On the Vilification of Helen Thomas
By Robert Scheer
Truthdig: June 9, 2010
The media tirade against Helen Thomas is as illogical as it is hysterical.
The few sentences uttered by her were, as she quickly acknowledged,
wrong-deeply so, I would add. But they cannot justify the road-rage
destruction of the dean of the Washington press corps. Suddenly this heroic
woman who broke so many gender barriers and dared to challenge presidential
arrogance was reduced to nothing more than the stereotypical anti-Israel
Arab that it is so fashionable to hate.
"Thomas, of Lebanese ancestry and almost 90, has never been shy about her
anti-Israel views," writes Richard Cohen in The Washington Post, in a non
sequitur reference to a reporter born in Winchester, Ky., in 1920 when
few-Jews included-supported a Jewish state in Palestine and whose parents
were Christians. Obviously Cohen, who attacks Thomas for "revealing how very
little she knew" about the history of Israel, is unaware that Lebanese
Christians have been the staunchest allies of the Jewish state. Indeed, they
provided the shock troops who, under Israeli cover, massacred the unarmed
inhabitants of Palestinian refugee camps. To attribute Thomas' views on
Israel to her Lebanese parents is no less offensive than it would be to
suggest that a Jewish reporter cannot be objective because, as in my case,
his mother escaped anti-Semitism in Russia.
Thomas' fall from grace as a media icon began with her daring to criticize
the abysmal coverage of the buildup to the Iraq war. How ironic that her
opposition to the U.S. invasion is offered as an example of hostility to
Israel when that war did so much to increase the power of Iran, Israel's
most significant enemy in the region. After all, Israel claims that the
presumed military threat from Gaza is fueled by Iran, which enjoys much
support in Shiite-led Iraq-previously governed by Tehran's archenemy Saddam
Hussein.
As someone who has long supported a two-state solution for the historically
disputed land of Palestine, I have no trouble condemning Thomas'
ill-considered remarks that Israeli Jews should go back to the lands from
where they came. I am opposed to denying legitimacy to desperate immigrants
seeking a better life anywhere, be they in Arizona or the Middle East. What
I don't understand is why this basic respect for human rights doesn't apply
to the people who call themselves Palestinian and who are illegal immigrants
not as a matter of birth but only in the political calculus of those who
find their indigenous presence at best an inconvenience and at worst an
insolvable threat. Why is it morally acceptable to deny Palestinians the
right to full citizenship in their birthplace and instead insist, as
Israel's leaders often have, that they should be content to live under the
flag of nations like Egypt, Syria and Jordan that have long oppressed them?
Nor is it relevant to lecture the Palestinians that the current rulers of
Jordan might be more benign overlords than when they slaughtered
Palestinians in the Black September days of 1970-71. Or that they should be
comfortable under the rule of Egypt, whose leaders had previously governed
Gaza so oppressively and now join in the cruel blockade of its economy.
Demands that Palestinians surrender their national aspirations are no more
valid than Thomas' outburst calling for Jews to trust the modern governments
of Poland and Germany.
What the Thomas affair allowed was the repeat incantation of the Holocaust
as the excuse for punishing not the Europeans who committed those
unspeakable crimes, but rather the Palestinians, who had nothing whatsoever
to do with what remains as the greatest moral stain on the history of people
claiming to be civilized. It was not Palestinians or Muslim fundamentalists
who ran the crematoriums, but rather highly educated and mostly Christian
Europeans.
For that reason, one must support the right of Jews to live securely in the
nation of Israel, the place they claim as their historical homeland. But not
without consideration of the rights of their fellow Semites, the mostly
non-Jewish Palestinians who happened to already be living there.
( I add, for many centuries, even millenia - Ed)
On that point the apology Thomas issued got it right: "I deeply regret my
comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians. They
do not reflect my heartfelt belief that peace will come to the Middle East
only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance."
Now all that is left is for those in the media and government who have shown
so little respect and tolerance for the Palestinian side of the dispute to
offer some apologies for decades of indifference to, and often contempt for,
those victims as well.
***
http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/06/08/helen-thomas-was-wrong-but-whos-right/
Helen Thomas was Wrong - But You'd Think She'd Killed 9 People or Destroyed
Our Coastline
by Laura Flanders
Alternet: June 8, 2010.
So who says Obama can't show anger? Helen Thomas sure made him angry
After video hit YouTube of eighty-nine year old reporter, Helen Thomas,
telling an interviewer that Israelis should "get out of Palestine" and go
back to Poland and Germany and other places, the white House issued an
immediate condemnation. Reprehensible was their word. In the ritual
flagellation that's followed, one can't help thinking that the grande dame
of the White House press corps would have gotten less grief if she'd
purposely cheated the financial system and took taxpayer money to recover,
or killed eleven and destroyed an ecosystem in an avoidable deep water
drilling disaster, or let 29 men die in a push for more mining profits. Or
shot nine men dead - in the head - in international waters.
Thomas's comments were regrettable, and she's regretted them and she has
resigned her post with Hearst because of them. Which is more than can be
said of most pundits who say hateful things in the money media.
The White House Correspondents Association showed more fury in 24 hours
towards Thomas than they've ever shown towards the journos who, unlike
Thomas, softballed Bush for eight straight years and passed on government
lies that lead us into the Iraq invasion. Sometimes one's strengths are also
one's weaknesses. Thomas was - and remains - a bulldog. She doggedly
questioned President Bush about war and torture at a time when the rest of
the press rolled over. In return they appear more shocked by a comment -
albeit laced with 70 years of horrific history, it's true - than they are by
the deaths of flesh-and-blood humans.
