The 1,2,3 of anti-Semitic bigotry in Europe: White washing Helen Thomas
Roy Greenslade is a professor of journalism at City University in London. In the 1990s, he edited the Daily Mirror, a top selling Leftist tabloid. Now he is one of Britain’s most respected media commentators. He writes for the Guardian. He is an establishment man.
In yesterday’s edition of that paper he turned his attention to Helen Thomas, the veteran White House reporter who recently advocated the annihilation of the State of Israel via the transfer of its Jewish inhabitants “home” to Germany and Poland: vicious, bigoted, anti-Semitic and, in the current international climate, not far short of incitement to genocide.
America was appalled. Europe too — not by what she said, of course, but by the “disproportionate” response, as Greenslade put it, that her remarks have elicited. I will come to the details in a moment (in all their shocking glory), but the nub of the matter is this: in a west European political culture gripped by a kind of anti-Israeli group hysteria, Helen Thomas’s views seem unremarkable. The notion that the Jews are imposters who took advantage of Holocaust guilt to get a state they never had a legitimate claim to is commonplace. It informs the prevailing narrative. Thomas might have been a little crass, but as to her substantive point, what’s to get excited about?
Guardian blogger Michael Tomasky,displaying an astute knowledge of his readership, was quite explicit in making precisely that point a couple of days ago:
“Now I know a lot of you are going to say well, she only said what’s factually true about the land,” he said “but she didn’t only say that. It’s that Germany and Poland business. Without that, these remarks wouldn’t have been nearly as controversial as they are. And those were really terrible things to say (while kind of laughing, as if it were a joke; check out the video).”
In other words, if she hadn’t made an oblique reference to the Holocaust, her remarks about the total illegitimacy of a Jewish state in the Middle East would have been perfectly acceptable.
Thus it is that his fellow Guardian columnist Roy Greenslade yesterday felt impelled to mount an impassioned plea against Thomas’s treatment, especially at the hands of her speaking agency which immediately dropped her.
“As Michael Tomasky points out,” says Greenslade, “it was her reference to Germany and Poland that did for her. It was, quite simply, a disgraceful, thoughtless and indefensible statement. She went way over the top.”
Hmm. “disgraceful, thoughtless and indefensible”, and then just “Over the top”, eh. The first three appellations don’t quite seem congruous with merely being “over the top” do they? Is the mask slipping already?
Let’s see how we go as Greenslade continues. Referring to her dismissal by the speaking agency, he snorts:
“So, in the land of the free, where freedom of speech is guaranteed under the constitution, a person who expresses what are deemed to be controversial views is effectively gagged.”
Aha. So by now her views are merely “controversial”. That mask is really slipping. I think I can see the face. But there’s more:
“I imagine,” says Greenslade, “it’s just the beginning of a process of public, and media, exclusion for Thomas. That may be a personal problem for her (though, at her age, she may not care). But, as she would be the first to grasp, it has wider implications.
“It is one of those rare occasions in which one can see clearly how people in America who are willing to express anti-establishment opinions are demonised, marginalised and finally excluded from public debate.”
And there we have it. Helen Thomas is actually a victim! She’s a hunted and hounded “anti-establishment” hero.
I do urge readers to look at Greenslade’s piece for themselves, if for no other reason than to see that I have been rigorously fair in my representation of his thinking.
For what you see here is a quotable illustration of total civilisational collapse in the space of little more than 350 words: a three stage progression in a single piece of writing from fake indignation at an appalling statement of bigotry to a conclusion in which all concern for the implications of that bigotry has been erased, and then replaced with contempt for those who condemn it and sympathy for the bigot herself.
Simply stunning.
Postscript: I have just noticed the comments in the thread below Greenslade’s piece. Huge support for Helen Thomas. Here is a selection;
“vamsi
8 Jun 2010, 9:27AM
Quite simply pathetic double standards by the American media. The country that prides itself as a beacon of freedom to sit back and watch….. unbelievable.” [286 reader recommendations for this comment. NB. it usual for comments to only get 3 or 4 recommendations and rare for them to get over 100.]
“paddyb39
8 Jun 2010, 9:45AM
At last an American with the guts to speak out, thank god for Helen, stick to your guns girl. Remember the U.S.S Liberty and those poor guys still waiting for justice and the America that was hoodwinked by the Israeli`s and their apologists in America”, [284 recommendations].
