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By: Joshua Scheer, SP Columnist
I woke up this morning to a tweet from Drop Site News that inspired me to post, but I had no idea what to write. It was about the late Helen Thomas and her career-ending response regarding Jews leaving Palestine, followed by a Joy Behar interview. This ended her nearly half-century career, which piqued my interest and led me to do a deep dive into her questioning of our relationship with Israel. It made me think about a lot of things, so thanks, Helen, for still making people think many years after your passing. Here is that tweet, and what follows is the deeper dive. There is a longer Drop Site Video at the end of this post
Helen Thomas was more than a reporter — she was an institution. For over half a century, her presence in the White House press corps embodied the uncompromising, unflinching spirit of journalism at its best. Known for her razor-sharp questions and her refusal to be intimidated by power, Thomas broke barriers as a pioneering woman in Washington D.C. reporting, becoming a symbol of press freedom and accountability. To revisit her legacy is to confront fundamental questions about the role of journalists, the responsibilities of the press and the shifting boundaries of truth-telling in American political life.
After the Drop Site tweet, I started researching her and remembering her, as she was someone I had met and was in awe — honestly who would’t be, unless I guess you support murderous. regimes and those who have double standards — and she was one of the toughest reporters out there. Reading this piece from Drop Site News about her fearless reporting on Israel reminded me just how rare that courage has become in the mainstream. That’s an important point — despite Hillary Clinton and an Obama speechwriter’s belief — we live in a wide world where we can get information from so many sources.
I’m about to go off on a tangent: For those who don’t know, Hillary stupidly said at an event for Israel in NYC that fake TikTok videos are the problem. Sarah Hurwitz, an Obama-era speechwriter, openly admitted at the United Nations General Assembly that Israel is losing the narrative because young people are witnessing the uncensored carnage in Gaza.
Sorry for the tangent, but this clip is one of the most maddening and ridiculous things I’ve seen in a long time. They are upset because we can see the evil in real time. I would ask her and Hillary if they feel the same way about Black Lives Matter, and whether they long for the old days when we didn’t witness violence against our own citizens and had to rely solely on the local newspaper for information.
Back to Helen
After more than half a century of covering the White House and doing the kind of work that truly strengthens American democracy, Helen was cut the moment she voiced an opinion that challenged the notion of Zionism. This of course was before the era that Sarah hates, when one voice could be silenced pretty quickly.
And now, with news that Netflix is buying Warner Bros. Discovery and Larry Ellison is devouring TikTok, media is less and less free. As we posted the other day from Mint Press News, the warning couldn’t be clearer: “Indeed, the world’s seven richest individuals are all now powerful media barons, controlling what the world sees, reads and hears, marking a new chapter in oligarchical control over society and striking another blow at a free independent press and diversity of opinion.” There’s much more in that article that’s worth a read. It’s also worth noting that with Larry Ellison buying TikTok and Musk owning Twitter, the avenues for us to have our voices heard are growing smaller and smaller.
Needless to say, Helen had challenged presidents on Israel before. Here is an exchange that Ari Fleischer, Bush’s press secretary, wrote about, which is also reported by Wikipedia. Later we will see her ask Obama a different but important question about Israel.
During President George W. Bush’s first term, Helen Thomas pressed Press Secretary Ari Fleischer on the administration’s claims about arms shipments to terrorists. When Fleischer made his statement, Thomas immediately cut to the core of the issue: “Where do the Israelis get their arms?” Fleischer began to draw a distinction: “There’s a difference, Helen, and that is—”Thomas pushed back: “What is the difference?” He replied, “The targeting of innocents through the use of terror, which is a common enemy for Yasser Arafat and for the people of Israel, as well as—” Thomas interrupted: “Palestinian people are fighting for their land.” Fleischer ended the exchange by saying, “I think that the killing of innocents is a category entirely different. Justifying killing of innocents for land is an argument in support of terrorism.”
This reminds me of when I first became politically aware during the Gulf War in 1991, asking my mother why Saddam faced sanctions while Israel did not, as a pre-teen child could see that level of hypocrisy. An article on the UN and its hypocrisy would be very long. We see it again only from a few years ago, as people asked about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s genocide of its own people and why sanctions for Putin and not for Bibi.
With The Guardian reporting:
“Last month, Amnesty International called for the UN to impose targeted sanctions against Israel after joining other human rights groups in accusing it of breaching international law by practicing a form of apartheid and committing a crime against humanity in its ‘domination’ of the Palestinians.
“Palestinian officials and UN special rapporteurs on the occupied territories have also pressed for sanctions over Israeli land seizures in the West Bank, the blockade of Gaza and the large scale killing of Palestinian civilians. While pressing for action against Russia, however, the US and other governments have resisted similar measures against Israel.
“On Tuesday, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, told the UN human rights council that it must send a ‘resolute message’ to Vladimir Putin to stop an invasion that has destroyed schools, hospitals and residential buildings, and killed hundreds of civilians.”
I’ve written before about the moral question of killing “innocents,” whether in the case of Oct. 7 or in any act of violence by the oppressed. I hate violence in all its forms. But state-sponsored violence is no different from what we label “terrorism.” In fact, what is often called terrorism is frequently the predictable outcome of brutal repression and subjugation by a more powerful force — whether that’s Israel, the United States, or any other dominant state actor or truly any individual. It is why many places have the legal defense like stand-your-ground laws or self defense.
Too many innocents are killed by governments, and those deaths are endlessly justified under one pretext or another. The list, sadly, is far too long to name. We are certainly seeing this play out today in the ongoing destruction and mass suffering of civilians in Gaza — violence driven by political ideology and state power.
The creation of Israel under the British Mandate, imposed without the consent of the local population, set the stage for decades of conflict, displacement and cycles of violence in the region. Similarly, violence carried out by the United States — whether through its military abroad or agencies such as ICE at home — serves as another example of this pattern. This topic naturally opens the door to a deeper conversation about borders, freedom of movement and how state power controls who can move and where.
We are also seeing the lack of freedom of movement play out in this bullshit ceasefire. Israel was already an apartheid state, then a prison state and now a genocidal state, with surveillance and control everywhere. Yet we are supposed to worry about the so-called terrorists? No one has to worry when you aren’t actively trying to murder my family and my friends to expand your land. Just a heads up.
For more on the current so called ceasefire, you can read any number of posts on this site that show that Here, Here and Here and Here.
Now, back to where we started with Helen Thomas asking Obama a question he couldn’t or wouldn’t answer about nuclear weapons in the Middle East. This comes from Sam Husseini, talking about Helen and calling out Obama at his first press conference. You can also see the Drop Site News clip in his tweet.
Here is Sam’s conversation with her and her speaking with the Real News discussing the incident.
Here is the Drop Site report
Thanks again, Helen. Rest in Power.
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