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Helen Thomas resigns over remarks

Mycroft said:
I'm sorry, but your only objection to a call for ethnic cleansing was that it's impractical.

Impractical?!

I understand her position too. I understand it's ignorant and filled with hate.

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And your's is not filled with hate? Not ignorant of the fact that land and homes were taken by one group from another?
 
Beerina said:
I think you're deliberately putting on blinders in her defense. It was an extremely callous remark.
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Your opinion of Thomas is just that, yours. But your imagination I have the blinders on, that sounds like projection. You appear blind to the Palestinian side of the issue. I, OTOH, see both sides.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
I don't have any cognitive dissonance over this issue. I'm capable of seeing both sides of the dispute.

Cognitive dissonance would be suppressing all consideration of the Palestinian side of the struggle in order to believe the Jews are blameless and justified in how they've responded to the Palestinian resistance.
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Answer those two questions:

1) Is Israel a sovereign state recognized by the UN?

2) Is the statement that the Jewish inhabitants of that sovereign state should be removed outrageous?

Thanks.
 
Pardalis said:
She could have chosen any word to describe Thomas' comment, "appalling", "callous", "abhorrent", "despicable", "reprehensible", "thoughtless", "inconsiderate", "insensitive"....
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Pardalis said:
Answer those two questions:
2) Is the statement that the Jewish inhabitants of that sovereign state should be removed outrageous?

Thanks.
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Those adjectives, including "outrageous", all say, "Israel 100% right, Palestinians 100% wrong".

'Understandable' says the Palestinians did indeed have their land, homes and towns taken from them. It's understandable that some people, Thomas being one of them, would view the Jews in Israel as occupiers.

Pardalis said:
...1) Is Israel a sovereign state recognized by the UN?
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This question is not relevant to the discussion.
 
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The notion seems to be she is old. I think she has always been this way. She was insisting that since there were no WMD's the invasion of Iraq was not justified during one of W's press meetings. But she did not seem to notice that the invasion was never based primarily on WMD's. Liberals do not see the world in much granularity and everything seems to appear to them in simple terms and with short term memory. It is not that Helen Thomas is old. It is that she is a Liberal.

In case you do not know, the invasion of Iraq happened because of Saddam not going along with UN resolutions. Plus, a state of war, with the no-fly zones had been happening in Iraq prior to 9-11-2001. Since 9-11 changed the world, we could no longer feel we should just "contain" our enemies.

But Helen Thomas did not see that and neither did my Liberal friends.

The same is true with the current deal with Palestine. Most people in the left Media seem to be automatically blaming Israel without knowing all the facts.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Those adjectives, including "outrageous", all say, "Israel 100% right, Palestinians 100% wrong".
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No it doesn't.

It just says "people advocating the mass deportation of an entire people 100% wrong".

Too bad you don't see that.

This question is not relevant to the discussion.
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Of course... :rolleyes:

You refuse to answer it because you would have to answer "yes", and if you answer "yes", you would have to consider the proposal to remove the inhabitants of that country to be an outrageous statement.

You want to keep thinking Thomas' statement is not outrageous, so therefore you refuse to acknowledge Israel's existence.

Cognitive dissonance. QED
 
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Jekyll's Guest said:
I am with you here 100%.

However, that means I expect you to jump on anyone defending Israel by bringing up a 2000 year old book :)
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I think there is an important misunderstanding about what the Bible means, and what it does not mean, for zionism. Sure, some religious zionists speak about the God-promised land. But -- like the US Constitution -- Israel's very declaration of independence does not even mentioned God.

Indeed, it is explicitly said that the Bible, far from being the work of God, was "created by the Jewish nation in the land of Israel" as part of the "cultural values of national and universal significance" the Jews created when they lived in that land.

This is quite typical of the zionist view. The bible is read not as a divine promise, but simply as (some of) the evidence that, indeed, the Jews had come from the land of Israel. The prayer book's prayer "next year in Jerusalem" is not used as proof God will do anything, but as evidence of "Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland".

Whatever one thinks of the claims themselves, there is nothing supernatural or "God promised" about the claims.
 
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Sword_Of_Truth said:
"IF"?!? WTF make you think there is an "if" involved here?
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I'm not going to judge Helen Thomas based on a single video -- much less one that references the Holocaust as a way to justify Israel's actions. Frankly, it's about as cheap a trick as your "anti-semitism" claim.

I don't agree with Helen Thomas when she says that Jews should "go home" to Germany and Poland, but I do agree with the underlying sentiment that Israel should not have been established in the first place. I just don't think being God's "chosen people" is enough justification for settling on populated land.

This is like saying the president of the united states doesn't represent the united states.
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Huh? I still don't follow your logic. Are you saying all of the United States agrees with Obama's policies and opinions? No? Then neither do Helen Thomas' statements represent the opinions of all those who criticize the state of Israel for its actions against Palestinians. Like I said, a cherry-picked example does not establish the rule.
 
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Helen announced today she is returning home to Europe after occupying Kentucky all these years. Bye, bye paleface.
 
Mycroft said:
I'm sorry, but your only objection to a call for ethnic cleansing was that it's impractical.
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I wonder what skepticginger would call someone who seriously said, "Unfortunately it's impractical to ship all the darkies back to Africa."

Of course, this can always be rationalized by all kinds of excuses about how awful Blacks are and how they have it coming.

When there's a will, there's a way.
 
Skeptic said:
The bible is read not as a divine promise, but simply as (some of) the evidence that, indeed, the Jews had come from the land of Israel.
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The bible has multiple cases of blatantly incorrect history contained within it though, so how can we cherry pick?

I could write a book about how Elvis came from Iran, bury it for a couple of thousand years, and maybe future people dressed like Elvis would descend on their cultural homeland?
 
Skeptic said:
What if she claimed all Black people should "go back to Africa"? Or all, say, Latinos "go back to Mexico"?
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The latter would not be equivalent to the former. Latino should be exhorted to "go back to Spain," while naturally most Americans would be urged to return to their prefix of self-identity.

All in all, a recipe for disaster....
 
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Jekyll's Guest said:
The bible has multiple cases of blatantly incorrect history contained within it though, so how can we cherry pick?

I could write a book about how Elvis came from Iran, bury it for a couple of thousand years, and maybe future people dressed like Elvis would descend on their cultural homeland?
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No serious historian doubts that the bible was composed in Israel, and that there were Jewish kingdoms there. Since this was Skeptic's point, your reply above does not refute him. Instead you just evade the issue.
 
beachnut said:
Helen announced today she is returning home to Europe after occupying Kentucky all these years. Bye, bye paleface.
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I'm pretty sure she's of Lebanese descent.
 
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