[News] The Outrage at Helen Thomas While Israel Kills and Maims

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/weir06092010.html
June 9, 2010


While Israel Kills and Maims ...


The Outrage at Helen Thomas

By ALISON WEIR

Whenever Israel commits yet another atrocity, its 
defenders are quick to redirect public attention 
away from the grisly crime scene.

Currently, there are headlines about allegedly 
anti-Semitic comments made by senior White House 
correspondent Helen Thomas. Pundits across the 
land evince outrage at her off-the-cuff 25-second 
statement made to a man who appears to be holding a camera right in her face.

Thomas issued a public apology for her words, but 
this was insufficient to assuage the wounded 
feelings of powerful antagonists, and she has now 
retired from a long and distinguished career.

Before we examine her comments and evaluate their 
possible validity, let’s look at other recent events having to do with Israel.

On May 31st Israeli commandos killed at least 
nine unarmed volunteers attempting to take humanitarian supplies to Gaza.

According to eyewitness reports and forensic 
evidence, many of these aid volunteers were shot 
at close range, including a 19-year-old American 
citizen killed by four bullets to the head and 
one to the chest fired from 18 inches away.

Israel immediately imprisoned eyewitnesses and 
hundreds of other aid participants, confiscated 
their cameras, laptops, and other possessions, 
and prevented them from speaking to the press for 
days. Among the incarcerated were decorated U.S. 
veterans and an 80-year-old former ambassador who 
had been deputy director of Reagan’s Cabinet Task Force on Terrorism.

When they finally emerged and were able to tell 
their stories, many described horrific scenes of 
Israeli commandos shooting people in the head, of 
those tending the injured being shot in the 
stomach, of people bleeding to death while 
flotilla participants waved white flags and pled for help.

They also described being beaten brutally by 
Israeli forces, again and again – including those 
on ships that, in the U.S. media’s judgment, 
experienced “no violence.” A 64-year-old piano 
tuner from California, Paul Larudee, described 
hundreds of Israeli commandos boarding his ship. 
When he refused to cooperate with them, soldiers 
then beat him numerous times both on board the 
ship and after he was imprisoned on land.

Eventually he was taken by ambulance to an 
Israeli hospital. He wasn’t treated, however, and 
Larudee believes he was taken there because 
Israel didn't want media to see his black eye, 
pronated joints, bruised jaw and body contusions.

Marine veteran Ken O’Keefe described similar 
beatings while in Israeli custody. In his case, 
the public was able to see his bloodied, battered 
face in video clips and still images – but only 
on the Internet, since American mainstream media 
failed to report on his press conference or to 
publish the many still photos of his injuries.

Other gruesome photos available to the American 
public only on the Internet are of Emily 
Henochowicz, a 21-year-old American student whose 
eye and eye socket were recently shattered by 
Israeli forces. She has since had her eyeball 
removed, three metal plates inserted in her face, and her jaw wired shut.

Henochowicz was not on the flotilla; she was 
taking part in a nonviolent demonstration against 
the Israeli assault when an Israeli soldier shot 
a high-velocity teargas canister into her face.

A Swedish citizen standing with Henochowicz said, 
“They clearly saw us. They clearly saw that we 
were internationals and it really looked as 
though they were trying to hit us. They fired 
many canisters at us in rapid succession. One 
landed on either side of Emily, then the third one hit her in the face.”

Henochowicz is not the first to have been shot by such a canister.

Thirty-year-old Basem Ibrahim Abu Rahmeh died 
when an Israeli soldier shot one at him at close 
range while Abu Rahmeh participated in a 
demonstration against Israeli confiscation of 
Palestinian farmland. A video of this is also 
available on You Tube; U.S. networks have also chosen not to broadcast this.

Californian Tristan Anderson was shot in the head 
by a similar canister while he was taking 
photographs following another demonstration. Part 
of Anderson’s brain was removed and he was in a 
“minimally responsive state” for 6-7 months.

He is now in a wheelchair, has almost no movement 
in his left arm and leg, is blind in one eye, and 
his mental functioning is significantly reduced. 
Photos of the shooting are also available on the Internet.

Since at least 2006 Israeli forces have closed 
off Gaza to the outside world, essentially 
imprisoning 1.5 million men, women, and children, 
and denying them foodstuffs, medicines, and 
building materials, as documented by such 
agencies as Amnesty International, Oxfam, and 
Christian Aid, which said that Israel was using food and medicine as weapons.

One of the multitudinous victims of this illegal 
siege is five-year-old Taysir Al Burai, who 
suffers from an acute neurological disorder and 
requires round-the-clock care. According to the 
UK Guardian, he could be cured if Israel would 
allow him to leave Gaza, but to date his parents’ 
repeated requests have been denied.

Another victim is 7-month-old Mohammad Khader, 
whose swelling in the brain required specialized 
treatment unavailable in Gazan hospitals depleted 
by the Israeli siege. His distraught parents’ 
applications asking Israel to allow them to 
travel abroad were similarly denied. Their tiny son died a few days ago.

Such stories go on and on.

Thomas’ “outrageous” statement

Yet, the rage we see in the U.S. media is 
directed against none of this. People shot in the 
head, eyes and brain parts destroyed, the elderly 
beaten, small children and infants caused to 
suffer and die, parents to grieve – none of this 
has caused a hint of anger. In fact, most of it 
has been considered of too little importance even to report.

Instead, media reports are filled with outrage at 
“anti-Israel” words spoken by 89-year-old Helen Thomas.

