The lynching of American Arab journalist Helen Thomas

The lynching of American Arab journalist Helen Thomas

By Ray Hanania

Helen Thomas has survived attacks from every president of the United States, from Eisenhower to Obama, but alas, the champion of Middle East truth could not stand up to this country’s fanatically pro-Israeli media and movement.

It was an amazing display of what Israel and its power players consider important in this world.

They didn’t hesitate to destroy Thomas’ outstanding career in journalism over a few exaggerated comments she made – Abe Foxman the bigoted head of the Anti-Defamation League celebrated in total rapture when he heard the news that Thomas had resigned.

I mean, she’ll turn 90 years old in August.

Yet the same legion of verbal stone-throwers who pilloried Thomas remained defiant in the face of criticism of Israel’s military murder of nine civilians aboard several boats in international waters that were trying to bring food and medicine to the 1.5 million besieged Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Israel’s defenders like Elliott Abrams have tossed in the word “Lynch mob” to define criticism of Israel over the Gaza flotilla massacre. But the truth is the phrase is more appropriate for what has happened to Helen Thomas. It is supporters of Israel who are doing the lynching, this time stringing up an 89 year old little old lady on a tree of hypocrisy under which Israel can do no wrong and on the basis of words of criticism of Israel that have been wildly distorted and taken out of context.

And Helen Thomas’ comments were clearly taken out of context and distorted into an ugly mass of anti-Semitism.

What perfect timing, 11 days after the fact in the eye of a storm of criticism over Israel’s killing of nine civilians including one American whose death drew hardly a whimper of shock from other Americans or the mainstream news media. Not even as much as a whimper of indignation from the American Congress or media that screams when someone criticizes Israel as they line up to collect hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign contributions from AIPAC related PACs,

Truth is on the side of Helen Thomas, and here is what she said. The “interview” took place on May 27 at a Jewish Heritage Celebration at the White House – I wonder how many Palestinian Heritage Celebrations the White House has hosted over the years?

Thomas was approached by an active anti-Palestinian Rabbi and blogger who asked, “Any comment on Israel? We’re asking everyone today.”

The blogger didn’t ask, “What do you think of Jews?” as most news media falsely reported. The question was specifically about “Israel,” a sovereign nation that apparently can do no wrong.

Thomas responded forcefully but with a laugh: “Get the hell out of Palestine.”

Was that the comment of someone saying the “Jews” should go back to where they came from as was reported falsely and repeatedly by the mainstream and pro-Israel media? No. She never used that word.

Helen Thomas said what many believe, that Israel should get the hell out of Palestine, and that means the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Yes, the West Bank that Israel occupies and the Gaza Strip that Israel imprisons.

The comment from Thomas elicits a laugh from the Rabbi, although the media ignored his laughter and instead perniciously characterizes Thomas’ response as “cackling.” The Rabbi then jokingly or sarcastically follows up with a leading comment and question:

“Oooh! Any better comments on Israel?” The blogger laughs and so does another woman whose voice is heard in the background.

Helen Thomas then says, “Remember, these people are occupied. And it’s their land. Not Germany. Not Poland.”

“So where should they go,” the Rabbi, who knows exactly where he is leading the witness asks.

“Go home,” Thomas replies.

“Where’s home?” The Rabbi asks.

“Poland. Germany.”

Knowing he has a good story at this point, the Rabbi changes the context from “Israel” to “Jews.” He says, “So you’re saying the Jews should go home to Poland and Germany?”

Quite a change from what she said. But Thomas, who is walking out of a White House reception past a gaggle of reporters and bloggers, casually brushes off the insertion of a word she did not use, and repeats what she said to the original question.

“Go home to Poland. Germany and America and everywhere else.”

Who is Helen Thomas talking about?  Strip away the anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hatred that exists in the mainstream American media, and the bullying policies that critics of Israel must face, and any fair person would say she was speaking about the settlers who live in the lands occupied by Israel in 1967, like the Gaza Strip, which was the context in which the discussion began.

But that’s not what Israel and their pro-Israel activists enjoy.

Americans are not allowed to have an open debate about Israel in this country. If you do, watch out. The lynch mob is waiting.

(Ray Hanania is an award winning Palestinian columnist and Chicago radio talk show host. He can be reached at www.RadioChicagoland.com.)

