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Standing Up for Helen Thomas
* By Robert Parry Consortium News *
Long-time White House correspondent Helen Thomas was right to apologize for a stupid remark she made about Israeli Jews leaving Palestine, but another ugly part of this incident was how her “mainstream” colleagues quickly turned on this 89-year-old icon.
Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz penned a retrospective on Thomas’s apology and sudden retirement from journalism, giving Thomas’s critics a free shot at denouncing her for a supposed lack of “objectivity,” a principle that has been as absent in the modern Washington press 
corps as frugality and common sense on Wall Street.
The simple truth is that the media’s acceptable bias on the Middle East is almost entirely in the opposite direction. Thomas, who is of Lebanese descent, has been one of the few Washington journalists who dared criticize Israeli mistreatment of Muslims in Palestine, Lebanon and elsewhere – and who views Arabs as people deserving of respect and human rights.
The dominant Washington media view, as articulated by the Washington Post’s neoconservative editorial section, has been that Israel is always right, except for some possible tactical misjudgments, and that Muslim organizations and nations that oppose Israel are “terrorists.”
In recent years, Israel’s disproportionate retaliation against people in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon has been defended as a proper response to Arab aggression. Israel’s own history of using terrorism, invading its neighbors and hiding a nuclear weapons arsenal is left outside the media frame.
The Washington press corps also has clambered eagerly onboard the bandwagon for U.S. military invasions of Muslim nations. When President George W. Bush was justifying an unprovoked attack on Iraq in 2002-03, the New York Times and other big news outlets happily took their seats next to the neocons driving for war.
After Bush’s invasion toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime, MSNBC host Chris Matthews ridiculed the war’s critics and declared, “we’re all neocons now.”
Read more at Consortium News
Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=35087
Posted by Bob Higgins on Jun 8 2010, With 0 Reads, Filed under Corruption, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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I couldn’t agree more. It’s great to hear other vets out there speaking up. Here’s a blog I wrote on it yesterday: “Helen Thomas “Retiring” After Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Comments”
http://indyposted.com/26202/helen-thomas-israel-palestinian-comments/
For the record, I don’t think either the Israelis or Palestinians are right in their actions and tactics. They both do horrible things. We’d all be better off if they practiced nonviolence to try to resolve their differences (of course that’s probably not going to happen). But this business of mass media manipulation and taking Israel’s side without question, the “Israel right or wrong” attitude has got to go. It’s time for people to speak up for the American service men and women who are not from elite backgrounds like many of the neocons, but rather, America’s working class and poor, who are dying in the sandbox for these Pied Piper ill-guided wars that are partially caused by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Most of the mothers of our KIAs don’t give a crap about Israel or the Palestinians.
Robert, what’s stupid about what she said? I thought there was a lot of ambivalence about supporting Israel prior to the death of JFK. I don’t really find much of note in your pointing out the response of the rest of the media. Where have you been?
Since it became clear that Israel was deeply involved in 9/11, I’ve learned a whole lot about the founding of Israel and the Zionists’ reign of terror against Jews and non-Jews. In case you’re still with me after that conspiratorial first sentence, go listen to what Alan Sabrosky, former Director of the Army War College, has said about Israel’s role in 9/11. Gordon Duff has worked the same material and it should be handy. Or don’t. If you are interested try these links:
All the Proof in the World (http://theinfounderground.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5367)
Zionism Unmasked (http://www.bigeye.com/sabrosky.htm)
Helen was absolutely correct except for her apology. Israel is capable of anything and is confident of complete media cooperation in anything. Dem or Repub makes no difference. The only constant is no one survives in the US Congress who opposes them. But Benjamin Freedman told us all this almost fifty years ago (http://iamthewitness.com/audio/Benjamin.H.Freedman/1974.Washington.D.C.speech.html). We just need a few more big time media people to tell us all the truth.
Google: Reverend Ted Pike June 08, 2010; “Thomas’ Remarks Are Biblically Sound”.
Nobody on this planet wins an argument with God.
It was time for that old bat to go. I don’t care for people who kill children and bomb any damn thing, anytime they want. I will respect the Muslims when they take a stand against this, which so far, they have not.
It is the Israelis that do the very thing you accuse the muslims of doing. It is a an art the Israelis have mastered beautifully where one can give blame to others for their actions.
Wow, combine this nut with that Jew-hating scum Gordon Duff and this site turns from something that could be decent into pure trash that could entertain only the most ignorant and dedicated anti-semites.
The more I look around (at top ten stories of the week, for instance), the more I see that this website is filled with the most banal and trashy of terrorist propaganda.
What a shame.