89 year old journalist Helen Thomas was forced to quit her job as a columnist for The Hearst newspapers after having made controversial remarks on Israel's occupation of Palestine. White house press secretary Robert Gibbs condemned the commentaries and called them offensive.
What she said was "Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine. Remember that these people are occupied, and it is their land, not Germany, not Poland...they should go home, [to] Germany, Poland, and America and everywhere else. Why push people out who have lived there for centuries."
Thomas has always been one of the few who has dared to ask the tough question and speak up even when her opinions were not politically correct. According to many, she took it a step too far this time, but it is actually quite irrelevant. What is interesting is how, in the wake of the Ship to Gaza massacre, her comments can cause so much outrage while Israel's killing of civilians trying to help out fellow men go relatively uncovered by media in America. We should be outraged by murder, not by people speaking up for what they believe in. And how come every time anyone dares to criticize Israel, they are called anti-semantic? Shouldn't it be the other way around? Those who speak up for the Palestinians, a semantic people, should be labelled pro-semantic? Of course, it is all a play with words, and while we focus on putting labels on people, there are real wars out there and real people dying.
What she said was "Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine. Remember that these people are occupied, and it is their land, not Germany, not Poland...they should go home, [to] Germany, Poland, and America and everywhere else. Why push people out who have lived there for centuries."
Thomas has always been one of the few who has dared to ask the tough question and speak up even when her opinions were not politically correct. According to many, she took it a step too far this time, but it is actually quite irrelevant. What is interesting is how, in the wake of the Ship to Gaza massacre, her comments can cause so much outrage while Israel's killing of civilians trying to help out fellow men go relatively uncovered by media in America. We should be outraged by murder, not by people speaking up for what they believe in. And how come every time anyone dares to criticize Israel, they are called anti-semantic? Shouldn't it be the other way around? Those who speak up for the Palestinians, a semantic people, should be labelled pro-semantic? Of course, it is all a play with words, and while we focus on putting labels on people, there are real wars out there and real people dying.
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