To the next question: "Where is their land?" Helen replied, "Germany, Poland." Granted those were not the correct nations to choose, but give Helen Thomas a break so, she didn't capture the right words to identify nations. It is the interviewer who then says provocatively, "So you say the Jews should go back to Germany and Poland." Helen only adds. "And to America." Actually, many Israeli and Russian Jews have been going to Germany. The Federal Republic of Germany received a large immigration of Jews during the last decade, and Germany now contains more than 100,000 Jews. Helen spoke a few words from her mouth. Israeli Jews have spoken magnitudes more with their legs.
Due to only a few jumbled words, must the dean of White House correspondents be pilloried?
Ari Fleischer, former press secretary to President George H.W. Bush during an administration that featured outrageous prevarications and deceptions, which led the nation to catastrophe, and Lanny Davis, advisor for sheltering President Bill Clinton's somewhat immoral conduct, adjudicated Helen Thomas' inquisition.
On CNN, after an introduction by CNN interviewer, who showed how fair he was by characterizing Ms. Thomas' statement as anti-Semitic, Fleischer, overflowing with rage, said: "Helen's statement calling for the religious cleansing of Israel is reprehensible. If this isn't bigotry, what is? What she said is as bad as someone saying all blacks should leave America and go back to Africa. Hearst Newspapers should do the right thing and let Helen go." Ari also stressed he was talking as an American, lest anyone feel he represented a foreign interest.
Note that Fleischer used the term "blacks" and not African Americans. Note also that African Americans were brought here against their will, have been citizens for 150 years, and have not taken anyone else's land or expelled them. Is Ari's comparison sensible, and doesn't it defeat what he is trying to say?
Lanny Davis quickly sprayed the air waves with almost identical remarks: "Helen Thomas, who I used to consider a close friend and who I used to respect, has showed herself to be an anti-Semitic bigot. She has a right to criticize Israel". However, her statement that Jews in Israel should leave Israel and go back to Poland or Germany is an ancient and well-known anti-Semitic stereotype of the alien Jew not belonging in the land of Israel that began 2,600 years with the first tragic and violent Diaspora caused by the Romans. If she had asked all blacks to go back to Africa, what would the White House Correspondents Association's position be as to whether she deserved White House press room credentials - much less a privileged honorary seat?"
The two men promoted similar charges of anti-Semitism, compared Helen's words to all "blacks" to go back to Africa, and repeated words that the media used, but Helen never said. Davis added a controversial story; "violent Diaspora caused by the Romans.' Who issues these vituperative macros and repeats controversial history?
Are these legitimate rebuttals or a continuous and concerted abuse by scheming attackers?
Here is the introduction to a Letter to the Editor that appeared, during March 2010, in The Beacon, a Montgomery County, Maryland, senior oriented newspaper.
Dear Editor:
Helen Thomas, the most notorious female anti-Semite in the U.S., will be the keynote speaker at the employment expo sponsored by the Jewish Council for the Aging on April16 in N. Bethesda, Md. Needless to say, I am horrified at the stupidity of the sponsors"
Tony Snow, former White House pres secretary, commented after one of her set-up anti-Israel questions that we have "heard from Hezbollah."
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