Wednesday, June 09, 2010

June 9, 2010--Former Dean of the White House Press Corps

Who doesn't know Helen Thomas. The little old lady who had a front row seat at all White House briefings and presidential press conferences. For years, no one has taken her seriously. It has felt like an act of benevolence not to unseat the 89 year-old who, from listening to her questions cum statements, seems decidedly over the hill.

Now she has really stepped in it. It's bad enough for almost anyone to say anything critical about the current Israeli government. Or any Israeli government. For more than 50 years all our presidents and the overwhelming majority of members of Congress have moved in lockstep support of whatever it is that Begin or Netanyahu or whomever have chosen to do. Including last week's massacre in international waters on board that Turkish supply ship.

But when poor Helen Thomas pulled up her socks and let the Israelis have it, she had to be sacrificed under pressure from our pandering politicians, pre-millennialist religious fanatics, and the various ober-powerful lobbying organizations that flack for Israel. To them Israel can do no wrong.

If they sense any hint of criticism from the U.S., the Israeli regime begins defending itself by talking reasonably about how Israel is our only true strategic ally in the region; that it is a version of a democracy and thus entitled to our unstinting support. If that doesn't work, they next raise the specter of Iran, reminding us that we need to stand by Israel so that when the time comes they can be depended upon to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities; and then, if that doesn't dampen the criticism, they lecture us about how anti-Semitism is not dead (again bringing up Iran); and if that and all else fails, they remind us about the horrors of the Holocaust.

This list of rationales for the unwavering support of the Israeli government is supposed to Kosher Israel for all time from any questioning, any criticism.

Before getting back to Helen Thomas, considering how hot all of this is, I feel the need to state the obvious--

I am Jewish and I feel that Koshers me to speak critically about the Israeli government. Of course whenever a Jew does this he or she is accused of being self-hating. In fact, I am a self-loving Jew who hates much of what the current and many previous governments of Israel have been about--primarily, in the name of self-defense their abusive and frankly racist behavior toward Palestinians.

There is a distinction between being self-hating, even anti-Semitic, and being a critic of Israeli policy. An analogy--am I being anti-Christian every time I am critical of one of our Christian presidents? The very preposterousness of this rhetorical question in itself makes the point.

Israeli super-patriots and unquestioning supporters will say that this analogy doesn't hold because what has been perpetrated on Jews for millennium makes them special. The argue for Jewish exceptionalism. All right, I get the point about Jewish exceptionalism, but to conflate that with Israeli government excetionalism is to say the least a stretch.

Back to Helen Thomas.

About what she said the other day we have to unpack its parts. To say, as she surely did, that it would be better if there were no Jews in the Middle East, or at the very least no Jewish state, is outrageous. And then when asked where Jews should go, she really stuck her foot in it when she added, "They should get the hell out of Palestine and go home to Poland, Germany and America and everywhere else." (See linked New York Times article,)

For this she deserved to be roundly criticized. If we're sending Jews back to where they came from where should we send everyone who lives here, Helen Thomas included, who took over lands originally inhabited by Native Americans?

But when we look more closely at her views about Israeli government practices, I think she got it pretty much right.

For quite some time she has been one of the few mainstream reporters to question the expanding Israeli ambitions in the Middle East. Read her columns and listen to her questions in the White House briefing room. She has been a constant and forceful critic of Israeli settlement policies and practices and has made the case that Palestinians have the right to a state of their own and the right to return to it. Rights identical to those Israelis have and have fought to secure and defend.

She has seen no significant distinction between Israeli and Palestinian aspirations for homelands and security and recognition. And in doing this she has been consistently and sharply critical of what she, to me correctly, sees to be the anti-Arab, anti-Palestinian prejudice that under girds much of Israel's policy toward its neighbors. Neighbors who have an equal historical claim to a land of their own. In Palestine.

About these views we have heard almost nothing. Her critique is too hot for most to handle. Perhaps because of its essential truth. In fact, in the Times article about her "get the hell out of Palestine" outburst there is literally not one word about this other, more credible and serious side to the "Dean of the White House Press Corps." As long as she could be dismissed and marginalized as an eccentric distraction and a foil for press secretaries and presidents to have some fun with, she was given a front row, center seat with her name on a small plaque. The only reporter to be thus distinguished. But now, for a few misspoken or mean-spirited words she has been sent ignominiously packing.

Also either conveniently forgotten or unreported has been her persistent criticism of the Bush and the Obama administrations' war policies. She has been the only reporter to so publicly hold their feet uncomfortably to the fire as first Bush and now Obama pursue disastrous policies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And so with Helen Thomas unceremoniously "retired" things will be a little less perversely fun at the White House and a lot less contested. I for one will not miss the fun. But something more important will be missing--some of the last remaining integrity of the Washington press corps.

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