“sneekyboy
8 Jun 2010, 10:21AM
Persecuting an 89 year old who lived through WW2 and thought she saw facism die only to find it alive and well in the good old USA.
Nice! A big round of applause to the land of the free!” [243 recommendations]
June 10th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
Greenslade’s article is complete tripe. If Helen Thomas wants further speaking engagements, she can go find another agency. There must be agencies that arrange guest speakers for organisations of the fascist right and left.
Interesting how hatred of Jews and Israel is ‘anti-establishment’ and therefore by implication trendy and right-on.
For my health’s sake, I try not to look at Guardian comments. It’s like an online asylum.
June 10th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
In regard to hatred of Israel being socially “in” and trendy, I’m wondering if Israel should come up with a really cool representative fashion. The lunatic left is clearly a slave to fashion, with Che Guevara prints and kaffiyas being wardrobe musts for the politically correct. Israel, on the other hand, is generally associated with dusty sandals and weird religious attire. Maybe if we could come up with a catchy look…
June 10th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Also, many excellent observations about this by Mark Steyn (see link at end of this post). My favourite is a comment he makes in response to the following:
‘All of my grandparents were born there.
They were lucky enough to get out of Poland and into Canada, but everyone who stayed in Poland ended up in ovens, or burned alive in a barn in southeastern Poland – I assume you have heard of Jedwabne… The Poles didn’t like the sound of the screams, so they played music outside the barn to drown out the sounds…
My grandmother, she used to get letters from her father, the Rabbi, once she had arrived in Canada. They were from a little town near the eastern border with Russia…
Guess what, Helen? The letters just stopped coming all of the sudden.’
Mark Steyn’s response:
‘“Anti-Israel comments”? The BBC and The Guardian are metaphorically playing mood music outside the barn.’
——————-
Source: Spirited Israeli Government Policy Discussion by Mark Steyn
http://tinyurl.com/2aedg76
June 10th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
Funny how the liberal left are so vehement in their defence of free speech in the Helen Thomas case, yet oppose Geert Wilders’ free speech in the UK…
June 10th, 2010 at 4:09 pm
Joshua. I too like that quote from Mark Steyn.
Can you imagine if anyone told the African Americans to go back to Africa?
This is a good article in Ha aretz
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/dear-helen-thomas-we-jews-aren-t-getting-the-hell-out-of-anywhere-anymore-1.295308
- a letter to Helen Thomas with the following quote:
“Well, we were in Germany and Hungary and Czechoslovakia and Russia (where we were regularly just plain killed by Cossacks), and also, for many centuries, Poland (ditto), because we were told to get the hell out of England, France, and Spain. Or, you know, just plain killed by handsome and heroic fairytale knights.
And you know why we were in Western Europe to begin with? Because we were told by the Greeks and the Romans – wait for it – to get the hell out of “Palestine,” where we had been living since the beginning of recorded history. “
June 10th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
Roy Greenslade – bigot apologist and enabler; vile.
June 10th, 2010 at 4:28 pm
Helen Thomas’s remarks appallingly similar to those of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s remarks around his Holocaust denial conference a few years ago. Both think the Jews belong everywhere else except in Israel, the Middle East, Iran and northern Africa, the latter three regions being the former homelands of a substantial percentage of Israel’s Jewish population.
But hey, how could any regular reader or contributor to the Guardian see either Thomas or Ahmedinejad as a pair of doubly hypocritical bigots for suggesting that Jews all belong in Europe or North America?
June 10th, 2010 at 5:23 pm
Helen Thomas never asked tough questions. She put up left wing rants that any skillful press secretary could divert.
June 10th, 2010 at 5:56 pm
Greenslade’s eagerness to excuse Helen Thomas’s inexcusable remarks makes him complicit in her vile fantasy of ethnic cleansing. And of course, it had to be the Guardian didn’t it?
