Veteran Journalist Helen Thomas, tells Jews to get the hell out of Palestine

Use your free speech in USA as free as you like, so long it does not hurt the feeling of Israel and Jews. Or else, you’ll be fired from whatever job you’re in. Helen Thomas’s is the latest example.

The veteran journalist, Helen Thomas who has covered White House for over five decades, retired on Monday following a controversy over her anti-Israel remarks that drew condemnation and charges of anti-Semitism. Under fire for controversial remarks she made (and apologized for) about the status of Jews in Israel, Helen Thomas announced Monday that she is retiring, effective immediately.

Thomas caused a stir late this week when a video was released of her declaring that Jews should “get the hell out of Palestine” and go back to Germany and Poland. She has since apologized for the remarks, saying they did not properly reflect her position on the conflict of the Middle East.

According to a video being widely circulated last week, Thomas at a function at the White House May 27 “Jewish Heritage Celebration” was asked by the website RabbiLive.Com if she had any comments on Israel.

“Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine,” she responded.

“Remember these people are occupied and it’s their land, not German and not Poland,” said Thomas, who is the longest serving correspondent of the White House.

“They can go home, Poland, Germany, and America and everywhere else,” she had said.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs termed her remarks as reprehensible and the White House Correspondents Association distanced itself from her statement and announced convening a special meeting of its Board to discuss if an opinion columnist be seated in the front row of the White House Press Briefing room.

Thomas, who started covering the White House since the John F Kennedy Administration, was born on August 4, 1920. Last year at her 89th birthday, Obama had personally come to the White House press room to greet her with came and sang “Happy Birth Day” song for her.

She aggressively questioned President George W. Bush and his press secretaries about the war in Iraq, which many of Bush’s supporters said would make Israel safer by ridding the Middle East of Saddam Hussein.

She gave President Barack Obama similar handling about Afghanistan. This exchange occurred two weeks ago:

“Mr. President, when are you going to get out of Afghanistan? Why are you continuing to kill and die there? What is the real excuse? And don’t give us this Bushism, “If we don’t go there, they’ll all come here,”“ she said.

Lanny Davis, former special counsel to and White House spokesman for President Bill Clinton, said the apology “was not direct and didn’t address the merits of her belief in the stereotype that Jews are aliens in Israel and don’t belong there.”

Ari Fleischer, President George W. Bush’s press secretary, said her comments amounted to a call for “religious cleansing.” He told Fox News before the announcement that Thomas should lose her job over the comments.

“This goes beyond all boundaries,” Fleischer said. “When you advocate that people need to be separated on the basis of their religion … this is hatred, this is bigotry, this is prejudice.”

Source: Times of India
NDTV
Fox News

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