Jerusalem Post: Yalla Peace: Act like citizens, not foreigners

Yalla Peace: Act like citizens, not foreigners
By RAY HANANIA
23/03/2010 22:28

Arab citizens of Israel are in a unique position to help their people by being advocates for change, in Israel and in the region.

Israelis always tell me that “all citizens of Israel” are treated equally. They insist that although Israel is a “Jewish state,” non-Jews are treated with respect and equality.

Of course, that isn’t true. But it sounds good on paper. When it comes to how Israel mistreats its non-Jewish citizens, most Jews have their heads buried in the sand, with a finger on the trigger.

The reality is that non-Jewish citizens are discriminated against routinely.

It bothers me that Israeli citizenship cards have special codes to separate Jews from non-Jews. That violates the whole principle of “citizenship,” although the reason is clear, to make it easier to discriminate.

The Mossawa Center, an Arab Israeli group that monitors Arab citizen rights (and whose Arabic name means “equality”), recently released another scathing report showing that non-Jews in Israel are discriminated against.

It cites the increase of racist bills introduced in the Knesset attacking “free speech,” mainly that of “Arab citizens.”

• If a citizen denies the existence of Israel, he can be imprisoned for one year.

• If a citizen violates “loyalty to Israel,” he can have his citizenship revoked. I guess in conjunction with the first bill, he would be imprisoned for a year and then kicked out of the country.

• Government money would be denied to citizen groups that act in a way that express views like the “Nakba,” the Arabic word for “catastrophe” that refers to 1948 when Israel was created and more than 400 Arab villages were erased.

With a few other examples that are purely included because of the conflict, the report makes things sound really bad.

A BIG part of the problem, though, is that Arabs and Jews are not really different. We often do not agree, but we’re in the middle of a conflict and tensions are a fact of life.

So how much responsibility do the Arab citizens of Israel share in letting this disparity in free speech and democracy take place?

A big part of the problem is the Arab citizens themselves. They don’t help matters much. Arabs claim to want to be citizens, but they act like foreigners.

More often than not, extremist Arab activists in the West and Arab world urge Arab citizens in Israel to boycott Israeli elections and not vote.

So who is to blame when extremist Jews take control? The Jewish extremists or the misguided Arab citizens who listen to the loser activists in the Arab world?

“Denial” is the reality of Palestinian life. If we just pretend something isn’t there, it might go away. What we want to go away is the fact that over the past century, Arab policy toward Palestine has been characterized by one word. Losers! Arab culture has embraced the phenomena of its own failure by blaming someone else. Being a louder victim is a better choice in these circumstances for Palestinians than to work harder to participate in Israeli society and bring about change.

The Arabs are not doing their best. They embrace stupid policies like “normalization” – a hateful code-word used by Palestinians to describe any Arab who dares treat an Israeli like a “normal person.” It’s racist, too, because it suggests that all Jews are bad.

Many Arabs criticize my moderate views, not by engaging in the facts and issues I raise, but by pointing to the fact that my wife and son are Jews.

Many Arab comedians won’t participate with me because I perform with Israelis, not just Jews. Many Arab activists exclude me because I advocate two states rather than one.

Oh. Did I forget to mention that I write for a “Zionist newspaper” like The Jerusalem Post?

I HAVE learned to ignore these moronic critics in the Palestinian and Arab world because although they dominate the “vocal landscape,” they are the demographic minority. The problem is that most Arabs fear challenging the extremist minority. It’s easier to be silent than to stand up for what is right.

What should Arabs in Israel do? Stop acting like the rest of the Arab world.

Stop listening to the failed Palestinian activists who live in Europe and the United States. Those activists live in luxury, yet are the first to tell Palestinian refugees it is better to live in squalor by rejecting compromise based on two states than to live in their own state where they can focus on improving their lives. If the conflict were ever resolved, most Palestinian rejectionists would be unemployed. So continuing the conflict is in their best interests.

If Arab citizens of Israel want their rights, they should recognize reality. Stop boycotting elections. Stop spreading hatred against Jews as an answer to Jewish discrimination against Arabs. Stop placing all the blame on a handful of Jewish racists in the Knesset. And stop exaggerating racism by including examples that are purely political, like Israelis declaring that Jerusalem is their eternal capital.

You can always find an example of hatred, if you ignore the more frequent examples of common sense.

