# Helen Thomas Forcibly Retired **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 7, 2010, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helen-thomas-forcibly-retired/542299 "2010-06-07T17:06:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helen-thomas-forcibly-retired/542299/81 "2010-06-07T21:12:57Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > She’s saying that people who are (by her lights) invaders should be expelled. Their ethnicity is neither here nor there. Whatever you think of the sentiment (which I’m sure that even she knows is impractical and unreasonable at this point), it’s still a political sentiment, not a racial one. I invaded Israel straight out of my mother’s womb? I mean, I’m badass, but I’m not THAT badass. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helen-thomas-forcibly-retired/542299/82 "2010-06-07T21:17:36Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > I asked a serious question as to whether there is a scholarly ethnic group of “Israelis” and if you had a cite. > > I resent Israelis because of what they are doing to the Palestinians. I do not resent them because of their birth. I resent them because they have done all these things in the name of protecting Jews when I get the distinct feeling that they do not care about any Jews but themselves. I resent Israelis because their conduct whips up Anti-Semitic hatreds by people who do not make a distinction between Jews and Israelis. It puts me and my future generations in danger because what Hitler did can happen again. > > And you say for the first time that I have ever heard that Israelis are an ethnic group, where I have only seen before a political group. I am skeptical because I have seen before that you will use _ **any** _ rhetorical device or trick to do what you deem to be defending Israel. > > So I ask again, is this a scholarly studied ethnic group, or an ethnic group you have pulled out of your hat as an arguing device? Or something else. > > Cause I resent Israelis the political group, not an ethnic group. Again: define an ethnic group. Please. Let me put it this way: I’ve lived outside of Israel. But even when I was living on the U.S., I was still an Israeli, and never an American Jew. No offense, but I never had much in common with those people. Being Israeli is not a matter of politics, it’s my essential nature; hating me for being Israeli is hating me for being who I am, not what I do. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helen-thomas-forcibly-retired/542299/83 "2010-06-07T21:18:16Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Was she ambushed? Absolutely. Puh-leeze. A man with a video camera and a microphone walked up to her on the street and asked her to take part in a video. You know what that’s called in journalism? **AN INTERVIEW**. Not an ambush. INTERVIEW. An ambush is reporters waiting in front of someone’s house to ask ‘is it true you’re cheating on your wife?’ or Bill O’Reilly’s producer trying to trap someone on a bus to ask him some leading questions about the scandal of the day. It’s a situation where you are deliberately catching someone off guard or making them uncomfortable with the hope of getting an unexpected answer or making them look bad. That’s an ambush. And it’s worth claiming that Thomas hasn’t put forth any of these preposterous excuses either. And I wouldn’t expect her to, either. > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > She’s saying that people who are (by her lights) invaders should be expelled. Their ethnicity is neither here nor there. Whatever you think of the sentiment (which I’m sure that even she knows is impractical and unreasonable at this point), it’s still a political sentiment, not a racial one. If this is true it’s only because you mentioned racial and ethnic groups and left off religious ones. She indicates repeatedly that she’s talking about Jews. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helen-thomas-forcibly-retired/542299/84 "2010-06-07T21:19:18Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Ah, the internet: where everything is a clever trick no matter how obvious it is. Thomas has been interviewing people for something like 60 years, but you’re asking me to believe she’s so stupid she didn’t notice this subtle manipulation. I’ll give her a little more credit. I’m not going to call her a Nazi bitch or anything but I don’t think she said anything she didn’t mean because she misunderstood the question. > > The interviewed asked her to elaborate on her answer _three freaking times_, and he even gives her a hint she’s said something offensive by saying “Ooooh. Any better comments?” He does not mention Jews until it’s obvious that’s who she was talking about. Unless you can think of some other group of people who might’ve immigrated to Israel from Germany and Poland. > The excuses increase in lameness. She fucked up and said something stupid. Nobody made her do anything. > Who is Israel? How