Veteran White House reporter retires aged 89 after storm over her Israel 'go home' outburst. Veteran Washington journalist Helen Thomas abruptly retired yesterday, after being condemned for saying Israelis should 'get the hell out of Palestine'.
The 89-year-old told a Jewish online news service that Israelis should 'go home' to Germany or Poland.
Veteran journalist Helen Thomas, who has covered every president since Kennedy, resigned in a storm over her controversial remarks about Israel
She resigned in disgrace yesterday after being denounced by the White House and her colleagues.
Ms Thomas had already issued a public apology on Sunday for the outburst, which was caught on camera and widely circulated on the internet.
The reporter had been talking to a rabbi on the day of the White House’s official celebration of Jewish American Heritage Month last week.
'Any comments on Israel?' she was asked. 'Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine,' she replied.
When asked to say something positive on the occasion, she said: 'Remember, these people are occupied and it’s their land. It’s not Germans’. It’s not Poland’s.'
Yesterday, after a career spanning seven decades and ten presidents, she resigned from Hearst newspaper group in disgrace and announced her immediate retirement.
It came minutes after White House press secretary Robert Gibbs called her remarks 'offensive and reprehensible' during his daily briefing with reporters.
Ms Thomas, who has had a front-row seat in the briefing room for many years, was not present.
The White House Correspondents Association also issued a rare statement, calling her comments 'indefensible'.
'Many in our profession who have known Helen for years were saddened by the comments, which were especially unfortunate in light of her role as a trail blazer on the White House beat,' said the statement, signed by journalists who are officers of the association.
Her 10th president: Barack Obama, who shares his birthday with Ms Thomas, shares cakes with her in the press briefing room as he marked his 48th birthday last year
President number 9: George W. Bush greets Ms Thomas during a surprise visit to the press briefing room of the White House in Washington in 2006
Ms Thomas, who is the daughter of Lebanese migrants, had been lauded as a pioneering journalist who has covered presidents since 1960.
Dean of the White House press corps, she was reporting from Washington 11 years before the current spokesman was even born.
Ms Thomas wrote on her website: 'I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians.'
She added: 'They do not reflect my heart-felt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon.'
The national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham H. Foxman, said on Sunday that her website apology did not go far enough.
'Her suggestion that Israelis should go back to Poland and Germany is bigoted and shows a profound ignorance of history,' he said.
'We believe Thomas needs to make a more forceful and sincere apology for the pain her remarks have caused.'
Empty seat: Her customary chair, in the centre of the front row, remained empty during a briefing yesterday. Minutes later she resigned
President number six: Ronald Reagan greets Ms Thomas, then a reporter for United Press International and reporter Jim Gerstenzang in 1981
Former President George W. Bush’s one-time press secretary, Ari Fleischer, led calls over the weekend for her to be fired.
He accused her of advocating 'religious cleansing' and argued that 'if a journalist, or a columnist, said the same thing about blacks or Hispanics they would already have lost their jobs'.
By yesterday morning Ms Thomas had been dropped by her speaker’s bureau, disowned by the co-author of her latest book and called an 'anti-Semitic bigot' by Lanny Davis, a former close friend and Clinton administration lawyer.
The reporter, who was born in Kentucky, had been due to speak at the June 14 graduation of Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland.
But Principal Alan Goodwin told students and parents that she was being replaced.
'Graduation celebrations are not the venue for divisiveness,' he said in an email.
Ms Thomas began her long career with the news service United Press International in 1943 and started covering the White House in 1960. She became a columnist for Hearst in 2000. ( dailymail.co.uk )
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