In Thomas’s lifetime Israel has ethnically 
cleansed over a million people, replaced them 
with colonists from around the world, committed 
dozens of massacres, tortured thousands of 
people, killed and maimed untold numbers of 
children, mangled limbs, and committed outrages 
on women, old people, the weak and the infirm.

It has assassinated people throughout the world, 
invaded numerous countries, spied on the U.S., 
killed and injured 200 American servicemen (the 
anniversary is this week), and tortured and 
imprisoned Americans. All while receiving more 
American money than any other country on earth.

For years, long before her recent words, Thomas 
has been the target of Israel’s vicious American 
volunteers, the Zionist blogosphere abounding 
with nasty slurs on her looks and her Lebanese 
ancestry, this latter also consistently 
emphasized by the media, despite her Kentucky birth and upbringing.

One of the reasons for the ferocious animosity 
toward her is the fact that Thomas is one of the 
very few mainstream reporters to challenge the 
neocon engendered lies that led the U.S. into 
wars that have caused massive death, destruction 
and tragedy and to continue to expose ongoing policies of violence and cruelty.

As the same groups and individuals who pushed the 
US into attacking Iraq have in recent years been 
escalating their efforts to push the U.S. to now 
similarly decimate Iranians under the pretext 
that Iran might be developing nuclear weapons, 
Thomas’s questioning attempted to elicit from 
Obama the fact that Israel already posses nuclear 
weapons. While the rest of the press corps has 
conspired in the cover-up of this fact and 
others, Thomas worked to expose them.

Not surprisingly, the many people complicit in 
these manipulations, such as former Bush 
spokesperson Ari Fleischer, have led the charge against her.

It is useful to examine the video and context of 
Thomas’s allegedly “anti-Semitic” comment.

A man, apparently holding a camera right in her 
face, asks for her comments about Israel. She 
says, “Tell them to get the hell out of 
Palestine. Remember, these people are occupied. 
And it’s their land
” He interrupts her and asks 
where they should go. She responds, “They should 
go home. To Germany, Poland, America, and everywhere else.”

While Thomas has since apologized for her hasty 
words and many Israelis have the right to 
continue living where they are, the reality is 
that Israeli settlers did, indeed, come from 
elsewhere; they are, in fact, illegally occupying 
Palestinian land (a fact acknowledged even by the 
U.S. State Department); and international law does require that they leave.

Many commentators evince particular anger at 
Thomas’s inclusion of Germany and Poland as 
places to which Israeli colonists should return, 
suggesting that Hitler is still in control and waiting to pounce.

The happy fact is, however, that World War II and 
the Nazi holocaust ended well over half a century 
ago. In Poland today there is a vibrant Jewish 
revival with a 10-foot tall Menorah being lit in 
the center of Warsaw during Hanukah, and Germany 
has become, according to the New York Times, “a 
country where Jews want to live.” In fact, in 
recent years more Jews have chosen to immigrate to Germany than to Israel.

Thomas’s call for colonists to return to America 
(this destination was left out of many articles) 
is far from outrageous given that a great many 
West Bank settlers are from the U.S.

Overall, reporting on the incident has largely 
departed from the standard journalistic practice 
of quoting people from both sides of an issue. 
Quotes from Thomas supporters are missing, even 
though the You Tube page featuring the infamous 
video contains a large number of comments 
supporting her. In contrast, quotes from Thomas’s 
detractors, almost all of them Zionists, are 
ubiquitous, but generally fail to divulge the 
speakers’ frequent conflicts of interest.

For example, the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz 
quotes Jeffrey Goldberg without mentioning that 
Goldberg is an Israeli citizen who served as a 
prison guard at an Israeli prison that held 
hundreds of Palestinians without charge, some 
killed in cold blood by the prison commander.

Mainstream media organizations do not seem to 
have investigated reports that the man who 
videotaped Thomas, Rabbi David Nesenoff, also 
made an offensive video featuring himself and 
another man impersonating a buffoonish Catholic priest and Mexican immigrant.

Similarly, news reports that a high school had 
disinvited Thomas as a graduation speaker almost 
never inform readers that many of the school’s 
parents and students wished Thomas to remain, 
even though this unreferenced group may represent 
a majority of the school. Members of this group 
have created a Facebook page, “Helen Thomas 
should have been our graduation speaker,” that states:

“The purpose of this group is to quietly but 
firmly protest the ability of a small minority to 
impose its will on the larger group through 
engaging or threatening to engage in disruptive 
discourse. This group affirms a belief in 
reasonable discussion and feel that in this 
scenario, a clear minority was able to override a 
larger majority by distorting the issues and discussion.”

Replacing Thomas at the upcoming graduation 
ceremony will be CBS’s Bob Schieffer, who has 
close family ties to George W. Bush and has 
rarely, if ever, challenged administration 
falsehoods that sent the nation to war and that keep it there still.

Regarding his reporting on Israel-Palestine, 
media watchdog Fairness and Accurate In Reporting 
(FAIR) issued an alert in 2006 objecting to 
Schieffer’s “shallow, dismissive coverage of complicated and tragic events.”

It is not known who will take over Thomas’s 
front-row seat at White House briefings. Given 
the record of the current press corps, it is 
likely that Israel partisans are breathing a sign of relief.

Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans 
Knew. Photos and videos referenced in the article 
can be viewed on the website 
(<http://ifamericansknew.org/>http://ifamericansknew.org) 
She can be reached at 
<mailto:contact at ifamericansknew.org>contact at ifamericansknew.org




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