do you get a country out of another country and send “them” back to three other countries? I think you have answered your own question. You think that it is fair to badger someone with a bait and switch that assumes facts not in evidence. I don’t. I don’t like her answer, and you “can’t un-ring the bell”, but that doesn’t mean that the question was fair, it wasn’t. If you take out the emotional content and replace it with “q” and “p” and take it to any logic professor, you will get a ruling of a fallacy. In a court, if you object before the question is answered, it will be sustained. But my sense of fairness and even-handedness is different from your sense of fairness and even-handedness. The factual context does matter a great deal, but proper professional conduct does to. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helen-thomas-forcibly-retired/542299/85 "2010-06-07T21:22:02Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Puh-leeze. A man with a video camera and a microphone walked up to her on the street and asked her to take part in a video. You know what that’s called in journalism? **AN INTERVIEW**. Not an ambush. INTERVIEW. An ambush is reporters waiting in front of someone’s house to ask ‘is it true you’re cheating on your wife?’ or Bill O’Reilly’s producer trying to trap someone on a bus to ask him some leading questions about the scandal of the day. It’s a situation where you are deliberately catching someone off guard or making them uncomfortable with the hope of getting an unexpected answer or making them look bad. That’s an ambush. > > And it’s worth claiming that Thomas hasn’t put forth any of these preposterous excuses either. And I wouldn’t expect her to, either. > If this is true it’s only because you mentioned racial and ethnic groups and left off religious ones. She indicates repeatedly that she’s talking about Jews. It’s an ambush if someone misquotes me in a question back to me. Remove the emotional content and subject matter and try this in a logic class or a courtroom. See what happens. Or do it with someone you know on a different subject matter. The end does not justify the means. That you think it does and that the misconduct of the reporter doesn’t bother you at all speaks poorly of you. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helen-thomas-forcibly-retired/542299/86 "2010-06-07T21:28:12Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > I know it’s beyond politically incorrect to say so, but the formation of a modern Jewish state in Palestine was a morally muddled event at best. That’s true enough. > [@Marley23](#): > > Because if there were already Jews living there, ‘the Jews should go home’ is not just impractical or lacking in nuance, it’s completely stupid. Yes. > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > The equivalent would be with saying that white people should get out of South Africa. That would be stupid and unjust as well. Today’s black and white South Africans share the same right to live in peace, security and justice, as do today’s Palestinians and Israelis. All of them are right to feel the land is theirs. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helen-thomas-forcibly-retired/542299/87 "2010-06-07T21:28:20Z")
Now that I read it again I don’t even think there is a bait and switch. She says ‘They’ should move back home. So the reporter asks her to clarify ‘The jews [in Israel] should go back to Poland and Germany?’ Since she isn’t being clear, I see no problem with t he reporter’s question. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helen-thomas-forcibly-retired/542299/88 "2010-06-07T21:35:06Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I think that supports my take on it. Although I thought people were saying she also said something about the U.S. Did you read the last line? ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_Ellis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/977dab/32.png) [@Michael\_Ellis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael_Ellis)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helen-thomas-forcibly-retired/542299/89 "2010-06-07T21:49:48Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > There were Jews in that region before Israel was created, weren’t there? Yes, which makes her remarks stupid and ill-informed but probably not intentionally anti-Semitic. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helen-thomas-forcibly-retired/542299/90 "2010-06-07T21:52:32Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Again: define an ethnic group. Please. > > Let me put it this way: I’ve lived outside of Israel. But even when I was living on the U.S., I was still an Israeli, and never an American Jew. No offense, but I never had much in common with those people. Being Israeli is not a matter of politics, it’s my essential nature; hating me for being Israeli is hating me for being who I am, not what I do. Well no. You asserted that Israeli’s were an ethnic group. As far as I know, they aren’t. I would strongly consider that if there are peer reviewed journal articles in anthropological studies made by those outside of of an ethnic group for scientific purposes (not political purposes) that would be evidence of an ethnic group. The more such articles in more journals by more authors reviewed by a wider peer group, the better the evidence. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helen-thomas-forcibly-retired/542299/91 "2010-06-07T21:56:49Z")
