Detroit, MI – The sisters of Helen Thomas say her statements about Israel — which cost the White House correspondent-turned-Hearst columnist her job — have been widely misinterpreted.
In a telephone interview initiated by Journal-isms, three of them said Thomas was not calling for the destruction of Israel or the return of all Israelis to Europe or the United States, as has been the running narrative, but was expressing her opposition to the disputed Israeli settlements on Palestinian land.
“They should stop confiscating the land that belonged to the Palestinians. We feel that there should be a two-state solution in Palestine,” said one sister, who did not want to be identified. The sisters, who spoke from the home of one of them in the Detroit area, which houses the nation’s largest concentration of Arab Americans, range in age from 87 to 95. Thomas is 89. A brother is 100. The family is Lebanese-American.
“Helen Thomas is for peaceful coexistence in the Palestinian territory,” said Barbara Isaac, the youngest sister. “What she does not like is that the Palestinians have been completely devastated and made to live under occupation and all the deleterious effects, and the hazardous effects of that, stripped of their ability to live normal lives.
“Helen has lived with this problem for as long as she’s been in Washington,” she said. Displaced Palestinians become waiters and cooks there, “and would talk to her, and she’s heard nothing but their stories of horror for 60 years,” Isaac said, referencing the creation of Israel in 1948. “She’s out to dinner and they find her.
“If nobody got angry about injustice, then people just go on suffering, knowing that nobody gives a damn.”
According to the sisters, the reference to going home to Poland, Germany and America refers to those who have populated the disputed Israeli settlements.
Helen Thomas was not talking calls, her sisters said, giving a hint at what her life has been like in the past few days. “She has so many bouquets of flowers they can’t get into her condo,” Isaac said.
Isaac said she was eager to talk because she believed her sister’s personality was being misrepresented.
“She doesn’t hate anybody,” Isaac said. One of the older sisters recalled that during the Holocaust, Thomas closely followed first lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s efforts to bring German Jews to the United States. “She was very upset about the whole thing, and she had fed them in her apartment building when I used to visit her back in the ‘40s. They were in the concentration camps. She’s very close to all that.
(Source: The Root)
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16 Responses
“She was very upset about the… Holocaust”.
WOW! What what a tzadekes! She was upset.
And to think, that just because (I heard with my own liitle ears) her say that the Jews in Israel are on occupied land and should go back to poland and germany, I somehow got the idea that she is a machshayfa!
Silly, silly me.
“Some of my best friends are Jews.”
The sisters are covering up for Helen. They are a bunch of liars.
#1 She SAID ALL Jews should leave Israel and “go back to Poland and Germany etc…”
This was not ‘just’ the West Bank (Judea actually, or Gaza is Judea, one of those two) or anything like that.
#2 The Arabs stole the land from the Jews so even the revisionist history of what she said, she is still spreading antisemitioc lies (or her sisters are doing it on her bahalf).
#3 If she was not a “hater” she would have so many supporters who are and who were sending death threats to the Rabbi whop exposed her with his video from his cell phone.
Meant to say fopr #3 That if she were not a “hater” she would NOT, have had so many supporters who are so fuill of hate and antisemitism that they sent all these death threats to the rabbi.
A message to the LOVING SISTERS: Have her speak out against terrorism in Israel, bloody fatal bus bombings, street attacks Arabs against Jews, rock throwing and more. If she is plagued by the injustice of Israel she should be screaming about Gilad Shalit and the nerve of LEBANON to send back two precious sons in coffins. She is a racist, bigot as all her Lebanese family is proving to be.
How she ever met a Terror victim’s family who have come to raise money in America? or Israelis that are living in caravans since they were expelled from their homes.
Now she’s trying to recant. Let’s see, she said that “the Jews should get the hell out of Palestine.”
And when asked where they should go to instead, she suggested countries that slaughtered the Jews. After a bit more prodding she added “and the United States.”
I guess losing her job hurts a bit eh?
Perhaps Helen & her sister should review the “poor Palestinians” plight and suggest that Eygpt or Jordan absorb them. After all they would have a lot more land and space to build themselves up. Why should they live a cramped life in tiny Israel?
check it out! same nose!!!
LOOK AT WHAT THESE DOGS ARE SAYING!!!!!
They are saying the same thing! They DRIP with HATRED. Look at their own words!!
The question is why they were zoche to ari’chas yomim???
All the debate can stop because there is more to the video which nobody saw yet and will be released next week.
When we all see the rest of Helen the anti semite exchange we will be in for a shocker. If you thought that this video was something when we see the rest you will say to yourself she should have been picked up by secret service agents and thrown out the window right then and there.
Displaced Palestinians??????? These women are old enough to know where these Palestinians came from. They weren’t displaced by the Israelis! They were displaced by their own Arab brothers who wouldn’t accept them into their own countries as citizens and still won’t! Egypt won’t take them, Jordon won’t take them and neither will Lebanon, Syria, or Saudia Arabia when each one owned a piece of tiny Israel so again, who exactly displaced them?????
THERE IS NO PALESTINE! And there are no Palestinians! They don’t exist as a “nation”! Why don’t these Arabs go back to the countries they ran from? They aren’t from a country that doesn’t exist.
Tell Helen thomas to go back where she came from which is#
Lebannon: why just the Jews. Hitler Yemach SHemo told the Jews to go back to Eretz Yisrael now which is it. The rashoia told the Jews to go back to Poland, Germany and the United States while Hilter say go to Eretz Yisrael. Helen which shall we do. On the same token why are you still in the United States go back to your home land Lebannon. What is go for the Jews is good for you and your sister.
O poor helen how can anybody misconstrue what you sad ,,such liars. your really such a nice puts–ahh i mean person, The press is soooooo mean to you.
To Mark Levin: that’s an easy one. Isn’t the standard answer that one might just be getting it all in this world?