Because of Ms. Thomas's truth telling the "occupied' media relentlessly attacked her and although she issued an apology, Ms. Thomas abruptly "resigned" from Hearst Newspapers on 7 June 2010. Her speaking agency dropped her, journalism schools and organizations rescinded awards named in her honor and she lost her front row seat in the White House pressroom; and it was all because she audaciously spoke her heart and mind as did John Lennon!
The old Fourth Estate spins the illegal colonies/settlements as "neighborhoods' and never mentions such things as Aliyah, which I learned about during my first of seven trips to Israel and occupied Palestine in June 2005 from an American Jewess who had taken the deal. She informed me:
"I get fifteen hundred shekels or about thirty-six hundred dollars a year in increments to help with my expenses. I can apply for unemployment benefits after seven months, as long as I look for a job. I just completed Ulpan, which was five hundred hours of Hebrew language immersion studies that took five months, five hours a day, for five weeks. I get subsidized rent and just moved out of the Absorption Center Projects. All the new immigrants get room, utilities, and three meals a day for the first five months in Israel. We also receive free medical care and all the doctors here are dedicated. We can go to the university with 100 percent of the tuition paid by the government. College is much cheaper here; it's about three thousand to four thousand dollars a year. Until I am thirty years old, I can receive up to three years of education for my master's degree." [3]Any Jew without any historical connection to the so-called Holy Land is encouraged by the state of Israel to colonize legally owned Palestinian property.
On 16 July 2007, while I was in Jerusalem, I learned from an Israeli citizen and volunteer with ICAHD/Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions:
"There is an advertisement that runs in the USA that reads: "Have a Holiday Home in Jerusalem.' The ad does not mention this home is 100% ILLEGAL! There are forty-two illegal settlements in the Muslim, Christian and Armenian quarters of Jerusalem. The only green area for [Palestinian] children to play will soon have a high rise for the settlers, which will be 7 meters taller than the walls of the Old City! The Wall has been deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice [in 2005] but America continues to allow it to grow. The wall is way over the Green Line proving it is not about security but about grabbing Palestinian land. Israel's policy of Quiet Transfer: getting rid of the Palestinians is a huge humanitarian crisis. It is clear how the wall zig zags that it is not about security but about grabbing the maximum land with minimal Palestinian occupation." [IBID]
My view from a rooftop in Aida Camp, in the little town of Bethlehem which is Occupied Territory, June 2009
During my conversation with Ms. Thomas I filled her in on my distress over Amy Goodman's failure to follow up on her 2004 interview with Mordechai Vanunu which resulted in his being sentenced to 6 months in jail in 2007 and then enduring 78 days back in solitary in 2010, just because he dared to speak to foreign media after he was released from 18 years in jail for telling the truth and providing the photographic proof of Israel's WMD Program.
In April 2007, I had lunch with Amy Goodman-not because we have ever been friends, but only because I had once been a generous donor to Democracy NOW! was I invited to have lunch with Amy.
I accepted the invitation only so I could fill Amy in on the fact that her 2004 interview with Vanunu was major testimony against him in his FREEDOM of SPEECH trial-which began the same day Hamas was democratically elected on 25 January 2006- and also to ask her to follow up asap!
Amy acted interested and jotted down notes in her Blackberry, but she didn't bother to call Vanunu until July 2007 after he was sentenced to 6 more months in jail essentially for speaking to foreign media in 2004!Vanunu refused to speak to Amy because she --like all THE MEDIA-hadn't done anything to raise awareness about Israel's continuing persecution of him and to this day Vanunu is still waiting for his inalienable right to leave Tel Aviv and fly to freedom.
After I filled Ms. Thomas in on my anger with Amy she replied, "She use to be better."
I then brought up Ms. Thomas's first and last question to President Obama regarding Middle East nuclear weapons when he blew her off claiming he didn't want to "speculate' and her "peers' remained mute, although the State Department has reams of documentation about Israel's WMD.
Ms. Thomas replied, "They have no conscience."
I also claim their lack of integrity borders on treason!I was not a reporter when I met Vanunu for
the first time in June 2005, but I knew I had to become one when he told me:
"Did you know that President Kennedy tried to stop Israel from building atomic
weapons? In 1963, he forced Prime Minister Ben Guirion to admit the Dimona was
not a textile plant, as the sign outside proclaimed, but a nuclear plant. The
Prime Minister said, "The nuclear reactor is only for peace.'
"Kennedy insisted on an open internal inspection. He wrote letters demanding
that Ben Guirion open up the Dimona for inspection.
"The French were responsible for the actual building of the Dimona. The Germans
gave the money; they were feeling guilty for the Holocaust, and tried to pay
their way out. Everything inside was written in French, when I was there,
almost twenty years ago. Back then, the Dimona descended seven floors
underground.
"In 1955, Perez and Guirion met with the French to agree they would get a
nuclear reactor if they fought against Egypt to control the Sinai and Suez
Canal. That was the war of 1956. Eisenhower demanded that Israel leave the
Sinai, but the reactor plant deal continued on.
"When Johnson became president, he made an agreement with Israel that two
senators would come every year to inspect. Before the senators would visit, the
Israelis would build a wall to block the underground elevators and stairways.
From 1963 to '69, the senators came, but they never knew about the wall that
hid the rest of the Dimona from them.
"Nixon stopped the inspections and agreed to ignore the situation. As a result,
Israel increased production. In 1986, there were over two hundred bombs. Today,
they may have enough plutonium for ten bombs a year."
After cheese cake for desert I asked Ms.
Thomas what she would advise anyone who wanted to go into the field of
journalism and she stated:
"Go for it! It's the greatest profession in the world because you are always
learning and you are aware of the world, so you just might be able to affect
change.
"You cannot have a democracy without an informed people.
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