> [@Gangster\_Octopus](#): > > Now that I read it again I don’t even think there is a bait and switch. She says ‘They’ should move back home. So the reporter asks her to clarify ‘The jews [in Israel] should go back to Poland and Germany?’ Since she isn’t being clear, I see no problem with t he reporter’s question. No, that is parsing it and editing it. Repeat the entire exchange. If it is on video or audio, link to the whole thing. Her remarks were insensitive with respect to Poland and Germany, but not as insensitive as the editing, which leaves out US would have it. And the way it is presented in GO’s quote leaves it vague as to who switched from Israelis to Jews. It is not a long exchange, and she does not come off smelling like a rose, there is no need to edit it to make it more damnable than it actually is. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helen-thomas-forcibly-retired/542299/92 "2010-06-07T22:08:17Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Well no. You asserted that Israeli’s were an ethnic group. As far as I know, they aren’t. > > I would strongly consider that if there are peer reviewed journal articles in anthropological studies made by those outside of of an ethnic group for scientific purposes (not political purposes) that would be evidence of an ethnic group. The more such articles in more journals by more authors reviewed by a wider peer group, the better the evidence. The word ethnic group has absolutely nothing to do with science. It’s the sociological conceit: if they consider themselves an ethnic group, they are. Just like everyone who self-identifies as Christian is Christian. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helen-thomas-forcibly-retired/542299/93 "2010-06-07T22:09:29Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > No, that is parsing it and editing it. Repeat the entire exchange. If it is on video or audio, link to the whole thing. Her remarks were insensitive with respect to Poland and Germany, but not as insensitive as the editing, which leaves out US would have it. And the way it is presented in GO’s quote leaves it vague as to who switched from Israelis to Jews. It is not a long exchange, and she does not come off smelling like a rose, there is no need to edit it to make it more damnable than it actually is. But she keeps saying ‘They’ Who is the 'they she is referring to? Israeli Jews, presumably. So he asks the “The Jews…” How is it a bait and switch, what is he saying that she is not agreeing to. Its not like she meant sojjething else but he got her by switching to Jews…she meant the Jews. How is that a bait-and-switch? He was actually asking her to clarify. They should move back to Poland and Germany. They? The Jews. Yes, the Jews. Is anyone seriously arguing that is not what she meant…the Jews in Israel should move back to Poland and Germand…and America? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helen-thomas-forcibly-retired/542299/94 "2010-06-07T22:14:40Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > You think that it is fair to badger someone with a bait and switch that assumes facts not in evidence. And you think loaded words like “ambush,” “badger” and “bait and switch” are a substitute for a coherent argument, which they are not. She was asked, repeatedly, to clarify what she meant. If she’d just said “Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine,” it would be a different story. I would have thought she was talking about the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and I wouldn’t have a problem with it. > [@](#): > > If you take out the emotional content and replace it with “q” and “p” and take it to any logic professor, you will get a ruling of a fallacy. But there’s no replacement. He asked her a question and then asked follow up questions to clarify the meaning of her answer. That’s not substituting one term for another. > [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > It’s an ambush if someone misquotes me in a question back to me. I think I see the problem here: not only do you use loaded words, you don’t know what they mean. He did not misquote her. His question was actually longer than her answer. This is called asking for clarification. And what really screws up your argument that he’s pulling a bait and switch is _the fact that she provides the clarification and doesn’t dispute what he says_. So you think a misquote is asking “When you said X, did you mean XYZ?” . Badgering them, then, is using this tactic several times in a row, which most other people would call doing an interview. An ambush is badgering someone with misquotes while on camera. And baiting and switching would be moving from one topic to another. > [@Contrapuntal](#): > > Did you read the last line? Yes. I missed it the first time and saw it when I re-read the post. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helen-thomas-forcibly-retired/542299/95 "2010-06-07T22:21:18Z")