Arab citizens of Israel are in a unique position to help their people, not by embracing the failed policies of the Arab world and the Palestinian rejectionists, but by being advocates for change, change in Israel and change in the Arab world.

Stand up and tell the activists you support compromise, two states and the sharing of Jerusalem.

The Palestinians under occupation are under siege, and not just by Israel’s military. The extremist Islamists like Hamas are growing in power. Their goal isn’t just to destroy Israel, but to also to destroy Palestinian and Arab secular life.

Start protesting on the streets, not just against the bigotry and racism that surrounds your lives in Israel. Oppose the extremism that dominates the Arab world and the fatalistic policies of the Palestinian rejectionists, who are doing everything they can to block peace.

If the Arabs of Israel stood up as one, engaged the system fully and started to think and speak for themselves, not only would they have more rights in Israel, we might also have peace.

Named Best Ethnic Columnist in America by New America Media, the writer is a Palestinian-American columnist and peace activist. He can be reached at www.YallaPeace.com

Op-Ed Columnist Ray Hanania tells the U.S. Census to SHOVE IT!

Ray Hanania tells the U.S. Census to SHOVE IT! In this Opinion Commentary on YouTube.





-- Ray Hanania
www.RadioChicagoland.com

Those pimping for the U.S. Census should be honest, its about their money not our community empowerment

The U.S. Government has done a great job hiring Arabs in our community to shill for their cause, to continue to oppress our community. The focus on the effort is the U.S. Census.

I want you to notice something. Everyone one pimping and pushing for the American Arab community to "participate" in the U.S. Census are all PAID by the U.S. Government to tell us to fill out the census form.

They lie that filling out the census form and "writing in our race" Arab in the little line at the bottom of the form is a way for us to be empowered. And when someone questions their lies, they slam and slander Arabs who argue that we have been misled by lazy, do-nothing Arab activists who have taken the short and easy route to money instead of fighting the long term challenge.

What is the long term challenge? Arabs should be listed officially on the census.

Here is who are now listed on the U.S. Census:

The census form asks for your Race, listing Hispanic, Latino or Spanish Origin. And they ask if you are Mexican, Mexican American (I didn’t know there were two categories of Mexicans), or Chicano? What kind of race is “Chicano?” What country do “Chicanos” come from? “Chicano-stan?”

They ask the same question again on the long form: Are you White? Black, African American or Negro? Are you American Indian or Alaskan Native and they even give you a place to write in your tribe name.

That’s not all. The form asks are you Asian Indian? Japanese, Native Hawaiian, Chinese, Korean, Guamanian or Chamorro, Filipino, Vietnamese, Samoan or Other Asian where they give you a space so you can print your “race” like Laotian, Thai, Pakistani, Cambodian “and so on.”

Oh, they don’t stop there. They ask are you “Pacific Islander” and ask you to print your race like Fijian, Tongan “and so on.”

Way at the bottom, in case they missed someone, someone not so important, they have the throw away line, to check here if you are “Some Other Race – Print Race.”

That is where I have to hand-write that I am “Arab.” And proud of it too, by the way.

Read the full original column that has Rashad al-Dabbagh, who works for the census, and some members of the Arab American Institute targeting me because I don't agree with their laid-back lack of activism against this problem. Click here to read the column?

The fact is that while these activists are cashing their checks and telling American Arabs, "Don't worry. You don't have to be listed on the census form, you can write it in so the AAI can complete their list," government agencies across America are discriminating against American Arabs specifically and directly because the U.S. Census DOES NOT list Arabs as "Arab" on the Census form.

The federal government requires police officers who pull people over for traffic stops to list the race of the person being stopped. But, they are required only to list those races AND ethnicities listed on the U.S. Census form.

Why is that important? If the race is listed on statistics, communities can easily see if they are being targeted for discrimination by police officers and then use that as "EMPOWERMENT" to demand that the police department hire American Arabs.

But American Arabs are NOT listed and police are not required to list us at all.

In every instance of EMPOWERMENT, not being listed on the U.S. Census means we are denied the ability to confront and stop discrimination, discrimination that is holding our community back.

And all that the activists who are PAID by the U.S. Census can do is attack me ands my argument and tell us little American Arab Sheep to "write your race on the form."

