Click on the headlines to link to an Associated Press (AP)article about the retirement of Washington press corps correspondent Helen Thomas.
Markin comment:
Look, on most days I would be totally non-plussed by the resignation of the dean of Washington bourgeois press correspondents and more so of an old battle axe/gadfly like Helen Thomas who has been around at least since the Andrew Jackson administration. But not today, and not for the flap that caused her resignation. A remark, perhaps made in haste, about Israelis “getting out of Palestine” and going elsewhere (basically back to where they came from- Poland, Germany, or where there is a large cluster of Jews like the United States. She did not mention Russia but, perhaps, there as well.). She has, moreover, made public apologies over the remarks. Under most circumstances that would seem be case closed.
Now I will not pretend to dissect Ms. Thomas’ remarks, or her motivation. However, in the context of the hellhole of a situation in Palestine and particularly of the siege of Gaza over the past few years and of other intractable problems I, for one, can understand her exasperation with the Israelis. Helen Thomas, rightly or wrongly, has spoken her version of “truth to power.” In the aftermath of the Israeli atrocities at sea on May 31st (after her remarks were made), moreover, is she really that far off base?
No one questions the right of national self-determination, the right to their own state, for the Hebrew-speaking people of Israeli, or no one should if for no other reason that to take the national question off the agenda and place the class programmatic solutions up front there and in the whole Middle East. All the talk of driving the Israelis into the sea, or wherever, is crazy talk, or worst. But today, today June 7, 2010, is not a day to address that aspect of the national question. That right is not seriously in jeopardy today for the armed-to-the-teeth Israeli regime, except perhaps to some crazed Zionist who has been spending his or her time kicking Palestinians out of their homes so that they can move in.
Today all our sympathies must stand with the defense of the Palestinian people, especially the benighted, undernourished people of Gaza. Today we stand with those who call for an end to U.S. aid to Israel. Today we stand with those who call for an end to the blockade of Gaza. Today we stand with those (few, too few) Israelis who stand in solidarity with the aspirations of the Palestinians for their own state. Today we stand in solidarity with, and admiration for, those courageous souls who have attempted to lift the blockade of Gaza by sea (and, especially, those who have lost their lives in the attempt). And today we stand in solidarity with Helen Thomas for not just swallowing the “party line” on the struggle in the Middle East.
If you look up Helen Thomas on Google, this post comes up high.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your post. I wish helen used better phraseology, considering use of words is what she did for a living.