Jim: First up, Helen Thomas. Helen Thomas is a journalist who started her career as a reporter. In DC, she wrote radio copy and then eventually ended up working for the wire service UPI. She was a reporter in those days. In 2000, she left UPI and became a columnist with the Hearst syndicate. She started her career during WWII. Last week, her long career came to end when she was forced to 'retire' as a result of -- Well as a result of what? I mean that's the first issue.
Elaine: As C.I. pointed out Tuesday, Helen's peers did her in.
Jim: Okay. And I agree with that. But why? Anybody other than Ava and C.I. who've already written on this topic for this edition.
Mike: Okay, I'll skip the reason they gave which is valid. Another reason is because the press was pushed to speak out against Helen. They'd be lumped in with her if they didn't draw a line so the cowards drew a line. In addition, many outlets have come under heavy criticism for their coverage of the flotilla attack and this was a way for them to show boat and say, "See, I don't just call out Israel, I call out Helen Thomas too!"
Jim: I think there's a lot of truth in what Mike just said. Okay, call her out for what?
Isaiah: In May, on the White House lawn, a rabbi asked her if he could interview her on camera and she agreed. The remarks that people cited were, "Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine. Remember, these people are occupied and it's their land. It's not Germany, it's not Poland. . . . They should go home, to Poland, . . . Germany . . . and America . . . and elsewhere." Although most people stopped with Germany and a few more made it to Poland. It was very rare for the outlet to quote her all the way through.
Jim: Isaiah, intentionally or not?
Isaiah: Selectively quoting her? Intentional. There's no way it was an accident. It happened over and over with people condemning her and trying to wrongly say she was conjuring up another Holocaust.
Jim: Okay. C.I. and I had numerous conversations about this on the phone last week so I'm going to toss to her on Helen's comments. Also, she knows Helen. I think she's the only one of us who does although Wally, Kat and Ava have met and spoken to Helen.
C.I.: Elaine knows her from years back. But you're wanting me to say something, Jim, and I don't think this is where you actually want it in the transcript. Is it?
Jim: Yeah, I see your point, I screwed up. But go ahead.
C.I.: Okay. With no set up or intro. Just speaking for me, the only thing I would really think needed pointed out or clarified in Helen's remarks was not what everyone else was screaming. Helen's not anti-Jewish, she's not a hate mongerer. Her comments are not surprising and, if they shocked you, that goes to limited resources you've exposed yourself too.
Jim: C.I.'s trying to do my work for me. I'm sorry, I did set that up badly. Let me try again. C.I., you don't cover Israel a great deal. In part, you don't cover it because Iraq's the focus. From time to time, you will note certain things about Israel. You will ignore other things. Why is that?
C.I.: Because I think a lot of the talk is nonsense and crap. The Israelis and the Palestinains are at cross-purposes and, in the US, you have a group that wants to line up behind one camp and another group that wants to go with another. Each convinced the other's in the wrong, screaming and hissing at each other and missing the big picture. There is nothing that the government of Israel does that is shocking or surprising. There is nothing the Palestinians do -- including their defense and their attacks -- that is shocking or surprising. It's a very small space, tiny piece of land, now inhabited by two people with historical grievances and you better believe that conflict will be the norm. To listen to the discussions, you're often left with, on the left, the conclusion that Jews invaded Israel in the late 20th century. That's the impression the conversations give. Conversations that are as stupid and uninformed as the ones that moan: "Why does the US keep giving military aid to Israel?" That's a question? Only if you're uninformed. The US has always supported Israel. Why is that? Because it created Israel. And all the attacks on Israel or on the Palestinians ignore the fact that the US created the problem. They did so because they didn't want the Jewish people here. They could have, for example, said, "Here's Manhattan, take it. Make it a homeland." They didn't do that. The US, the empire builder, created Israel. It is a client-state. If you want to complain or discuss what goes on in that region, you better be willing to hold the US accountable because it was the US that declared the land to be Israel's. Declared occupied land to be Israel's. Everything that has taken place afterwards was completely predictable.
Rebecca: And I agree with that 100%. It's why I avoid certain people at my site. I will not quote them, I'm not interested in them. They're lying through their teeth and acting as though the situation just cropped up. Like Afghanistan just cropped up? Didn't we create the problem, under Jimmy Carter, with the hopes of dragging the Russians in? Yeah. And I'm not in the mood for these people like Medea Benjamin who scream and yell about Israel in one breath and then the next express bewilderment that the US would support Israel. The US birthed it, for goodness sake. How stupid are you, Medea Benjamin?
