In CNN interview, veteran reporter refuses to call comments urging Jews to leave Israel and return to Europe insensitive, says Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is the real insensitivity.
The Jews did not have to leave Germany and Poland following the Holocaust since they were not being persecuted anymore, former White House correspondent Helen Thomas said in an interview on Thursday, adding that the Jews had no right to take other people's land.
Thomas, 90, stepped down from her job as a columnist for Hearst News Service in June of last year after a rabbi and independent filmmaker videotaped her outside the White House calling on Israelis to get "out of Palestine."
She gave up her front row seat in the White House press room, where she had aimed often pointed questions at 10 presidents, going back to Eisenhower.
Speaking of the controversial comments in an interview with CNN's Joy Behar on Thursday, Thomas said she did not regret her comments, saying that the Jews did not have to go anywhere after the Holocaust.
"There hasn't been persecution since that, since World War II. You don’t take other people's land," Thomas said in reference to Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories.
When Behar asked Thomas if she realized that her comment regarding sending the Jews back to Poland and Germany were insensitive in view of the past the Jews share with those countries, the former correspondent said: "I also said Russia."
"Well Russia, they had their share of anti-Semitic pogroms," the CNN interviewer said, to which Thomas answered: "They also had 25 million who died in World War II…. More than that."
"They didn't have to go anywhere really, because they weren’t being persecuted anymore but they were taking other people's land," Thomas said, adding of the perceived insensitivity of her comments by saying: "Count how many Palestinians are in jails now, taken from their homes, a million refugees, is that sensitive?"
Responding to Behar's question whether or not she considered herself to be anti-Semitic, Thomas said: "Hell no! I'm a Semite…of Arab background," and saying of the Jews: "They're not Semites. I mean, most of them are from Europe."
Thomas also referred to the widespread uproar which her comments caused, saying she "didn't realize it would ring that many bells, because they've [the Jews] been free ever since."
When asked by Behar how would she revise her comments in view of the reactions they garnered, Thomas said: "Why do they have to go anywhere? They aren't being persecuted! They don't have the right to take other people's land. Under international law occupied land should not be annexed," Thomas said.
The former White House correspondent did, however, say she did not accurately gauge the backlash to her comments, saying that there was a change they got "me in trouble, but everything is distorted. But I don't care. "
"We have organized lobbyists in favor of Israel, you can't open your mouth. I can call the president of the United States anything in the book, but you say one thing about Israel and you're off limits," Thomas said.
"I have regrets that everyone misinterpreted it and distorted it, and you have the Ari Fleshcer and the Abe Foxman distorting everything, so I certainly knew that and I should of kept my mouth shut, probably."
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Friday, February 18, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Serious Doubt Cast on FBI's Anthrax Case Against Bruce Ivins
"It is hard to overstate the political significance of the anthrax attacks. For reasons I've described at length, that event played at least as much of a role as the 9/11 attacks in elevating the Terrorism fear levels which, through today, sustain endless wars, massive defense and homeland security budgets, and relentless civil liberties erosions."
"Yesterday, Rep. Holt re-introduced his legislation to create a 9/11-style Commission, complete with subpoena power, with a mandate to review the entire matter. "
BY GLENN GREENWALD
For years, the FBI believed that it had identified the perpetrator of the 2001 anthrax attacks -- former Army researcher Steven Hatfill -- only to be forced to acknowledge that he wasn't involved and then pay him $5.8 million for the damage he suffered from those false accusations. In late July, 2008, the FBI announced that, this time, it had identified the Real Perpetrator: Army researcher Bruce Ivins, who had just committed suicide as a result of being subjected to an intense FBI investigation. Ivins' death meant that the FBI's allegations would never be tested in a court of law.
From the start, it was obvious that the FBI's case against Ivins was barely more persuasive than its case against Hatfill had been. The allegations were entirely circumstantial; there was no direct evidence tying Ivins to the mailings; and there were huge, glaring holes in both the FBI's evidentiary and scientific claims. So dubious was the FBI's case that even the nation's most establishment media organs, which instinctively trust federal law enforcement agencies, expressed serious doubts and called for an independent investigation (that included, among many others, the editorial pages ofThe Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal). Mainstream scientific sources were equally skeptical; Nature called for an independent investigation and declared in its editorial headline: "Case Not Closed," while Dr. Alan Pearson, Director of the Biological and Chemical Weapons Control Program at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation -- representative of numerous experts in the field -- expressed many scientific doubts and also demanded a full independent investigation. I devoted much time to documenting just some of the serious flaws in the FBI's evidentiary claims, as well as the use of anonymous FBI leaks to unquestioning reporters to convince the public of their validity
Read more...
"Yesterday, Rep. Holt re-introduced his legislation to create a 9/11-style Commission, complete with subpoena power, with a mandate to review the entire matter. "
BY GLENN GREENWALD
For years, the FBI believed that it had identified the perpetrator of the 2001 anthrax attacks -- former Army researcher Steven Hatfill -- only to be forced to acknowledge that he wasn't involved and then pay him $5.8 million for the damage he suffered from those false accusations. In late July, 2008, the FBI announced that, this time, it had identified the Real Perpetrator: Army researcher Bruce Ivins, who had just committed suicide as a result of being subjected to an intense FBI investigation. Ivins' death meant that the FBI's allegations would never be tested in a court of law.
From the start, it was obvious that the FBI's case against Ivins was barely more persuasive than its case against Hatfill had been. The allegations were entirely circumstantial; there was no direct evidence tying Ivins to the mailings; and there were huge, glaring holes in both the FBI's evidentiary and scientific claims. So dubious was the FBI's case that even the nation's most establishment media organs, which instinctively trust federal law enforcement agencies, expressed serious doubts and called for an independent investigation (that included, among many others, the editorial pages ofThe Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal). Mainstream scientific sources were equally skeptical; Nature called for an independent investigation and declared in its editorial headline: "Case Not Closed," while Dr. Alan Pearson, Director of the Biological and Chemical Weapons Control Program at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation -- representative of numerous experts in the field -- expressed many scientific doubts and also demanded a full independent investigation. I devoted much time to documenting just some of the serious flaws in the FBI's evidentiary claims, as well as the use of anonymous FBI leaks to unquestioning reporters to convince the public of their validity
Read more...
Sunday, February 13, 2011
The DRESDEN Holocaust
66 YEARS AGO
DRESDEN 1945
The bodies weren't Jewish.
NEVER FORGET!
The dead admonish us to resist denial of the DRESDEN Holocaust!
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