“Wasn’t I wearing a hat?” ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helen-thomas-forcibly-retired/542299/96 "2010-06-07T22:26:33Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Again: define an ethnic group. Please. > > Let me put it this way: I’ve lived outside of Israel. But even when I was living on the U.S., I was still an Israeli, and never an American Jew. No offense, but I never had much in common with those people. Being Israeli is not a matter of politics, it’s my essential nature; hating me for being Israeli is hating me for being who I am, not what I do. As John Stewart once said “I’m not talking about those ‘hey, let me help you with your taxes’ Jews. I’m talking about the ‘hey, hold my machine gun while I take a piss’ kind of Jews.” [http://folk.uio.no/geirthe/Ethnicity.html](http://folk.uio.no/geirthe/Ethnicity.html) I think this is an interesting, albeit long, article about ethnicity. I don’t really have a problem thinking of Israeli people as being an ethnic group that is separate and distinctive from the Palestinians or other people living in the region. I have no problem thinking of the Palestinians as a group that are separate and distinctive from other Arabs. Ethnic identity can often be complicated and is more fluid than we might think. Odesio ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helen-thomas-forcibly-retired/542299/97 "2010-06-07T22:36:12Z")
The idea that she was talking about anything other than Israeli Jews is absurd. “Germany” and “Poland” didn’t provide Israel with immigrants of any other stripe. But the thing that is amazing is that someone as well informed as she should be about geopolitics doesn’t understand that a good chunk of Israeli Jews came from places they can’t go back to-- ie, Arab countries that wouldn’t have them. Not to mention we’re talking about the parents and grandparents, in many cases, of Israeli-born Jews. And coming from an American, whose own country’s history is not too different, it’s just ignorant. It reminds me of religious people who deride the Mormons, simply because their story book is 150 years old instead of 2000 years old. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helen-thomas-forcibly-retired/542299/98 "2010-06-07T22:38:50Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > But the thing that is amazing is that someone as well informed as she should be about geopolitics doesn’t understand that a good chunk of Israeli Jews came from places they can’t go back to-- ie, Arab countries that wouldn’t have them. Not to mention we’re talking about the parents and grandparents, in many cases, of Israeli-born Jews. That’s a good point. Syria and Yemen expelled the Jews whose families had been living there for generations. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helen-thomas-forcibly-retired/542299/99 "2010-06-07T22:54:13Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > As John Stewart once said “I’m not talking about those ‘hey, let me help you with your taxes’ Jews. I’m talking about the ‘hey, hold my machine gun while I take a piss’ kind of Jews.” > [http://folk.uio.no/geirthe/Ethnicity.html](http://folk.uio.no/geirthe/Ethnicity.html) > I think this is an interesting, albeit long, article about ethnicity. I don’t really have a problem thinking of Israeli people as being an ethnic group that is separate and distinctive from the Palestinians or other people living in the region. I have no problem thinking of the Palestinians as a group that are separate and distinctive from other Arabs. Ethnic identity can often be complicated and is more fluid than we might think. > > Odesio Exactly. I’m perfectly willing to accept the Palestinians as an ethnic group. But answer me this: if I were to declare myself to be anti-Palestinian, would people here call me racist? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helen-thomas-forcibly-retired/542299/100 "2010-06-07T23:20:31Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > If this is true it’s only because you mentioned racial and ethnic groups and left off religious ones. She indicates repeatedly that she’s talking about Jews. Only Israeli Jews and only _because_ they’re in Israel, She was making no statement about either ethnicity or religion in themselves. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helen-thomas-forcibly-retired/542299.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helen-thomas-forcibly-retired/542299.md?page=6)