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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