The propagandists for the Israel Lobby, who occupy the Wall Street Journal editorial page while pretending to be journalists, are determined to remove Helen Thomas from the annals of journalism. In case you have already forgotten, a few days ago the distinguished career of Helen Thomas, the 89-year-old doyen of the White House Press Corps, was ended by the Israel Lobby, which made an issue about her opinion that immigrant Jews should leave Palestine and go back to their home countries.
The White House Correspondents’ Association fell in line with the demands of the Israel Lobby, and the cowardly president of the organization added the association’s disapprobation to that of the neoconservative cabal.
Having removed Helen Thomas from the journalism scene, the Israel Lobby is now working with its agents on the Wall Street Journal editorial page to eliminate the Helen Thomas Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Society of Professional Journalists.
A nonentity in the world of journalism, James Taranto, apparently is associated with the Wall Street Journal editorial page, although Wikipedia reports that he was incapable of graduating from journalism school at California State University, Northridge. On a Wall Street Journal web site, Taranto writes: “We’ve been calling Thomas ‘American journalism’s crazy old aunt in the attic’ for years,” and he asks who would now accept the Helen Thomas award after Ms. Thomas revealed she really was crazy by criticizing Israel.
I would for one. Of course the Society of Professional Journalists would never give the award, assuming the distinguished award survives the assault of the Israel Lobby’s assassins, to a critic of Israel. Helen excepted, American journalists are cowards. With the concentrated ownership of the corporate media today, no independently-minded journalist can have a career in print or TV media. You defend the Washington/Tel Aviv line, or you are out of work.
The absence of independently-minded journalists on the Wall Street Journal editorial page is an extraordinary change from my days as Associate Editor of that page. The editorial page editor, Robert Bartley was ambitious and forced himself to tolerate talented colleagues. Mere opinion was not our task. Often we scooped the reporters on the news side of the paper. Our editorials reported new developments and provided factual analysis.
I was hired as Jude Wanniski’s replacement. Jude, Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal, was fired, allegedly because the journal’s brass caught him handing out election campaign literature on a train platform, but if you believe American journalism was ever that pure, I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale.
Jude was fired, because the neoconservatives got rid of him by telling Bartley that Wanniski was over-shadowing him. That was too much for Bob’s ego. Jude, of course, being a real journalist, was objective toward the Palestinians and thus had earned the enmity of the Israel Lobby.
Once Bob was rapidly declining with prostate cancer, neoconservatives engineered the takeover of the editorial page. Today the once proud Wall Street Journal editorial page is a leading apologist for Israeli/American war crimes and police states.
To return to the nonentity, James Taranto, who wants to throw Helen Thomas down the memory hole: Helen Thomas’ opinion that Israelis should stop stealing the villages, homes, and lands of Palestinians, while confining Palestinians to the equivalent of the Warsaw Ghetto, is equated by Taranto to the advocacy of “ethnic cleansing” by Helen.
Of course, it is the Israelis who are doing the ethnic cleansing. Many Jews have documented Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, such as Uri Avnery, a former member of the Israeli terrorist organization, Irgun, Ilan Pappe, Israel’s most distinguished historian and author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, and the Israeli peace group, ICHAD, who have been my house guests. The Israeli newspaper, Haaratz, is far more critical of Israeli policy than Helen Thomas, and so is MIT professor Noam Chomsky, the distinguished British journalist and film maker John Pilger, and the distinguished scholar, Norman Finkelstein, the son of Holocaust survivors.
But Taranto prefers an 89-year old adversary.
Israel is an unnatural state. It was created by terror that was accommodated by craven British and US “diplomacy.” Israel exists for one reason only: the US government provides the money, weapons, and diplomatic protection. Any other government that murdered thousands of civilians in other countries, as Israel does routinely in Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank, would have its entire government and military on trial before the War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague. Israelis have no worst enemy than their own government.
Every time the rest of the world tries to hold the Israeli government accountable for its crimes, the US vetoes the UN resolution. America has become the enabler of the zionist-hijacked Israeli government. And the Israeli government knows it. Israeli government leaders have publicly bragged for decades about their control over the US government. US Admiral Tom Moorer, Chief of Naval Operations and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff after whom the F-14 “Tomcat” jet fighter was named, declared publicly: “No American President can stand up to Israel.” Apparently no American journalist can either.
I am a critic of Israel’s heartless policy toward the Palestinians, but I do not want Israel destroyed. I want it moved or reformed. Bring the small number of Israelis to America before there is a nuclear war over the fact that they are where they should not be. To try to claim a land and dispossess its people on the basis of a spurious two thousand year year old deed is an audacious act of conquest and dispossession.