Jim: In this community, Israel's been covered the most by Rebecca and then Elaine. We've covered it here some. But we often take a pass. Jess, why don't you explain why that is.
Jess: Sure. Go to any site covering the floatilla and, if they allow comments, read through them. You will read the most hateful things, the most bigoted things in the world. That's what happens. It starts with a crazy ass like Marjorie Cohn running through the global village screaming 'Murderer!' and then everyone else knows it's open season. We're not interested in that. And, to be honest, we're a bit tired of it. This created problem has been going on for over sixty years now. It's absorbed tremendous time and attention. Guess what? When one side decides enough is enough it'll end. Not before then. There's pressure on the current White House to mediate. Barack needs to continue to avoid that role. It's one of the few things I grade him high on. That role is not going to work.
Jim: You really are tired of it.
Jess: I really am. I've seen that stupid, f**ked up region repeatedly take the peace movment's eye off Iraq. I've seen the obsession with it result in Amy Goodman covering it non-stop while ignoring BP or other worthy topics. I'm sick of it. I'm disgusted with it and I'm damn tired of Americans weighing in on the damn subject. I'm tired of people encouraging it -- on both sides -- with their claims that they are in the right. I'm just so sick of it. And mainly I'm sick of the dishonesty, the pretense that the actions are puzzling or the pretense that Jews just invaded the country and weren't given it by the US. I'm sick of every three months it being the story in the media. I'm sick of it. I've got my own life, we have our own problems to address. Quit supplying military 'aid' to the Israeli government.
Ty: And I agree with Jess. This is just a never-ending problem. The US created it when it presumed to have the right to give land. Until the two sides both want a peaceful solution, there will not be one. That's reality. And if you never got why C.I. said that if the Iraqis wanted to carve their country up into three parts, that was their business but that the US shouldn't, now you should get it. The US needs to stop trying to tell other people what to do. They 'created' Israel and all that's followed is years and years and decades and decades of violence. The last thing they need to do now is split up Iraq. Let the people in the region decide themselves.
Jim: Great discussion but it's really underscoring how C.I. was right about her comments coming later in the talk. Let's go back to Helen Thomas for a bit. Does anyone have a problem with what she said? No one? Ruth, you're Jewish.
Ruth: Jim, you are not.
Jim: Ruth's laughing, let me point out. No, I'm not. But you are, did you take offense to what she said?
Ruth: No, I did not. Palestine is occupied by Jews today. The Israeli government has encouraged Jews from out of Israel to come in. Why is that? Because population projection show Palestinians greatly outnumbering Jews in the near future. That is another aspect not being discussed. The Israeli government has gone nuts repeatedly in the last few years and I do believe, my opinion only, it is that population projection that has most spooked them. Helen Thomas was correct, the land is occupied. Go back to Poland, go back to Germany, go back to America and elsewhere. That is not controversial. It may be 'offensive' to those who work so very hard to pretend that, ever since Biblical times, Jews have lived in and controlled what is now Israel. That is not true.
Jim: Some say, "But 'get the hell out'"?
Ruth: Get the hell out is pretty clear. I did not take offense to it.
Jim: Some offered comparisons to African-Americans being told to get the hell out of the US.
Ruth: I have never heard that. Seriously, I have never heard anyone say, in real life or on TV or radio, to an African-American, "Go back to Africa!" I am sure someone has said but I have not heard it. I also do not think the two situations are at all similar. In the case of African-Americans, they did not choose to come to the US. They were brought to the US in chains. They were slaves. Were Ms. Thomas attempting to make a comparison to slavery, I would assume she would have said, "Go back to Egypt! Where you can be enslaved like you were for 430 years!" Israel is a place where Jews went following WWII after it was 'given' to them by the US. Helen Thomas was saying -- I believe, as I understand it, of the resettlment areas only -- leave, go back where you came from. That was not controversial to me at all. In fact, in my reading of her, I support what she said 100%.
Jim: Okay, thanks, Ruth. Does anyone here not support her? Okay. So we're all in agreement. Ava and C.I. cover this in an article this week, cover the media's attack on Helen Thomas. I want to get everyone's reactions to what they heard and read this week. Ann, you got short changed in the other roundtable, so how about you grab this first?
