Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas will share a stage with “unapologetic activist-academician” As’ad AbuKhalil at a June 18 event hosted by Al-Awda NY, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition.
The event, billed as an evening of celebration for free speech and free press, will be held at the Community Church of New York. Tickets are being sold for $35, or $25 for students.
The Facebook page for the event states that the two panelists will consider, “What will happen to Palestine? Will it finally see an end of colonialism?”
“As the revolutions demanding an end to proxy-colonial systems in the Arab world progress, Arab societies are clamoring for liberation from economic and political repression,” states the page for the event.
Panelists will also consider, “What forces keep the discourse on Palestine so grossly limited in the US?”
Al-Awda NY describes that Thomas “was fired in retaliation for telling the truth about ethnic cleansing in Palestine. She has continued to speak the truth bravely since then.”
In 2010 Thomas’ fifty-year career as a White House-based correspondent ended after she told Rabbi David Nesenoff that Israeli Jews should “get the hell out of Palestine.”
Thomas, whose parents immigrated to the United States from Lebanon, was asked what she would say if asked whether those comments made her anti-Semitic. She responded, “I’d say I’m a Semite. What are you talking about?”
Thomas agreed to speak at the “Move Over AIPAC” conference that protested the pro-Israel organization’s recent Washington, D.C. event. Her role in the conference was diminished after Code Pink received negative feedback from “other coalition members.”