My proposal to relocate Israelis in the US is rhetorical, but why not insist that the Israelis, who are heavily dependent on US largess, reform? Why should Americans support an apartheid racist state that denies citizenship to the rightful inhabitants? What kind of morality, if any, does the Wall Street Journal editorial page represent when it defends Israelis who force Palestinians into ever-shrinking ghettos, deprived of water, food, medical care and schools? Why must Palestinians live in dread of Israeli bulldozers arriving to flatten their homes in order to create space for zionist “settlers.”
Allegedly, the US is a superpower, but in fact it is a puppet state of the Israeli government. Witness, for example (the examples are numerous), the fate of the Goldstone Report on Israeli war crimes committed in Israel’s assault on Gaza during December 2008-January 2009. Goldstone is a zionist Jew and a distinguished judge. He was given the task by the United Nations to investigate the Israeli attack on Gaza. Being an honest person, he provided evidence of Israeli war crimes.
What was the result? The bought-and-paid-for US Congress voted, on the instructions of their master, the Israel Lobby, to deep-six the Goldstone Report by a vote of 344 to 36.
Amazing, isn’t it, there were only 36 US Representatives who were not owned by the Israel Lobby.
Of course, James Taranto serves the Israel Lobby. The Wall Street Journal editorial page, not even a shadow of its former self, when it speaks, speaks for Israel and for the Bush/Cheney militarist police state.
The Wall Street Journal editorial page has fallen into the low ranks of Brownshirt propaganda. The fact that management tolerates the continuation of totally nonobjective journalism shows why print newspapers are failing everywhere.
The hubris of Taranto, a mere propagandist who will never come close to the league in which Helen Thomas resides, causes him to think that he is fit to pass judgment on a real journalist. Taranto epitomizes the hubris of the neoconservatives. Not a single one of them has the smallest accomplishment. Yet, blinded with arrogance, they remain in ignorant bliss of their status as prostitutes.
I THINK YOU NEED TO GET THE INDIANS OFF THE RESERVATIONS AND BACK ON TO THEIR LANDS AND GET THE HELL OUT OF NORTH AMERICA
Taranto is a Jew, you know.
No he’s not but he rules anyway!
Wow…an awful lot of space devoted to ad hominem attacks against a supposed nonentity propagandist. You also need an editor for this conspiracy theorist rant. The best part was the self-adulation; it made me laugh outright. This author has some serious issues.
Right. And Thomas immediately retired for false reasons because Taranto and all the Jew-controlled world convinced Thomas herself that she was anti-semtic. And not only that, the Jews also–I’m starting to see this power first hand now–convinced the President himself to denounce her hateful comments. My god, their power has no limits.
The Jews made me disbelieve this article.
Sounds like Roberts needs some serious medical attention.
This is a very ambitious story. It is clear that the author has been willing to work tirelessly and brave considerable personal risks to find the truth and bring it to light. However, I think Roberts could have made a more useful contribution to the debate at hand by limiting his scope to detailing what, precisely, was so “distinguished” about Ms. Thomas’s lengthy career.
If it’s not too much to ask, perhaps Mr. Roberts could take a few minutes off from disabusing the hapless public of its rosy conceptions of the US and Israeli governments and the major media outlets, and tell us about a few of the most consequential stories which have been broken during the last several decades, thanks to Ms. Thomas’s distinguished journalistic efforts.
Hmm. The headline suggests this “article” is about the extraordinary achievements of someone named Helen Thomas. It’s anything but.
I suppose if Ms. Thomas had ever done anything worthy of your appreciation, other than Jew bashing, you would not have had to waste so much space bashing Taranto. No matter how much you try to tell us what a great journalist you are, ad hominem attacks do not make great journalism, perhaps you would do well to go drop out of Cal State yourself.
I love conspiracy theories laced with ad hominem attacks, but this one fell way short of good theory. Where were the references to mind-control and alien abduction. It is clear that Jews are also involved in that. I’ve seen the award-winning documentary “Men in Black.” I know the real story. You can’t fool me. Roberts is really from another galaxy. And Thomas is from another universe.
You express a major professional slur against a journalist with no evidence. This is par for the course for your type: character assassination and propaganda for the sake of political gain. I have read Taranto for over ten years and he is nobody’s toady. You, on the other hand, are exhibit A in the freak show of so-called journalistic ethics.
This must be the world record for the number of times the term “Israel Lobby” appears in one article. Sorry, the Jews made me say that. Gotta put my aluminum foil hat back on.
A proud former WSJ’er defending the hag Thomas to the hilt–this is like a materialist dialectic, or something
James Taranto called me a “Lefty for Ahmadinejad” because I wrote that the Iranian election was not stolen by Ahmadinejad (there’s no evidence it was) and that there was a propaganda campaign to convince people it was.
I’m with Dr. Roberts on this one.
No wonder “Dr.” Roberts is so fond of Helen Thomas. She is also keen on ad-hominem attacks and she is also incapable of making a logical argument.
