PAUL MCCARTNEY: Helen – Hell on wheels
ain't nobody else gonna know the way she feels.
Helen hell on wheels
and they never gonna take her away.
RABBI DAVID NESSENOFF: Any comments on Israel….
HELEN THOMAS: Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine.
NESSENOFF: Ooh. Any better comments?
THOMAS: Remember, these people are occupied and it's their land. It's not German. It's not Poland.
NESSENOFF: So where should they go? What should they do?
THOMAS: They can go home.
NESSENOFF: Where's their home?
THOMAS: Poland. Germany.
NESSENOFF: So they should just go back to Poland and Germany.
THOMAS: And America, and everywhere else.
Firing Helen Thomas is cruel; I favor a merciful solution:
“Calling Dr. Kevorkian!” –Posted yesterday on Gate’s Facebook Page.
A friend, who advocates Thomas’ firing, nonetheless responds: “This is brutal.”
Perhaps, but I was merely trying to imply that Ms. Thomas was clearly in the advance stages of dementia, and that pulling the plug was simply an act of mercy. After all, only someone who was demented could say such a thing.
Then, another friend, who opposes Thomas's firing wrote:
“Frankly, I am surprised at this. She's expressing an opinion held by many. How does this make her a bigot?”
How does one respond?
Apparently, some people think the debate should not be over Israel’s actions (of which I’ve been somewhat critical), but instead over Israel’s existence. And like many on the left (and sometimes elsewhere) they take the Marcy Winograd stance, which is essentially:
“One state solution? Two state solution? No state solution? Whatever works?”
Hell, why not add “Final Solution”?
Like right wing Zionists, they do not make the distinction.
I happen to favor a two-state solution, but for many (on the left and elsewhere) one gets the feeling that nuance is not important as long as one makes the Jews disappear.
Go back to Poland? Using that logic, we should perhaps repatriate to Brownsville and Crown Heights the descendants of all the Jews who lived there in the 30s too. We could always send those they’d need to displace back where they came from too, and eventually, we’d all end up back in Africa.
Lou Dobbs would be proud.
Philip Roth once wrote an entire novel "Operation Shylock," in which repatriating Israelis to the Diaspora was treated as the absurd delusions of a lunatic.
Now it is treated by some as a glorious example of free speech.
What would not qualify as such, then? Reinstituting slavery?
There are lots of opinions held by many, the expression of which makes one a bigot .
Back in the 1990's, Domestic Partner’s aunt wanted to honor at Yad Vashem the family who hid her (and the woman who later became my mother in law) in an attic. The only surviving member of the family to be honored was only a little girl at the time of the war, but she would not accept the honor, because she was afraid her neighbors would find out her family had hidden Jews.
Fifty years later, and she still lived in fear that her family’s brave and unspeakable acts of loving-kindness would be revealed.
This week, I’ve watched writer after writer complain of Israel and Jews having a “Holocaust Mentality” as if such concerns were patently absurd.
Are they really?