June 10th, 2010 at 6:42 pm
the comments left under nick cohens piece were so disturbing i was quite shocked that they allowed them to remain there. there must be laws against this type of hate and incitement. having just returned from israel i must admit i never saw any such attitudes in the media or on the streets. it’s remarkable how different the society is from the one the media fabricates. it’s actually more democratic than england. for a state who are continually at war there’s a vibrancy and life force that pulses through the country that’s missing in europe. no wonder the left hate it. it is a successful and clever country, and it’s the only place i have seen where multi culturalism actually works.
the commentators in the guardian and independent and bbc are brainwashed zombies.
June 10th, 2010 at 9:17 pm
Naomi recommends “really cool representative fashion”. Somebody is marketing stylish Zionist kefiyas somewhere on the web. They’re white and blue checked (of course) with multiple stylized Mogen Davids. I kid you not. They may be too provocative for the British Isles.
June 10th, 2010 at 9:38 pm
Now sorry in advance, this will be a quite a long response.
This’s is why it is soooo incredibly ironic and usueful to live in Hungary, Central-Europe. And to understand what’s going on. Here the newcomer neo-Nazi party (“Jobbik”) — accurate description on evry level — have no problem to publically take part in the anti-Israeli lynch-mob on the flotilla issue speaking in a Parliamentary speech about “Israeli terrorism”, “Hungary should actively stand on Turkey’s side as both they and we are NETO members” and the usual “massacres”, “human rights activists” etc. etc. (When they are the FIRST to vent their foaming at the mouth hatred at the Gypsies, immigrants – hardly any here and so on.)
Now how do the Americans say? The bucks stops here. Other than them, hardly anyone uses this language in Hungary. (Perhaps the press, a daily paper, and a TV-channel, radio-channels of the conservatives which is ALSO co-opted by the far right.)
No one absolutely no one from the left, and the liberal-left, mind you!
In the meantime it turns out from the online website (actually this is the settlers’ forum – Arutz Sheva) just yesterdayy that the city of Nyíregyháza (a smaller, and quite poor regional city not very far from the Ukranian border; in English terms like the city of say, Coventry))
Qiryat Motzkin is their sister city (practically a suburb of Haifa in the Haifa bay), and the deputy mayor of the town visited QM with a delegation AND a list of more than 500 names on it expressing solidarity with Israel and assuring it of their support for their self-defense. I thought, my stupid little antisemitic country, that I’ll fall off my chair!
Could any of you please in light of this inform me if Bournemouth or Manchester – by heart I am familiar only these two suddenly – collected signatures from their inhabitants and/or expressed their solidarity with Haifa and Rehovot, respectively? Huh? It’s immensely comforting and a source of pride for me to tell this.
Further: I have always told about my opinion about the Guardian. It’s nothing new, and also nothing special. It’s crystal clear to me that the Guardian (and the Independent) is the other side of the exact same coin as the antisemitic, Protocols of the elders of Zion freaks here in Hungary. This is my view, others don’t have to accept, of course. The Guardian is the prime safety velve for the antisemites, modern Jew-haters and, also to some, at least SOME extent, neo-fascists in the UK. Both of those who “make” the paper, and their consumers. I am not interested in the blahblah, I am convinced about this phenomenon.
Meanwhile, I try to avoid needlessly bashing Britain and offending anybody, but a couple of additional thoughts. I offer all of you a visual measure of the gradual mongrelization and disintegration of Britain by highlighting a certain shift during the decades. IF you take a picture from the archives somewhere, say from the 1950s and 1960s you can see the airplanes by various British commercial airlines or even the British Airways. Take note what you will see on the “tail” (I am not in the mood to look it up in the online dictionary now) of the aircraft. Chances are good (actually it’s true) hat you will see the UNION JACK proudly displayed as the proud point of convergence for the people of Britain. Let’s move to the 80s when I loved visiting the airport here in Budapest and watching the BA planes, the small Boeing 737s etc. The planes’ paintings changed to a corner of the flag, not showing the completely the crosses. Just a part as if to evoke.
Fast forward to to the turn of the century (new millenium). What do you see? Disjointed, “incoherent”, idiotic curves and lines all over without reminding anybody of anything, I suppose *LEST* the BS, horribile dictu, *offend* “somebody”.
I believe this perfectly illustrates/symbolizes the near-total degeneration of a country (Sorry, I apologize!) in less than 60 years. And, understandably, it will only get worse.
