osewalrus (osewalrus) wrote,
osewalrus
osewalrus

Helen Thomas Business

OK, this is just weird. Helen Thomas apparently, in all seriousness, told random vblogger with a camera on the White House lawn asking everyone their views on Israel that "they" (meaning the Jewish citizens) should go "back home" to Europe and America.

Thomas' view, I should point out, is a fairly common one among a particular segment of Palestinian supporters and is not something I view as antisemetic per se. It is the idea that Judaism is a religion, not a nationality or ethnicity, and therefore there is no such thing as a "Jewish" homeland. (A subset think any Jewish state in reparation for the Holocaust should be located in Germany as a matter of reparations.) The current State of Israel is, in this view, merely a residual form of western imperialism similar to Boer/British occupation of South Africa -- with the difference being that a lot more people support shipping the Jews in Israel "back" to Europe (ignoring that many did not come from there in the first place) than support shipping the white South Africans "home" to the Europe.

As I say, I don't view this as "antisemetc." I do view it as both a-historical and about as useful as suggesting the creation of a Palestinian state in either Sinai or "Transjordan." It ain't gonna happen, so holding it out as the appropriate solution is pretty useless.

What's weird is Helen Thomas is not some random loony, or someone from a part of the world where these views are considered reasonable. The notion that someone of Thomas' experience and stature would casually pop out with something like that is just utterly bizarre to me.
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