I will pick up where I left off yesterday, with Helen Thomas and her well-known opinion about Israel. In 2002, she asked President George Bush: Do you think the Palestinians have the right to resist 35 years of brutal military occupation and oppression? She recently asked Barack Obama: which country in the Middle East has nuclear weapons? When she discovered that what he promised for the Middle East was not going to be carried out, she asked: What's the difference between your policies and those of Bush? Perhaps the attack on the Freedom Flotilla was the proverbial final straw, which led the famous American journalist to lose her poise and suggest that Israelis return to where they came from. She described the Israeli attack as a “deliberate massacre and international crime.” How can these valid and frankly-spoken remarks cancel out 67 years of pioneering work in journalism, a path blazed by Helen Thomas and followed by leading female reporters? The Guardian described her as “the first lady of journalism,” without qualifying it by saying “American.” You can see the old photos of her, in black and white, and notice that she is the only woman in a sea of men. She appears in the photo of correspondents during the Lyndon Johnson administration, and she accompanied Richard Nixon to China in 1972 (Barbara Walters was there, but as part of the ABC television crew). I am not writing as a supporter of a journalist of Lebanese origin; I am trying to arrive to the truth. Helen Thomas was also frank and aggressive, saying what men dared not say. She said George W Bush was “the worst president in all of American history,” and that “The day Dick Cheney is going to run for president, I'll kill myself. All we need is another liar… You don't spread democracy through the barrel of a gun.” She said Bush and Tony Blair lost their credibility but nevertheless remained in office, while Johnson and Nixon left office, when the people decided they had no credibility. In Washington, Helen Thomas could have been an apostate, or a fundamentalist Christian who believes that Christ was above the cloud of saving only believers. She could have been a lesbian, and marched with homosexuals. If she had done all of this, she would be in her front-row seat during White House news conferences. However, she was not allowed to criticize Israel with a few credible words. By way of comparison, there is Golda Meir, the Israeli prime minister during the October 1973 war. In an interview with The Sunday Times on 15 June 1969, she said, “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people. It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn't exist.” There was a big controversy over this depravity, especially since the Palestinians were in their country, under occupation, and around it, and Golda Meir insisted that she did not see them. However, the American school teacher who came to Palestine to deny the existence of its people did not lose her job. Until the present, she is considered a big deal. Neither I nor any Palestinian or Arab needs to respond to Meir. I consider her to be a harlot, like those from the Old Testament, Rahab and her like. It is enough for us to see the responses of David Ben Gurion, the first Israeli prime minister. Nahom Goldmann, also a Jew, quotes him in his book The Jewish Paradox as asking, “Why should the Arabs make peace? If I was an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, it's true, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their (the Arabs') fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that? They may perhaps forget in one or two generations' time, but for the moment there is no chance. It's easy. Therefore, we should remain strong and retain a strong army. This is our policy, and otherwise the Arabs will exterminate us.” Ben Gurion's comments above were never denied. They are sufficient in responding to Meir and Likudniks up today. The Jews were not in Palestine, as Ben Gurion said. God did not promise them the land of Palestine; this is a fable from the Torah, and not history. However, I remain with Helen Thomas, and compare her credible statements about the Israelis and the deception of the harlot Golda Rahab Meir, and the consequences of candor from an Arab-American woman, and prizes for lying from an Israeli-Jewish American of Russian descent, or “of no descent,” as we say in Lebanon; her real name is Mabovitch, and also Meyerson. A salute to my sister Helen Thomas. We will not forget you in a month, or in a year. [email protected]
