.stm

In the next article, The World Health Organization reports the following:

“During the last year, May 2005 to May 2006, Israel has maintained its humanitarian policy towards the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank areas. Israel is continuing to provide medical care to Palestinian patients in Israeli hospitals, provide public health laboratory services in Israel, grant training programmes to Palestinian physicians and nurses in Israel and enable medical and pharmaceutical supplies to enter the Gaza and West Bank areas. This humanitarian attitude is continuing despite the fact that the Palestinian Ministers of Health have remained opposed to previous agreements and to the normalization of relations in the field of health care, and despite
terrorist acts against Israel’s civil population.”

In the next, The New York Times reports that Israeli treatment of Palestinians is "regular."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/world/middleeast/13mideast.html
The New York Times reports that “Many major hospitals in Israel regularly treat Palestinians and are no strangers to such mixed feelings or incongruous scenes.”

I can provide more sources if you need them.

[Miranda]

Response to Isabella, Part 2. I apologize for the poor formatting and length of this comment.

Regarding your second question, it may have been fairer to say "most" rather than "almost all."

I am not sure I have space to detail every instance in which the Palestinians have either broken a cease-fire or prevented it. But here are a number of references to such incidents and some relevant quotations from them.

July 27, 1981, AP International News, “Cease-Fire Survives New Palestinian Rockets.”

“The cease-fire between Israel and Palestinians in Lebanon survived a third day Monday despite early morning shelling from Palestinian gunners who have defied leader Yasser Arafat's decision to honor the truce.”

Feb 3, 1982, AP International News, “Charge PLO Violated Lebanon Cease-Fire 60 times."

Here, Ariel Sharon claims the PLO has violated the Lebanon Cease-Fire 60 times and UN peacekeeping troops confirm peacekeeping troops confirm that “Norwegian U.N. troopers d intercepted four guerrillas Tuesday near Marjayoun in the northeastern sector of the enclave north of Israel's border.”

According to the AP, “The guerrillas, who carried Kalashnikov assault rifles and hand grenades, belonged to George Habash's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the spokesman said. He said they were disarmed and released.” Israel says it wants to pursue the cease-fire anyway.

April 15, 1982, Christian Science Monitor - Midwestern Edition, “Factions under PLO umbrella jostle to end cease-fire.”

“Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat is under ''immense pressure'' to pull the trigger and break the July 24 cease-fire in southern Lebanon to which the PLO is committed.” They eventually get their way.

Nov 3, 2000, AP International News, “Violence Endangering Mideast Truce."

“A new truce to end more than a month of Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed was near collapse after a car bomb went off near a busy Jerusalem market, killing two Israelis, and two Palestinians died in clashes in the West Bank and Gaza.”

“In a pair of confrontations, Palestinian youths threw stones at Israeli troops in the West Bank towns of Hebron and Ramallah. Israeli troops responded with tear gas and rubber-coated bullets, leaving 18 Palestinians wounded in Hebron."

"`The cease-fire doesn't apply to us,’ said Ali, a 17-year-old rock thrower.”

June 5, 2001, Mark Lavie, AP International News, "Hamas Says Not Bound By Cease-Fire."

“Hamas cast doubt Tuesday on how long a fragile cease-fire can last when its spiritual leader said the militant group is not bound by Yasser Arafat's call to end attacks on Israel.”

“Yassin joined 2,000 Palestinians marching peacefully in Gaza to mark the anniversary of the 1967 war. Demonstrators chanted, ''The intefadeh will continue until victory,'using the Arabic word for uprising.

A Hamas spokesman in Gaza, Mahmoud Zahar, would not directly say if further bombings were planned. But, he said, ''our strategy and our tactic is to continue resistance, the intefadeh, by all means and everywhere.''

June 14th, 2001, Barbara Demick and Nomi Morris, The Philadelphia Inquirer
“Violence, discord threaten tenuous Mideast truce,"

“Two Israelis were shot and wounded yesterday in the West Bank and mortar shells were fired toward an Israeli army outpost in the Gaza Strip, representing the first challenge on the ground to the new truce."

"I don't think there is a cease-fire if there is still shooting," said Ra'anan Gissin, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. "If they think that they can shoot and talk at the same time, they have got it wrong."

October 1, 2001, YOAV APPEL, Associated Press Writer “Despite car bomb in Jerusalem, Israelis and Palestinians, continue truce talks.”

“A car bomb exploded in a Jerusalem neighborhood on Monday, causing only minor injuries but leaving another crack in the latest Mideast cease-fire.”

“Palestinian security officials have refused to arrest suspected Palestinian militants, a key demand by Israel. Joint meetings between security commanders on both sides resumed Monday following the cease-fire declaration last Wednesday.”

October 4, 2001, The Hotline

Operation Enduring Freedom reports that the peace agreement has been "shattered" after Palestinian militants again break the cease-fire "killing two Israelis and wounded another 15 in the Jewish settlement of Alei Sinai."

March 17, 2002, Greg Myre, Associated Press Writer “Shooting attack and bombing hit Israel; Palestinians refuse to meet until army pulls out,”

“A suicide attack in Jerusalem and a fatal shooting north of Tel Aviv on Sunday undermined the optimism surrounding U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni's third cease-fire mission to the region."

A gunman killed one person in Kfar Saba and wounded six more, one critically. Zinni was in a meeting with Israeli President Moshe Katsav when word of the attack reached him.

A short time later, a suicide bomber set off explosives near a bus in Jerusalem, killing himself and lightly wounding several passengers, authorities said.”

March 20, 2002, Greg Myre, Associated Press Writer “Palestinian bus bombing kills eight; Mideast truce efforts threatened, but not derailed.”

March 23, 2002, Greg Myre,
“Palestinians attack Israeli army post a day before Mideast truce talks set to resume.”

“Israeli troops shot and killed two Palestinians who attacked an army post with grenades Saturday, and militant Islamic groups said they would ignore any truce deal, complicating U.S. efforts to arrange a cease-fire.”

April 28, 2007, Diaa Hadid, AP.

“Troops shoot and kill at least three Hamas militants in thwarted border attack” by the

Four Palestinians tried to plant a bomb near the border between Israel and Gaza. The Israeli military killed them, noting that “Palestinian militants have attempted to plant more than 50 bombs near the border since the cease-fire took effect.”

“Saturday's incident marked the second time in four days that Hamas breached the cease-fire reached in November. Earlier this week, Hamas fired a barrage of rockets toward Israel, causing no injuries, after Israeli forces killed nine Palestinians in fighting.”

[michael thomas]

Whatever one thinks of her comments and her beliefs about Israel and the MidEast, that shouldn't detract from her being one of the great great journalists of her time.

http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reportsitem.aspx?id=100453

[Miranda Flint]

Thanks, Michael. Thomas was a great journalist, and while I often found reasons to disagree with her, I do respect her.