Well, writing your name on the form does not stop the discrimination and it DOES NOT force government agencies from the top of the Federal Government to the bottom of the local suburban government to recognize the rights of Americans Arabs.

When we ask school districts how many Arabs have they hired, the answer is "We are not required to list employees based on the race 'Arabs' and we only list race and ethnicity based on those identified in the U.S. Census."

I know what the problem is. It's easier for some in our community to take the handout from the government and keep the American Arabs in a stupor than to find the courage to stand up and change a system that needs to be change.

Arabs should and MUST be listed on the U.S. Census form and until we are, we will continue to be discriminated against, denied government grants, denied government jobs and marginalized in our society.

-- Ray Hanania

www.RadioChicagoland.com

Obama names new communications team -- no Arabs

President Obama names new communications team – no Arabs included
By Ray Hanania

It's hard to fight anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias in the mainstream news media, let alone in mainstream society, if no one wants to help.

Being Arab is a double-edged scimitar. Everyone knows you are a problem from all the media coverage given to the Middle East, terrorism, narrow and usually racist stereotypes, but few Americans turn to you to ask for help. So the problems never get resolved. They only are exacerbated by the continuing ignorance and lack of education.

President Barack Obama apparently is no different. This week, he announced a slew of communications appointments to strengthen his outreach to the minority and "new media" community. Most of the appointments were rewards for battles fought during the election. None of them are American Arab or Middle Eastern in heritage.

Click here to read the list.

Well. At least they included us in the press release for distribution.

There are African Americans, Hispanics, Asians. All kinds of folks and backgrounds. I couldn't find one American Arab in the list. That's too bad. There are more than 90 American Arab publications in the United States, according to monitoring we do at the National Arab American Journalists Association (www.NAAJA-US.com). It has been growing since many papers shutdown immediately after the racist backlash that began after Sept. 11, 2001 when crime took on a chiseled-in-rock face.

I think it contradicts the President's claimed message that he made when he appeared on al-Arabiyya Satellite television in the Middle East. The station is one of several Arab and English language news broadcasts that reach not only Arabs in the Middle East but Arabs in America. So we saw and heard his effort to "reach out" to the Middle East and tell them how much he cares. Cares, but not enough to give American Arabs appointments or roles in his government yet. not enough to respect veteran American Arab journalist Helen Thomas at a recent news conference when she asked a very pointed question and he dodged it somewhat embarrassingly for Thomas.

Thomas rightly pushed Obama during his first press conference, after he pulled the wool over al-Arabiyya's eyes and the Arab World, was about the hypocrisy regarding nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Everyone, including Obama, denounces countries like Iran that are working towards nuclear weapons, but mumble and avoid discussing the 200-plus nuclear weapons Israel has which are outside of International scrutiny and monitoring.

She asked Obama about the "so-called" terrorists in Pakistan, making the point that the claim of terrorism is often thrown own recklessly for political reasons rather than reality. And he avoided any reference to her question that raised reporter's eyebrows "Do you know of any countries in the region that have nuclear weapons?"

She may be 80 years old but she is not stupid.

Obama responded with a lot of blah, blah, blah that began "With respect to nuclear weapons, I don't want to speculate ... " But he avoided noting that Israel has nuclear bombs. And when she tried to follow up, he just ignored her, looked at his card which listed "approved" journalists to select at the press conference and moved on back to the mainstream fantasy world understanding of the Middle East.

But that's unusual for Thomas. During the Bush regime, Thomas was often snubbed and openly insulted by the late Tony Snow, who many said carried hateful views of American Arabs and Muslims. When Thomas asked about the the Israel-Lebanon ‘Summer War,’ Snow ignored her questions that focused on hypocrisy in the Bush policies, and once thanked her for her “Hezbollah view.” He then accused her of "hectoring," which I think was more of a slam against the mainstream media that sat there and kissed Bush's ass during many press conference involving the important and ignored Middle East issues than it was of Thomas, who is a true journalist in the spirit of the Watergate Era that drove many like myself into this unfulfilling profession that continues to fail to live up to its great promises of fairness, objectivity and "just the news."

Maybe the Arab World will wise up. Or more likely, maybe it won't.

(Ray Hanania is an award winning columnist and Chicago radio talk show host. He can be reached at www.RadioChicagoland.com and by email at rayhanania@comcast.net.)