House

Readers of my commentaries know that I usually send one a week. Last week, however, I sent two because the Helen Thomas incident occurred after I had finished my regular weekly article, and I thought the Thomas affair required a response from me. I called for her to step down, which she did.

The following is a transcript of a TRNN interview with Ralph Nader. You can view the video of the interview here.

Tony Judt's boldly titled New York Times Op-Ed, "Israel Without Clichés" (June 9, 2010), is a wolf in sheep's clothing if ever there was one.

The essay advertises itself as "cleaning house" with respect to the "tired accusations and ritual defenses" typical of Middle-East discussions, as if, in effect, it will even-handedly take on the "clichés" of both sides. In fact it merely reasserts all the "tired accusations" against Israel and dismisses all the "ritual defenses."

No. 1: Israel is being/should be delegitimized

The fact that writing about Helen Thomas just a few days after she resigned feels like old news, tells you something about what's wrong with the media and our country today.

After a journalism career spanning almost seventy years, Thomas was taken down in less than two minutes. Which is the running time of the video where she made the remarks that forced her to resign her job, lose her book collaborator, her lecture agent and have a high school cancel a graduation speech she was scheduled to deliver.

The truth is out there. But who would've expected to find it in a comedy show?

While many Christian churches act as a supportive shill for America's government, and peddle more propaganda about Israel than politicians, the truth exposing the absolute epitome of ignorance and intolerance enveloping America was revealed June 9, 2010 in an episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, for which he deserves a Pulitzer Prize.

Back in 1948, liberals were excited when President Harry Truman took to whistle-stopping and scorching the "do nothing 80th Congress" run by Republicans. "Give 'em hell, Harry," they cried. They loved it, too, when Harry recognized the State of Israel, just eleven minutes after it proclaimed independence. Liberals cared a lot about Israel's precarious existence back then.

So who says Obama can't show anger? Helen Thomas sure made him angry.

A few years ago, Helen Thomas spoke at Brigham Young University, the Mormon school in Provo, Utah, where she was being honored for her long career. In her speech to the student body, her liberal views caused a big controversy on this mostly conservative campus.

Until quite recently, it seemed that Turkey had a clearly defined role in the Middle East, from the standpoint of U.S. policy. They were the "good Muslims," who were part of NATO, who contributed troops to U.S. wars, and who had good relations with Israel.

The IDF's blockade of the Gaza Strip and its interdiction of humanitarian flotillas is ironic in view of recent history. The end of World War II and the liberation of the Nazi death camps left a pool of 500,000 Jewish refugees in Europe. Many wished to emigrate to Palestine, but were barred by immigration restrictions contained in a 1939 British White Paper designed to ensure that a soon-to-be-independent Palestine "would be neither an Arab nor a Jewish state." At war's end, there were 600,000 Jews in Palestine and 1.2 million Arabs.