Standing Watch

Helen Thomas

On May 27, 2010, outside the Jewish Heritage Celebration Day event at the White House, the following exchange took place between Thomas and Rabbi David Nesenoff:

Nesenoff: Any comments on Israel? We’re asking everybody today, any comments on Israel?

Thomas: Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine.

Nesenoff: Oooh. Any better comments on Israel?

Thomas: Remember, these people are occupied and it’s their land. It’s not German, it’s not Poland …

Nesenoff: So where should they go, what should they do?

Thomas: They go home.

Nesenoff: Where’s the home?

Thomas: Poland. Germany.

Nesenoff: So you’re saying the Jews go back to Poland and Germany?

Thomas: And America and everywhere else. Why push people out of there who have lived there for centuries? See?

Rabbi David Nesenoff used a Flip camera to record the exchange several days before the deadly encounter in international waters between Israeli commandos and a flotilla of peace activists bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza in defiance of an Israeli naval blockade of the region. That this writer is suspicious of the timing, and motivations, of Nesenoff’s release of the recording after the firestorm of protest regarding the violent confrontation are topics for another discussion.

What is interesting is that Nesenoff’s hands, insofar as the video bloggers own racial biases, are hardly clean here. Just a few months before, Nesenoff posted a YouTube video (which has since been removed), in which Nesenoff makes a poor attempt at comedy, filled with racist remarks towards Hispanics. The individual who tanked Thomas’ brilliant media career, which spanned over half a century and included many firsts for women in journalism, was himself a racist.

And that brings me to the purpose of this writing. How is it that Nesenoff, as well as many far more better known media personalities, are able to make deeply offensive bigoted comments, repeatedly, live and in interviews, without anything more than token resistance from their peers, but Thomas’ remarks towards Israel, result in massive outrage and her forced retirement from public life?

Take for example Rush Limbaugh. Rush Limbaugh has managed to make racist attacks on four of the most admired and respected people of African descent in the past one hundred years, in Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Colin Powell and Barack Obama. These aren’t exactly isolated incidents, either, but are in fact an ongoing pattern of racism tailored toward Limbaugh’s predominate white, wealthy, male, and very conservative listener base. While racism is not the main motivation behind Limbaugh’s broadcasts, it’s pretty clear the talk show host has serious issues with roughly 12% of the US population. The media response? While there is token resistance towards the offensiveness of Limbaugh’s commentary, Limbaugh remains one of the highest paid and widely published talk show radio personalities.

And then we have Fox News Channel’s Glenn Beck. Where do I begin with this one? Not only does this talk show host promote racist views and materials, but anti-Semitic, anti-women, anti-Catholic, anti-Muslim, anti-LGBT, etc. Fired from CNN a couple of years ago for his extremist and offensive rhetoric, Beck found a new home at News Corp’s Fox News Channel, where he has remained since. The media response? There is an ongoing media feud between Beck and MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, and occasional blowback by a few left leaning talk show hosts, but beyond that, nothing. Sponsors continue to support Fox News Channel in a huge way, despite the phony boycott by sponsors of Beck’s particular show (News Corp has lost nothing in the shift in advertising).

What about outside of mainstream media? There, the hypocrisy continues. Take the difference between responses from the Obama Administration to Thomas’ comments, the Israeli incident in international waters, and other talk show hosts. With regards to the shooting deaths, injuries, and arrests of peace activists in international waters by Israeli commandos boarding their ships, the Obama Administration was hesitant, delayed, cautious, and minimal at best, calling the deaths of the activists “tragic.” Compare to the rapid and forceful condemnation of Thomas’ remarks, and Obama’s welcoming of Thomas’ retirement decision.

I’m not saying that Thomas’ comments were or weren’t offensive, that’s not the point here. Suffice to say enough believe them to be offensive that either a clarification (if offense was not intended) or apology (if offense was intended) should have sufficed to sooth the ruffled feathers. After all, we can’t even get that much from Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, Coulter, O’Rielly, et al, who make a great living at spreading fear, hatred, and intolerance, and are entirely unapologetic about it.

This is particularly true in Glenn Beck’s case, where his anti-Semitism is fairly clear to all but the most obtuse in society. Compared to him, Thomas is a Zionist (she’s not, of course, but you get the idea). Perhaps before we all condemn Thomas’ words, we should look at those of the rest of the media, which in my view are far worse and potentially far more damaging.

So far as this writer is concerned, Thomas was a target from the start. She is a woman, and one of many firsts, in a male dominated industry and society. She is a liberal intellectual in a nation that is increasingly turning to corporate fascism. But, most of all, she questions authority, and has done so for over half a century.

Thomas’ statement was simply a convenient excuse, that served several purposes of the moment. For a day, there was no focus in the US on the Israeli raid. For a day, their was no focus on the British Petroleum caused disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. And Obama had a chance to strike back at Thomas’ refusal to accept what she called a “Bushism” when she asked Obama why we were still in Afghanistan and Iraq (she wouldn’t accept the “we have to fight them there so we don’t have to fight them here” excuse).

A great distraction, a target of convenience, and another oppositional voice in the media silenced, that’s what Thomas was. If she were forced out of the media because of her views, many others should have been years ago. But they weren’t, only she was.

Thomas has subsequently issued an apology on her personal web site: “I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians. They do not reflect my heart-felt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon.”

I wish it were so, Ms. Thomas. Unfortunately, none of us will see it in our lifetimes, at the rate things are going.