Reply #141: There's only one answer you want to hear and want to accept

[Chulanowa]

That answer is "That filthy arabushim pigfucking whore is an antisemitic hag who wants to send all the Jews to the camps"

I mean really, maybe a little more invective than you would personally use, but that's clearly the sentiment you're expressing here. The only answer you will accept is that she is an evil, horrible old bag of a Jew-hating Arab. Any other explanation, and I might as well be speaking to a tree stump.

But I'll try anyway.

If she were talking about all Israel, why did she say Palestine? Why did she talk about the occupied territories? Have you ever actually heard anti-Israel invective from an actual antisemite, Chef Eric? it sounds fucking nothing like anything Helen Thomas said.

Why mention Germany or Poland? Same reason she mentioned America and "Everywhere Else" - it's a nicer way of saying "Wherever, I don't give a fuck." Maybe if she had taken a page from Betty White and just out and said that, it would have been for the better, and you'd be clutching your pearls for a whole different reason.

So my question then... Why aren't you hearing "America" or "Everywhere else"? My theory is that it simply doesn't fit the message that you're either peddling or straining to hear; that Helen Thomas, that wrinkled old bitch of a camel-jockey, wants to send Jews back to the Nazis and death camps. That's the narrative, and I've seen it repeated time and time again here on DU. Rather than hearing "I don't care" you've decided to make her an evil, scheming, hook-nosed old bitch who's been secretly holding back her vile antisemitic ravings for sixty years.

"Suggests that she doesn't think Jews have a right to live in that region at all"

"Implies." "Suggests." But never actually says, does she? In fact, the implication and suggestions are never actually implied nor suggested in the video of the interview. You're bringing your own cards to the table; Clearly she is a subhuman pro-Hamas cockroach slut, so even if she never actually said or implied or suggested or hinted at something, you're going to hear it there anyway.

As for me having no right, well sir, I have every right in the world. I've played this game before. First, you are taking an anti-occupation statement, and equating the occupation with the whole of Israel. From there, you leap that wide chasm and turn "Israel" into "Jews." So Helen's anti-occupation statement turns into Helen's antisemitic statement; "Get the hell out of Palestine" turns into "Get back into the oven."

And through it all is of course the assumption that she must hate Jews, she simply must hate them. No other explanation or rationale could possibly be considered. Any suggestion of such is to be derided and dismissed, the person who offers it shoveled onto the heap with Helen and the other witches as an Antisemite. That she is an evil, hateful, antisemitic bint is the only acceptable explanation, the only message fit to tell or hear, and no dissent will be heard.

Like I said, I've played this game before, Chef Eric. I've played it with actual, for-real antisemites. I've played it with racists of several stripes, and I am very familiar with the tactics of propaganda, groupthink, message framing, and self-reinforcement. I can tell that when you take offense to the notion that Israel should get the hell out of the occupied territories, take that to mean the entirety of Israel, and then slather all Jews in the world with the name of Israel... you're saying a little more than just "I'm upset at Helen Thomas' words"

On that note, if you haven't been able to tell, I am very convinced that this would be a non-story if Helen Thomas were of any other ethnicity. We've got a white guy pimping a book that is openly and blatantly antisemitic - no "implies" or "suggest" it's fucking saying Jews run the world and want to kill everyone - And what's sticking to him? Nothing. Not a goddamned thing. Does he apologize? No, he gets on the air, defends the book and the author and mocks those who have a problem with it... And nothing sticks. Media silence. A few posts on DU that quickly wash down to the back pages in a flood of wondering why Obama doesn't just stick his finger in BP's hole like some sort of latter-day Dutch Boy.

Helen Thomas says something completely valid, with a poor choice of countries to add to her "wherever" list, and you would think she just sodomized and raped a kitten. She's on the news regularly as the "controversy" is covered. Reams and reams of bandwidth are dedicated to her great offense in suggesting that israel get the hell out of Palestine. Three threads about her seem to be on every page of DU, six pages back, with constant bumps, and people like yourself rolling snowballs down the hills to see how big they'll get.

Why the difference? Even if you think what Helen Thomas said was bad or wrong or whatever negative adjectives you want to use... Isn't the guy citing and defending a text that incites violence against Jews worse? So why the different treatment?

Because, as she said, she's of Arab background.