Thomas's crime wasn't just antisemitism - it was antisemitism in defense of
Palestine. That's the true source of the outrage. The outrage that Obama and
Biden and most other U.S. officials, to say nothing of the majority of the
press corps, can't seem to find for others.
Laura is a long-time journalist, author and media activist. She wrote the
New York Times bestseller Bushwomen: Tales of a Cynical Species and Blue
Grit: Making Impossible, Improbable, and Inspirational Political Change in
America. Before founding GRITtv, she started up and hosted "Your Call" on
public radio KALW in San Francisco and RadioNation on Air America Radio. She
is also a regular contributor to The Nation magazine and the Huffington
Post. Flanders was founding director of the Women's Desk at the media watch
group Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) and for more than 10 years
she produced and hosted CounterSpin, FAIR's nationally-syndicated radio
program. Laura is a regular commentator on MSNBC's The Ed Show where she has
become the go-to source for reliable, progressive analysis of the day's top
stories. The Institute for Alternative Journalism named her one of ten
"Media Heroes" of 1994 and she was recently awarded a NY Moves "Power Woman
of the Year."
***
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/12/opinion/12herbert.html?th&emc=th
The Courage to Leave
By Bob Herbert
NY Times Op-Ed: June 11, 2010
There is no good news coming out of the depressing and endless war in
Afghanistan. There once was merit to our incursion there, but that was long
ago. Now we're just going through the tragic motions, flailing at this and
that, with no real strategy or decent end in sight.
The U.S. doesn't win wars anymore. We just funnel the stressed and underpaid
troops in and out of the combat zones, while all the while showering
taxpayer billions on the contractors and giant corporations that view the
horrors of war as a heaven-sent bonanza. BP, as we've been told repeatedly
recently, is one of the largest suppliers of fuel to the wartime U.S.
military.
Seven American soldiers were killed in Afghanistan on Monday but hardly
anyone noticed. Far more concern is being expressed for the wildlife
threatened by the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico than for the G.I.'s
being blown up in the wilds of Afghanistan.
Early this year, we were told that at long last the tide had turned in
Afghanistan, that the biggest offensive of the war by American, British and
Afghan troops was under way in Marja, a town in Helmand Province in the
southern part of the country. The goal, as outlined by Gen. Stanley
McChrystal, our senior military commander in Afghanistan, was to rout the
Taliban and install a splendid new government that would be responsive to
the people and beloved by them.
That triumph would soon be followed by another military initiative in the
much larger expanse of neighboring Kandahar Province. The Times's Rod
Nordland explained what was supposed to happen in a front-page article this
week:
"The goal that American planners originally outlined - often in briefings in
which reporters agreed not to quote officials by name - emphasized the
importance of a military offensive devised to bring all of the populous and
Taliban-dominated south under effective control by the end of this summer.
That would leave another year to consolidate gains before President Obama's
July 2011 deadline to begin withdrawing combat troops."
Forget about it. Commanders can't even point to a clear-cut success in
Marja. As for Kandahar, no one will even use the word "offensive" to
describe the military operations there. The talk now is of moving ahead with
civilian reconstruction projects, a "civilian surge," as Mr. Nordland noted.
What's happening in Afghanistan is not only tragic, it's embarrassing. The
American troops will fight, but the Afghan troops who are supposed to be
their allies are a lost cause. The government of President Hamid Karzai is
breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent - and widely unpopular to boot. And
now, as The Times's Dexter Filkins is reporting, the erratic Mr. Karzai
seems to be giving up hope that the U.S. can prevail in the war and is
making nice with the Taliban.
There is no overall game plan, no real strategy or coherent goals, to guide
the fighting of U.S. forces. It's just a mind-numbing, soul-chilling,
body-destroying slog, month after month, year after pointless year. The
18-year-olds fighting (and, increasingly, dying) in Afghanistan now were
just 9 or 10 when the World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked in 2001.
Americans have zoned out on this war. They don't even want to think about
it. They don't want their taxes raised to pay for it, even as they say in
poll after poll that they are worried about budget deficits. The vast
majority do not want their sons or daughters anywhere near Afghanistan.
Why in the world should the small percentage of the population that has
volunteered for military service shoulder the entire burden of this hapless,
endless effort? The truth is that top American officials do not believe the
war can be won but do not know how to end it. So we get gibberish about
empowering the unempowerable Afghan forces and rebuilding a hopelessly
corrupt and incompetent civil society.
Our government leaders keep mouthing platitudes about objectives that are
not achievable, which is a form of deception that should be unacceptable in
a free society.
In announcing, during a speech at West Point in December, that 30,000
additional troops would be sent to Afghanistan, President Obama said: "As
your commander in chief, I owe you a mission that is clearly defined and
worthy of your service."
That clearly defined mission never materialized.
Ultimately, the public is at fault for this catastrophe in Afghanistan,
where more than 1,000 G.I.'s have now lost their lives. If we don't have the
courage as a people to fight and share in the sacrifices when our nation is
at war, if we're unwilling to seriously think about the war and hold our
leaders accountable for the way it is conducted, if we're not even willing
to pay for it, then we should at least have the courage to pull our valiant
forces out of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment