Fresnozionism.org
07 June '10
The interesting thing about Helen Thomas’ widely quoted remarks (video here) is not that she has been revealed as an anti-Semite (or not). And the appropriate reply, much as it may seem unsatisfying to some, is not to bring up the Holocaust.
Why did she say that the Jews should go back to Poland and Germany?
The implication is that the Jews came and ‘occupied’ Palestinian land, dispossessing the former owners. The implication is that Israel is illegitimate and the Jews do not have the right to be there. Probably she would also say that “Palestinians should not have to suffer for European crimes,” suggesting that Israel was created to assuage European guilt for the Holocaust. This is a common theme in statements by Hamas and Iranian leaders too.
But a journalist of experience and reputation, as Thomas was, should have a better understanding of history. To coin a phrase, “she who doesn’t understand history is doomed to not understand current events either.”
Did she know that the majority of today’s ‘Palestinians’ are descended from Arabs of Syria and Egypt that migrated to the region in the 19th and early 20th centuries, many in the latter period, when the Zionist presence created economic opportunity? Was she aware that the father of Palestinian nationalism, Yasser Arafat, was born in Cairo, Egypt?
Did she sleep through the class where she could have learned that there were several hundred thousand Jews in ‘Palestine’ at the time of the Muslim conquest in the Seventh Century (Efraim Karsh, Palestine Betrayed, Chapter 1)? True, this number was significantly lower until the 1880’s — thanks to the friendly Muslims — but Jews have been there since biblical times.
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She is old enough to remember pre-occupation Palestine.
ReplyDeleteOld enough to remember really implies very little given the personality of Helen Thomas. Case in point would be that the "Palestinian" of pre-1948 was almost exclusively used for Jewish residents of this region. The newspaper bearing that title was the "Palestine Post", now the Jerusalem Post. At age 20 -25 she could have visited with the Mufti in Berlin, but not here. All in all,if we would like to be generous, let's attribute it to age.
ReplyDeleteOld enough to be contemporary to facts that are being distorted today but were simply "givens" then, without having to visit Palestine. Case in point being that the migrations that were taking place starting from the late 19th century through the 20th century were migrations of Jews into Palestine, not Palestinian Arabs, who made the majority of the population, even until 1948.
ReplyDelete"Old enough to be contemporary to facts" implies very little for someone with a skewed viewpoint.Bigots and racists, insofar as they live in a specific time, are always contemporary to facts, but oblivious. Jerusalem was a majority Jewish city from the 1890's and onwards, the region 2:1 Arab/Jewish overall, approaching 1948.
ReplyDeleteTo your 2nd comment, concerning population increase,"... were migrations of Jews into Palestine, not Palestinian Arabs...". Rather peculiar comment as the Arab population doubled from 1920 (League of Nations' Interim Report, approx. 624,000) until 1948. Are you implying that this is due to birthrate, particularly during these years? The U.N. partition plan did not take into account the actual percentage of population and further reduced what had been allocated to the Jewish people as was mandated. The choice by various members of both Arab and non-Arab peoples in this region to deny the Jewish people their G-d given, as well as historic rights to live in this land, returned to haunt all the parties concerned, who attempted to prevent the return of the Jewish people home.
In addition, at the present time the clear majority of Jewish citizens of Israel are of Mizrachi descent, and would not in any case be returning to Germany or Poland. Their presence here follows the 99% ethnic cleansing of the Jewish populations of virtually 100% of the surrounding Arab countries, Iran being the exception. The approximately 1.5 million Israeli-Arab citizens of Israel today evidently enjoyed and enjoy a privilege to live amongst those who respected their wish to remain and live here, as opposed to the wishes of the Helen Thomases of the world who are the proponents of ethnic cleansing. At this point,as Helen Thomas has retired herself, so I am retiring this thread.
Since you're retiring from your thread, I will not belabor the point, but I will say that you have been extremely unconvincing. Please detach yourself from the issues and revisit the facts from different sources. Seek the truth irrespective of your sentiments. Get a new perspective.
ReplyDeleteI imagine that convincing/unconvincing portion will be left up to others to decide. Insofar as you came to make a point and not to hear otherwise, I did not have any expectations of your being open to other then what you came to say. As most of her colleagues have washed their hands of her, some more pointedly then others, I feel that I can let her move on, and be remembered as charitably as she extended to others.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I would not have attempted to offer a perspective unless I had some hope for openness. After all, that is part of hosting a blog, inviting opinion, I would have thought. As for her colleagues, that is precisely what the problem is; they don't dare do otherwise. In another attempt to draw your attention to the other perspective, I suggest reading Paul Findley's book "They Dare to Speak Out," although the book needs to be updated; Helen Thomas's chapter is missing.
ReplyDelete