And there is nowhere a Geert Wilders on the horizon in England, or at least a credible political force that could, well, help. What will happen in the coming decades?
Very interesting. Very.
P.S: As I wrote this for almost 15 min, please delete the parts that you object to Robin, but preferably not the whole text.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:42 pm
The mask is slipping, and what is underneath is becoming more acceptable. It won’t be long before outright antisemitism can be seen to replace “anti-Zionism”. Where is all this heading?
June 10th, 2010 at 11:43 pm
The impromptu words Helen Thomas uttered on camera may have been spontaneous, but they were hardly a slip of the tongue nor was she inadvertently caught out. She had similar things to say in a formal interview several weeks earlier (see:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3Oz8M_FnV4&feature=related) and as I attempt to demonstrate in an op-ed in this week’s Jewish Chronicle, they point to an inner malevolence that is all the more disturbing for the way it appears to be completely integrated with who she is (http://www.thejc.com/comment-and-debate/comment/32830/thomass-bigotry-runs-deep).
June 11th, 2010 at 12:26 am
Correction:
I have to correct myself a bit. I believe many at the Guardian are not conscious antisemites coming from the right. Without the shadow of a doubt however, they WANT and crave the destruction of Israel and they want and crave it so badly that it’s impossible not to notice that. At this point what instruments, rhetorical tools and imagery they employ at the service of their base and totally illegitimate cause, a *cause* which is fascistoid not only robs them of civilized legitimization in my eyes, but by inciting the masses constantly and deliberately they foment classic anti-Semitism. Again, not all of them antisemites, but clearly some or even many of them are. I don’t want to name names here, bc it’s impossible. Btw here comes the fact that according to a judicial decision of a court in Germany (Cologne), IF somebody can provide a reasonable and thorough explanation for their charge of antisemitism, then it’s not sanctionable. Clearly the Germans are way ahead of the British on this matter. (Last sentence: clearly the vast majority of its readers, incidentally, are absolutely and often totally ignorant of basic historical, societal, religious and other aspects, factual and contextual truths of the actual topic, so much so that is maddening or amusing to see dependent of one’s personal nature.)
June 11th, 2010 at 1:58 am
Lets see now.
Send all Armenians back to where they belong – Turkey.
June 11th, 2010 at 5:11 am
That moral idiot Greenslade completely misunderstands how the Constitution of the United States works.
The First Amendment to the Constitution enjoins THE GOVERNMENT of the United States, or its agents, from interfering with the right of Americans to have an express opinions on any or no topic. Even this right is not absolute; in a famous Supreme Court case, Schenck v. United States, it was made clear that one cannot falsely shout “fire” in a crowded theater, meaning that free speech rights do not extend to risking the lives of others in order to exercise that right. We also have laws against incitement, slander and libel.
The First Amendment is not applicable to private persons, or private property. Helen Thomas had every right to say what she said, and no one in the United States disputes that – we do not have your laws restricting it. The government and its agents have done nothing to her – the president’s rebuke of her has no legal standing whatsoever.
However, no one has to enable her in her bigotry. She can say what she likes, but everyone else has the same right as she has to say what they think of both Helen and what she said. Most people are correctly disgusted by her, and will not have anything more to do with her. Do her apologists think that other Americans do not have the same rights as a Jew-hating bigot?
Her remarks, which she was free to make, have brought consequences upon her. The price one pays, in a free society, is to take such consequences for one’s behavior. Too bad that Greenslade doesn’t understand that, because the rest of us do.
I wonder, when Rush Limbaugh (to whom I, personally, never listen, and whom I revile) made racist remarks about an African-American quarterback, and lost his sports announcing job, was Greenslade worried about his First Amendment rights? (In this case, they also didn’t apply, as the network is not an arm of the government.) My guess is that Greenslade would have approved of Limbaugh getting fired.
June 11th, 2010 at 9:14 am
http://www.jpost.com/Home/Article.aspx?id=177668
Here is an open letter to Helen Thomas from Yoram Dori-(Jerusalem Post)-which says it all.
Worth reading
June 13th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
Imagine the outrage if she had told the Palestinians to go back where they came from
June 15th, 2010 at 12:09 am
The leftists of Europe and America are useful idiots who will be next on the Jihadists Menu. By then, there will be nowhere to hide.