Helen Thomas’ Alma Mater Drops Journalism Award Named for Veteran Reporter
Helen Thomas made more anti-Zionist comments in a public forum, causing her alma mater to drop an award named for the longtime journalist.
“We are owned by the propagandists against the Arabs. There’s no question about that,” Thomas said Dec. 2 during a speech to an Arab-American group in Dearborn, Mich. “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.”
She added, “We’re being pushed into a wrong direction in every way.”
In response Wayne State University, from where Thomas graduated in 1942, announced the day after the address that it would no longer present the Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity in the Media Award. The university released a statement reading in part that it “strongly condemns the anti-Semitic remarks made by Helen Thomas.”
The Anti-Defamation League issued a short statement saying Thomas “clearly, unequivocally revealed herself as a vulgar anti-Semite.”
Thomas, 90, a Detroit native who is of Lebanese descent, also said during the speech that she stands by the controversial comments about Israel that led to her resignation as a correspondent for Hearst News Service earlier this year.
Thomas resigned in June after saying on the sidelines of the first Jewish American Heritage Month event at the White House that Jews should “get the hell out of Palestine,” in an interview with Rabbi David Nesenoff, a blogger with RabbiLive.com, was captured on video. “Go home,” Thomas said.
Asked to elaborate on where the Jews in Israel should go, Thomas said, “Poland, Germany and America, and everywhere else.”
Thomas, often referred to as the dean of the White House press corps, was a White House correspondent since the presidency of John F. Kennedy. Her place in the front row during White House news briefings was sacrosanct for years, complete with a plaque on it bearing her name – the only such reserved seat in the room.
A correspondent for United Press International since 1943, she joined Hearst about a decade ago and became a columnist.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