Ann: Sure. Thank you. Okay, a number of people attacked Helen and I want to skip ahead of that for my answer. What I found offensive especially were the 'defenders' of Helen. The ones who defended her by attacking her or defended her while insisting her remarks were outrageous. Norman Lear, for example, is supposed to be Mr. Big Free Speech. And when South Park did all their b.s., there was Lear applauding it and encouraging it and vouching for it. But his defense of Helen Thomas this week? Where he called her remarks unforgiveable and he attacked her looks? He's pathetic. Go rot in hell already, Norman Lear. You're a hypocrite and you're of no use to anyone. William Rivers Pitt wrote a pathetic 'defense'. Katrina vanden Heuvel wrote a pathetic 'defense.' I couldn't believe it. So let me be really clear, I agree with what Helen Thomas said. You hate her? Then hate me too.
Jim: Okay but some people don't know what Helen Thomas actually said and some have been left with the impression that she was calling for or inviting another Holocaust.
Betty: I'm not responsible for people being stupid. If they're reading this, they've heard what she said that was supposedly controversial. They can make up their own minds but one thing they should grasp is that they were lied to by a number of people with axes to grind. People who left out America in the quote, for example, because they couldn't sell the lie that Helen wanted another Holocaust if they included America.
Cedric: Betty, I agree with you, but I also think they left out America intentionally because these type of people who refuse to see any wrong on the part of the Israeli government are also the type of people who refuse to let on that America created modern day Israel. They work overtime to blur the connection, the empire aspect.
Betty: Yeah, I can get on board with that point. The whole nature of the conversation is geared so that we blame Israel or Palestine and the one responsible is the US government that ensured these decades of political strife would take place by 'gifting' an occupied land.
Jim: Ava and C.I. conclude their article by noting Helen's honesty regarding Iraq especially embarrasses her peer group because it demonstrates that questions could have been asked but they refused to ask them.
Marcia: Yeah. It's like she won the track trophy and everyone else wanted it and every time they see her it's a reminder that she beat them and it just chews away at them. Professional jealousies, of course the press is plagued by them. How is that a surprise?
Jim: Is anyone going to ask about Iraq in the press conferences now?
Wally: White House press conferences? Probably not but, honestly, Jim, Helen really didn't ask about Iraq this year. I mean, I know that's the meme that's been put out. But it was like April before someone finally brought up Iraq in one of the White House daily briefings. I'm not trying to take anything away from her, I just think it bears noting that they've ignored -- the entire White House press corps -- Iraq. The media sold us the war and now they're done with it.
Jim: Anyone feel differently on that?
Mike: No. Wally's right. They sold it and now they're not only done with it, they want to insist they didn't sell it. I'm sick of the liars. I'm sick of Yochi Dreazen. I'm sick of them all. It's amazing how they weren't run out of the press for not doing their jobs but Helen Thomas had to retire last week. Simply amazing.
Kat: And nothing bothers them. Nothing is ever enough for them to break their silence. 2 US soldiers die in Iraq on Friday? No time to be bothered with it is the media's attitude. And let me be clear that CNN did cover it and that those with reporters still in Iraq -- New York Times, McClatchy, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post -- did cover it. That was pretty much it.
Stan: Well C.I. had a thing about how insulting this "Turn off the lights" pieces are and she's right but those pieces really show you what is really thought of Iraq and Iraqis. They don't matter, they're invisible, they don't exist. That is the attitude. When you can write that it's time to turn off the lights and act like your departure would mean the country was empty? That shows a lot more than they probably meant to.
Elaine: I wish we'd talked more about Iraq. I know Dona's going to call time any second. So I'll just note that the same day, Friday, that two US soldiers were killed, I was reading online, I think at The Washington Post, a column by a 12-year-old girl whose father was on his third deployment, this time to Afghanistan. How he'd been deployed repeatedly throughout her life. Her seven-year-old brother didn't really get it and when he was 2 or 3, he'd wander through the house at night calling "Daddy" while their father was serving in Iraq. I'm sorry I don't remember the name of the writer or for sure where I saw it.
C.I.: It was at The Washington Post. It's "When Daddy Goes To War" and Sophie Douquet is the young writer who wrote such a moving column.
Jim: Okay and on that note, Dona has called time so we need to close. This is a rush transcript.