Well,
Sir Roberts,
I take my hat off to you. Your courage and goodness flowing from your heart is remarkable. You are absolutely correct! 100%
cheers and God bless
You are an Anti-Semite with no grasp on reality, so shame on you! Read up some history. You really would deserve an award named after that senile hater Thomas. Shame on you. You are not fit to talk about James Taranto, you hater.
The columnist is such a “nonentity” that his name is specifically mentioned eight times. What a joke.
Ms. Thomas’ career was not ended by “the Israel Lobby,” but by what she said in front of a $129 Flip camcorder and its subsequent posting on You Tube. The hundreds of thousands of online viewers clearly understood what she was saying, and most didn’t like it one bit.
I also agree with William F, “…what, precisely was so ‘distinguished about Ms. Thomas’s lengthy career.” I’ve observed her for 50 years and can tell you that I never saw anything worthwhile at all.
Here is what I don’t understand: how can a man as seemingly educated and experienced as Dr. Roberts have such a distorted view of the history of Israel?
This article sounds like it’s coming from his butt!
Helen Thomas has been an enemy of not just Israel but the United States for most of her tenure in that coveted, and undeserved, front row seat.
From that lofty sniper’s nest, her tireless attacks on America and America’s allies have been impossible to miss.
The spineless kid-gloves treatement she has enjoyed from administration after administration has been a disgrace. Helen Thomas should long ago have been relocated from the front row back to wherever her fellow travelers at Pravda sit.
It’s hilarious that Roberts cites such suport for his position as wacko leftist-extremist Noam Chomsky or the utterly clueless Goldstone Report. The Goldstone Report was a series of terrorist talking points that served only to deny Israel had any right to self defense after years of terrorist rocket attacks. Not even the “Jew lobby” could achieve the level of near unanimity with with that ridiculous exercise in moral relativism was “deep sixed” by the U.S. Congress.
Regardless of who occupies the Oval Office, the White House is better off without the malign, anti-American, presence of Helen Thomas. Too bad she wasn’t banished decades ago.
Vaya con Diablo Helen.
You too Paul
Wow, strong opinions. The “Israel is an Apartheid state” is well worn, I guess Jimmy Carter has made it acceptable now. But the “Israel as a ward of the US” is in serious need of updating. Israel has more high tech startups than any country except the US over the last 10 years. In lists of amazing tech companies it has more companies than any, again except the US. That’s a pretty good basis for a country and testimony to the hard work of a people. Palestinians had nothing to do with it.
That value is real, but exists in the minds of the Israelis. If, as you wish, you hand over the extensive physical plant of Israel to the Palestinians, and deport or kill the Jewish population, as would likely happen, that value will evaporate (or be transplanted to whatever country receives the refugees). Lacking a purpose, the physical assets will decay and Palestinians will be left with the dust that Israel started with in 1948. Don’t believe it? Just look at what happened when the settlers left Gaza.
Mr. Roberts, I used to have a whole lot of respect for you, but you have gone over the edge. If you know anything about the middle east; then you would know that the Palestinian homeland was established where Jordan is. 75% of its inhabitants are Palestinian. For a further education, please check out:
http://www.factsandlogic.org/
LugNut, Jordan has a high population of Palestinians BECAUSE SO MANY WERE DRIVEN FROM THEIR HOMES IN PALESTINE IN 1948 AND AGAIN IN 1967 IN THE ZIONIST’S ACT OF ETHNIC CLEANSING.
YOU get educated, hypocrite. I suggest you start with “Top Ten Myths About the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”:
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2010/06/17/top-ten-myths-about-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/
I met Mr. Roberts at a 1981 CPAC. He was not quite this insane then but he was well on his way.
“The hubris of Taranto…causes him to think that he is fit to pass judgment on a real journalist..”
Translation: I wish we could go back to the days when the (sniff) professionals could just do their work without worrying about these damn bloggers.
Dear Dr. Roberts,
please do not pay too much attention to ziofascists haters…
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. ”
…….. You are being fought now, then you will ….WIN. I know that.
Bulov
thank you Paul Craig Roberts,
no doubt you have proved you are brave , believe me no other journalist could write what wrote here. i am really impressed with your courage.
you and Helen Thomas deserve a prize for the free press.
thank u very much indeed
Taranto is 10 times the journalist you are, with 100 times the intellect and morals. He is right to mock Thomas, and correct that Israel belongs to the Jews, not the Arabs. There is no such thing as a “Palestinian” and we already have a Two-State Solution. It’s called “Jordan”.
Your remark “There is no such thing as a ‘Palestinian'” is instructive as to your judgment of “intellect” is concerned. As for your opinion of who has more “morals”, the fact that you excuse and support the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and illegal occupation of Arab land pretty much says it all.
http://blog.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2010/06/23/james-taranto-and-the-intellectually-and-morally-inept-media/
Don’t listen what they say (US, Israel) watch what they do.
Who is Paul Craig Roberts?