Tough one. Where do you draw the line on what's acceptable and what's not. I defend the right of anyone to criticize Israel. Given recent history however, "Tell them to get the hell out and go back to Germany and Poland" (which is not a quote but my paraphrase of her comments) was perhaps a bit extreme, given that Germany and Poland were centres of the Holocaust. But it raises the question as to whether Western society in general is still so guilt-ridden over the Holocaust (and other hideous anti-Jewish policies) that we tiptoe away from legitimate criticism of Israel.

Surely criticizing (even vehemently) the policies of the State of Israel doesn't make one anti-Jewish? And, as Witch rightly points out, the whole thing is driven by the bizarre attachment the fundamentalist Christian community (which is very powerful in the US) has for the existence of Israel as some sort of prophetic sign (notwithstanding the fact that the modern State of Israel is not biblical Israel.) So you have a powerful combination of historic feelings of guilt plus (in the US at least) the political reality that the Christian right is very powerful making it difficult to treat Israel like any other country.

Helen Thomas is a victim of that. She's not a completely innocent victim (as I said, I think her comments were a bit extreme) but she is a victim - her dismissal is a symptom of a problem that makes the free and rational exchange of ideas and beliefs (and disagreements) about Israeli policies and actions virtually impossible.

 The problem with her statement is that  it appeared she was advocating the death of  all Israeli Jews.

There are almost no Jews left in Germany or Poland.  Jews started leaving these and other European before WW2, the largest numbers ended up in Palestine, because other countries like Canada had a zero limit on Jewish immigration. At the time these two countries and Russia were home to the largest Jewish communities in the world.  Those Jews who did not leave Poland and Germany before WW2 were all killed.   

I got the impression she was dealing a slap on the head to her rabbi interviewer. I think he'd pissed her off. And what she apparently said was not, of itself, anti-semitic. It was stupid, given the context in which she said it, and historically inept. But the reaction to it was hysterical paranoia. If she didn't think that through, it reflects poorly on her journalistic good sense. Maybe she's past it. A journalist is or should be trained to measure the words s/he writes or says against the demeanour of his/her audience. It's fine to push the buttons if the occasion demands it but I don't get what her intention was.

I was trained as a journalist in New Zealand in the early 1970s. Joining a political party or taking part in a political demonstration were a firing offences. We were taught to represent any point of view as fairly and as clearly as possible and balance every story. Repeated spelling mistakes got people fired, factual inaccuracy always did.

Then along came Murdoch and a recognition that the reader wants to be grabbed, shocked, entertained, bollocksed. And I got out of mainstream journalism to work in niches where I could do what I was trained to de because I felt  journalism was about careful presentation of information, bearing in mind that a single story was part of an ongoing reality and what held good one day should be checked the next, and that there was a big difference between "facts" and "information" and "truth" (flawed journalistic truth), that no-one ever says precisely what they think or mean and professionalism meant taking all of nthat seriously.

So I think she reveals a serious crap-out side of her professional integrity. If she blurts out remarks like that, she's lost the plot as a journalist.

As a person, it's different. She clearly has issues beyond the best possible way forward in the Middle East but, by and large and applying a stereotype to it all, I have found it difficult to find a generally moderate American: their culture has an energy which has amazingly good sides to it, but it means that you'll find moderate , sensible liberals who think absolutely everyone should be a moderate sensible liberal or be shot. It's hard to discuss stuff with many of them.

See? We're so free that even generic can speak his mind. Can't do that in the US. Oh, you can spew hatred at moslems all you like. You can call their countries shitholes. You can call them murdering bastards. You'l get applause.

But with just one word out of place, the most distinguished white house reporter is dropped like a hot rock.

Twll you what, generic. Just in the interests of science - why don't you cross the border, criticize Israel in public - and see what happens? Then call moslem countries shitholes, and maybe they'll forgive you. and let you live.

I have been in the ME. You guessed wrong.

I don't think you're right wing. I think you're highly biased. But the term right wing means nothing in today's world. It applied only to those who sat to one of side of the speaker in the revolutionary French legislature.

 You probably think you're a conservative, too. But that's because you don't know what conservative means, either. In any case, liberal and conservative, right wing and left wing have nothing to do with it.

But you're right.It is the fault of the Palestinians who have made Gaza such a shit-hole. And that despite 60 years of Israel trying to  help them.

Next time you're thinking, explain to us exactly why the US offers such massive support to Israel. Why has it never offered similar support to places like Haiti and Guatemala? Why did Israel maintain such close ties to South Africa in the apartheid days? Why did Saudis promise to open their skies to Israel bombers en route to Iran? Are the Saudis anti-moslem? Since all the 9/11 bombers were Saudis, why didn't the US retaliate against Saudi Arabia?

Obviously, you feel a certain moral fire about all this. But you need understanding to go along with your morality.

graeme

It is happening, particularly among Jewish Americans, if not so much among Jewish Canadians.

Unfortunately, so far as American political and business (same thing) leadership is concerned, religion of any sort has nothing to do with it. Israel is the only stable ally the US has in the region - and the region is vital to US control of oil. (Saudi Arabia is not so stable as it looks; dictatorships are always vulnerable.)

That's why Mrs. Cheney, the former VP's wife, who had enormous influence on business donations to universities, put on her black list any university that had a professor a McCarthyite group called Campus Watch posted as anti-semite or pro-palestinian.

Be assured you will see no news of any of this in the American news media, t hough. The same people who buy off the congressmen also own the news media.

We have a model of hte same system here in New Brunswick. One family, the Irvings, have both liberal and conservative parties safely on a leash. They not only powerfully influence what money gets spent and where and on what, they actually dictate the programmes of the whole public school system.