hasn't been posted here...
STORY


The video:


Shameful, just shameful.

Sounds blown out of proportion, to be honest.

Art Fleischer says she's advocating "Religious cleansing"?

Really?

I know that Israel and Jews in general still have that protected-status sort of thing where you can't say anything bad about them without getting branded a anti-semite...but lets be honest, Israel is no flock of angels themselves.

if it were anyone else that had said this, they would have been fired.

She is gone...
Helen Thomas Retires

Well yeah. She retired, her agency dropped her, the world basically thinks she's a Nazi now. It's all very silly.

It's also sad how everyone seems to be misquoting her as having just said, "Jews go back to Poland".

Are you aware of what happened to Jews in Germany and Poland? And the reason they're in Israel, instead of Germany and Poland? Just wondering.

Why wouldn't he be aware of that? Poland and Germany are completely different places now. It's not like she's saying "Go back to where you got massacred!". I can't think of a way you could misinterpret that unless you're suggesting time travel.

well, most of them now were born in Israel. Fewer and fewer of them are from Poland or Germany or anywhere else now.

Yes they are different places now, but still millions of them were murdered there. Why don't you tell a Cambodian that escaped the killing fields to the US to go back to Cambodia as it is a different place now.

That's the thing, though: Helen wasn't exactly specific in saying where "home" was, just a generic statement of where many Jewish people tend to congregate or have historically congregated. She mentioned America too, but that oddly got left out in the criticism.

At worst she just wasn't specific(or, well, in this case not generic) enough. If the Cambodian in question was living on stolen land, I'd suggest that he move to anywhere except there. That's basically what I gathered from what Helen was saying.. /shrug.

As an article I read earlier today pointed out, people only mention the Holocaust and seem to forget the general hell most other countries (especially European) have put the Jews through in the past several centuries. It's not just the Holocaust...it's centuries upon centuries of anti-Semitic behavior from governments.

Just thought I'd mention that. (And how is her comment any different than the popular "Back-to-Africa" movement? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back-to-Africa_movement . Sure one happened 150 years ago, and Thomas' comments happened recently. But the movement and her suggestion are equally ignorant. Perhaps her age made her forget history.)

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I doubt it. Her parents were from Lebanon.

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Hope is the new black.

See? Even in this thread people are focusing way too much on, "She told them to go to X!" and "Germany? Holocaust, omg!!!"

The real point of her comments was directed at where she thought they should NOT be.

Exactly. I'm shocked you even had to write this, particularly in response to people (looking at you here Bov) that are on the exact opposite side of this stance in other recent threads, such as allowing illegal immigrants to stay in the US. Those people aren’t Germans/Pollock’s etc anymore, they are Israelis. They are already home, where most of them were born and raised. I'm sensing a great deal of casting blame for all this conflict on Israel. I agree that all parties have a hand in perpetuating the violence in that region, but I'd say the minority of the blame should go to Israel. They are on offense because years of defense hasn't worked, and I can't say I blame them.

Bah, I'm getting too off topic. Can you imagine the outrage if a reporter said all the blacks should go back to Africa, that's their home? And I would be one of the people upset by that too. Stay consistent people. I wouldn't say this is over blown at all, I think she's getting a free pass all things considered. She's almost 90, big deal she's retiring.

You are aware of how the nation of Israel came to be, right? On the defensive? Hah.

And damn, stop with the "Back to africa" crap. The comparison is terrible, it's not even remotely close.

I can't think of a single instance where it is appropriate to tell people who were born and raised somewhere to go home.

You are aware of how America came to be, right? And aware of how every single country in existence today came to be? Someone took it from people who lived there. I am not condoning that, it is simple fact. The people who live there now and run the country are not the ones that occupied it. The people who live in the USA are not the ones that drove the native indians out. I could go on and on (as I have been prone to do lately I know...), but I think you get the point.

I'm aware. And the comparison is actually helpful, because I'm sure that most of us aren't proud of how we treated the native americans.

Israel is another situation entirely though, on a far greater scale. Their takeover - and our support of them - has angered much of the middle eastern community, caused great amounts of unrest, and has produced a lot of spillover hate toward us and other nations. And it isn't going away.

Should they leave? Well, it's hardly fair to think they they can just get up and leave. The mistake was made, it's too late now. There's no telling how we can fix it, either.

We are in agreement on this part. It facinates me that right after a war where injustice should have been the foremost thing in peoples minds, the resolution was to push another populace out of the way and occupy thier land. We have to make the best of today though, we can't change what people did 60 years ago.

I don't see this as America's problem to fix.

In fact, with the killing of Americans in this fiasco, I see this as putting a very heavy strain on the US-Israeli relationship.

As long as we keep supplying one side with weapons and money we're involved and backing away from the issue will not absolve us of guilt.

I'm actually worried about the Iranian Red Crescent boat headed that way. I cannot recall when Iran & Israel have ever had direct confrontations, can anyone? It worries me that things have fallen apart so badly that Iran would attempt this.

Our new smart power is dumb. It's not working.... Well, anywhere.

The blacks should all go back to Africa.

Nothing wrong with that statement, right?

I think a lot of people see a window of opportunity in the fact that for once, the world isn't standing up for Israel over a conflict and is in fact, pointing fingers at them. I suspect those people would like that trend to continue and are hoping to find ways to make it happen.

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Wow, Orme.

You're like 20 posts too late and a mile off the mark.

Congratulations on bringing shame upon us all.

Gays should all go back to Ohio.

Fuck the Palestinians. That land was Jewish land over 3500 years ago.
They just got back what was theirs for thousands of years.
Talk about people forgetting history.







That is if you believe the Israeli bible and it's description of the lands god promised them...

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"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -Henry Louis Mencken
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VEGETARIAN -Noun (vej-i-tair-ee-uhn): Ancient tribal slang for the village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride.