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If you ask the 89 year old legendary White House correspondent Helen Thomas it seems she would almost certainly say they are the same. At least it appeared that this might be Helen Thomas’s view during the Jewish Heritage American History Month celebration that took place on May 27th at the White House. The video with Thomas in her own words can be found at both Yahoo and RabbiLive.com, which was aired a full week after the incident.
During the celebration Rabbi David Nesenhoff approached Helen Thomas with the idea of asking for her views on Israel. During the impromptu interview Thomas stated flatly that Israel should get the hell out of Palestine and that the Palestinian people are occupied. She went on to further say that Israeli’s should return to their homes in Poland, Germany, and oh yeah…..America, indicating that the people and the Jewish state have no place in the Middle East.
Apparently Helen Thomas either didn’t know that the Jews and Israel have both been in that very region for as long as there have been other races there. It also seems to me that Thomas has no idea of the history of the Jews in Israel such as the fact that they were also an occupied people. Over the course of history Israel was occupied by Rome who ruled the Jewish people for hundreds of years. I also believe that Helen Thomas forgot the more than 6 Million Jews were murdered in Germany and Poland.
Now I have to tell you that I am a big supporter of both the Constitution and its 1st amendment. I not only fervently defend the right of individuals to freely express their personal views without persecution I also defend the same right for those in the press that is what the 1st amendment is all about. However what I will not defend is someone who is anti-semitic or racist. I am not sure if Helen Thomas is either one of these, but her comments definitely need to be scrutinized closely.
Since her controversial comments, Helen Thomas has resigned from Hearst Newspapers. Thomas has also repeatedly apologized for her comments and admits that they were offensive. The board of the White House Press Corps has not yet announced what actions they will take with regard to Thomas’s front row center seat in the White House briefing room. The board has also issued a statement that they do not police the speech of members or colleagues.
What ever else may happen to Helen Thomas because of her comments, there is this lesson to be learned. Those in the media should realize that while they may have the right to freely express their views and opinions, they would do well to remember that they will also have to deal with the consequences of their actions, for which they are solely responsible. This is often an expensive lesson to learn and all you have to do is look at the now disgraced Helen Thomas to see the cost.
That is all for now from Simple Man Politics. I hope you all have a marvelous day and I will be back again soon, CIAO4NOW!!!!!
Happy New Year my friends, I hope you have all had a good time over the holidays, I know that I have. Now I am back, rested, rejuvenated, and ready to jump right into the New Year.
There are a lot of things going on in the political arena right now that I can talk about, especially when we are just 15 days out from the inauguration of the first black American President. However that’s not the type of politics I want to talk about today. Today I am going to take a look at the situation in Israel and their attempt to seriously curb the aggression of Hamas from within the Gaza strip in Palestine.
Over time Israel has had many cease fire agreements with this very militant terrorist organization, all of which have been broken by Hamas. They use these cease fire agreements to re-arm, recruit, and dig in as deep as possible into the civilian populations where they are active. Once they have reorganized to the best of their ability they violate the cease fire agreement they made with Israel and attack the civilian population within Israel.
They used to use suicide bombers for the majority of those attacks against the Jewish state. Now they favor the tactic of launching rockets into Israel against targets like schools, synagogues, and public market places placing the civilian populations of the towns near the border with Palestine at great risk. As a result of these rocket attacks many Jewish and Arab residents within Israel have been killed and many more wounded.
As inevitably always happens Israel eventually loses its patience with the Hamas terrorist organization and retaliates, usually to the great dismay of the Palestinian population who suffers greatly as a result of the Israeli military response to the naked aggression of Hamas and its military wing. The Palestinian people suffer because Hamas uses them as shields to hide behind. They manufacture weapons, store those weapons, and attack Israel from within the Palestinian communities along the border effectively putting innocent men, women, and children directly between themselves and harms way.
Of course while Hamas attacks Israel there is never an international outcry of support for the Israeli people facing these cowardly terrorist attacks. However when Israel finally decides that they have been hit hard enough and have lost too many people to these cowardly terrorists and retaliate the international community comes out and attacks Israel on all sides condemning them and claiming that their attempts to defend themselves are criminal because the Palestinian people suffer. Would not the same be true of the Israeli people who suffer and die as a result of the wanton, brutal, hateful, and random attacks upon them by Hamas?
The world screams at us the United States of America telling us we should tell the Israeli people to stop defending themselves from these terrorists who hide behind innocents a lot of the time with their support. They say that places like mosques, schools, and hospitals should not be targeted by Israel, but those are the places where these terrorists hide, attack from, and store their arms. Of course any Arab country will tell you that these same places are legitimate targets in Israel although Israel does not use them for any military organization or actions against their enemies.
Here is a little bit of a history lesson for you all. Israel became a nation in 1945. It became recognized by the League of Nations in 1949. At the time they became a nation they offered the same rights to all people living within their borders whether they were Jewish, Muslim, or Christian. They were not interested in keeping anyone of any faith on their knees.
Here are some facts on Israel’s military capacity using the US in comparison. The US field’s 16 division’s world wide, while the Israelis field 16 divisions, within their own nation. The US combined air forces can fly approximately 350 air sorties a day world wide, while the Israeli air forces can fly approximately 600 sorties a day within their own region. The US is a nuclear power world wide, while the Israeli people are a nuclear power within their own region.
All this information tells me that while the US is the reigning superpower world wide the Israeli people are the reigning superpower in the Middle East. We can no more tell the Israelis to stop defending themselves than they can tell us to stop defending ourselves. As far as the Israeli people are concerned I think that they have been more than patient with the Palestinian people, and their government. If the Palestinian President Abbas and his security forces cannot control Hamas and stop their attacks against Israel, then I feel that it is up to Israel to do the job. I just wish that Israel had handed Hezbollah the terrorist organization that now controls Lebanon as harsh a beating as they are currently giving Hamas when that little war happened a couple of years ago.
I think that President Bush is correct by saying that we support Israel’s right to defend themselves even though we don’t like the violence. Violence doesn’t do anything good for the average guy who is just trying to take care of his family. However don’t be so naïve as to think that war doesn’t solve any disputes. War has settled every major dispute in the world since before the time of Christ.
That is all I have to say on this subject for now. I hope that you will read this and think very hard about what I have said here. The same thing that the international community wants Israel to do, which is stop defending themselves, is the same thing that they want us to do to.
I am including a video with this post called Escape From Hamas. It is a 6 part interview on Fox News that has been released to YouTube. The interviewee is a young man by the name of Mosab Hassan Yousef. He is the son of the founder of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. He himself was a leader of the Islamic Youth Organization. He has since moved to the US, become a Christian, and has applied for political asylum here. What he has to say paints a very startling picture of Hamas, so please watch all 6 parts.
I hope you all have a marvelous Monday and I will be back again soon with more political coverage both here and around the world, CIAO4NOW!!!!!