David Hochman ‘s recent interview of Helen Thomas in Playboy Magazine is definitely worth a read.

Thomas had to “resign” from Hearst Newspapers on June 7 after she was asked by Rabbi David Nesenoff in the White House courtyard to give her comments on Israel. She shot back “Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine,” adding that the Jews “can go home” to “Poland, Germany and America and everywhere else.” (The Simon Weisenthal Centre gave Thomas’s remarks the number one ranking for “Anti-Semetic comment of the year.”)

For her Playboy expose, Thomas is wearing a feiry red sweater (not a very low neckline), red lipstick and matching red nail polish. You can click here to read her epic Playboy interview:

Hochman, who is a Jewish Contributing editor of Playboy, found it amusing (as do I ) that during the interview Thomas presented him a plate of ham sandwiches and then said, “Oh, I hope I haven’t served the wrong thing. ”

Another amusing part is this exchange:

PLAYBOY: So is this how you pictured retirement?

THOMAS:I’m not retired! I was fired. In fact, I’ll die with my boots on. I’m still writing and I’ll continue to write and ask hard questions…[emphasis added]

In another part of the interview, Hochman tells Thomas that some people are wondering if she’s lost her mind. When asked by PLAYBOY if she still has all her “faculties”, she responds, “ I resent that question! I thoroughly resent it. Why are you interviewing me if I’m crazy? It wouldn’t be worth it to you, would it?”

The suggestion that Thomas has lost her mind is not a theory to which I subscribe. Unfortunately, her views are quite consistent with what has been and still is mainstream opinion in the Arab world, and it would be folly to write off her views as the batty utterances of a senile old woman. She is voicing the rejectionist view that there is no place for an Israel, whatever size, in the Middle East. [Thomas’s view is really not terribly different than the view of Hawaida Araf, a much younger Palestinian woman who organized the Flotilla who I interviewed last week: http://www.winnipegjewishreview.com/article_detail.cfm?id=908&sec=1&title=WOMAN_WHO_PLANNED_THE_FLOTILLA_TO_GAZA__WAS_AT_ISRAEL_APARTHEID_WEEK_HERE ]

The difference is that Araf’s views supporting the destruction of Israel are wrapped up in a more slick marketing package that talks about human rights, such that some people aren’t able to decode the message as easily. Araf is not as brazen or as rough around the edges as Thomas is. As an aside, it is worth noting that Thomas’s portrait was unveiled at the Arab American National museum in Michigan after she made the remarks that led to her “resignation.”
In the interview,Thomas also has a rather clear opinion about where Holocaust museums should be, one which I’m sure won’t go over very well with the Jewish world. Here’s the exchange:

PLAYBOY: Do you begrudge people like Steven Spielberg? He created the Shoah Foundation to chronicle the life stories of Holocaust survivors. What’s your feeling about him?

THOMAS: There’s nothing wrong with remembering it, but why do we have to constantly remember? We’re not at fault. I mean, if they’re going to put a Holocaust museum in every city in Germany, that’s fine with me…

The part of the interview where Thomas talks of the all powerful Jewish conspiracy is particularly revealing. Look at this exchange:
PLAYBOY:…. In a speech in Detroit last December, you told an Arab group, “We are owned by the propagandists against the Arabs. There’s no question about that. Congress, the White House and Hollywood, Wall Street, are owned by the Zionists. No question, in my opinion. They put their money where their mouth is. We’re being pushed into a wrong direction in every way.”Do you stand by that statement?
THOMAS: Yes, I do. I know it was horrendous, but I know it’s true. Tell me it’s not true and I’ll be happy to be contradicted. I’m just saying they’re using their power, and they have power in every direction.

PLAYBOY: That stereotype of Jewish control has been around for more than a century. Do you actually think there’s a secret Jewish conspiracy at work in this country?

THOMAS: Not a secret. It’s very open. What do you mean secret?

PLAYBOY: Well, for instance, explain the connection between Hollywood and what’s happening with the Palestinians.

THOMAS: Power over the White House, power over Congress.

PLAYBOY: By way of contributions?

THOMAS: Everybody is in the pocket of the Israeli lobbies, which are funded by wealthy supporters, including those from Hollywood. Same thing with the financial markets. There’s total control. [emphasis added]

One final exchange which reveals what Helen Thomas has to say about a piece written by Jeffrey Goldberg in Altantic Magazine says it all.
PLAYBOY: Do you have a personal antipathy toward Jews themselves?

THOMAS: No. I think they’re wonderful people. They had to have the most depth. They were leaders in civil rights. They’ve always had the heart for others but not for Arabs, for some reason. I’m not anti-Jewish; I’m anti-Zionist. I am anti Israel taking what doesn’t belong to it. If you have a home and you’re kicked out of that home, you don’t come and kick someone else out. Anti-Semite? The Israelis are not even Semites! They’re Europeans, and they’ve come from somewhere else. But even if they were Semites, they would still have no right to usurp other people’s land. There are some Israelis with a conscience and a big heart, but unfortunately they are too few [emphasis added].

PLAYBOY: In the wake of your anti-Israel comments, a blogger from The Atlantic argued there’s really no distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. He wrote, “Thomas was fired for saying that the Jews of Israel should move to Europe, where their relatives had been slaughtered in the most devastating act of genocide in history. She believes that once the Jews are evacuated from their ancestral homeland, the world’s only Jewish country should be replaced by what would be the world’s 23rd Arab country. She believes that Palestinians deserve a country of their own but that the Jews are undeserving of a nation-state in their homeland, which has had a continuous Jewish presence for 3,000 years….”

THOMAS: [Interrupts] Did a Jew write this? [Editor’s note: The writer is Jeffrey Goldberg.]

PLAYBOY: “…and has been the location of two previous Jewish states. This sounds like a very anti-Jewish position to me, not merely an anti-Zionist position.”

THOMAS: This is a rotten piece. I mean it’s absolutely biased and totally–who are these people? Why do they think they’re so deserving? The slaughter of Jews stopped with World War II. I had two brothers and many relatives who fought in that war against Hitler. We believed in it. Every American family was in that fight. But they were liberated since then. And yet they carry on the victimization. American people do not know that the Israeli lobbyists have intimidated them into believing every Jew is a persecuted victim forever–while they are victimizing Palestinians.

One final point. Guess who is one of the people who called Helen Thomas after she was fired ? None other than Jimmy Carter, who Thomas says called “a few weeks later.”
PLAYBOY: He [Carter] did? What did he say?

THOMAS: Basically he was sympathetic. He talked about the Israelis in the Middle East, the violations. It was very nice of him to call, but I don’t want to get him into trouble [emphasis added].

Nice to know that Jimmy Carter found the time to give Hellen Thomas a sympathetic ear. I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation.

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