Helen Thomas retired suddenly Monday, effective immediately, after saying on camera last week that the Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine" and go back to Germany, Poland and America and wherever else they came from.

Thomas is the longest-serving White House reporter of all time. She covered the Eisenhower administration, but the date she could first be considered a full-time White House reporter is probably during the Eisenhower-Kennedy transition in 1960, which would make it 50 years on the beat. She will turn 90 this summer. For many years Thomas was recognized for the first question at presidential news conference as the senior wire service correspondent in the corps (she worked for UPI most of her career).

In 2000, she dropped the objectivity gag, became a columnist for Hearst Newspapers but kept her seat at the White House. During her columnist years, she has been feistier, leftier and was perceived as one of those crusty but lovable old crabs who isn't afraid to say what's on her mind and hector the president a bit. Some of her questions and remarks made Israelis and their allies nervous about her sympathies, but they were nothing that would force her resignation.

Then last week, at a White House event celebrating a Jewish heritage event, Rabbi David Nesenoff of RabbiLIVE.com asked her for "any comments on Israel." She replied: "Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine."

She said: "Remember these people [Palestinians] are occupied and it's their land. It's not German and it's not Poland." Asked what the Jews should do, she said: "Go home." Asked where their homes were, she said: "Poland. Germany. America and everywhere else."

It's all on video and on YouTube. As far as one can tell from the video, Nesenoff didn't trick her into saying it. He just asked her, "Any comments on Israel?"

'Mutual respect and tolerance'
Her retirement was swift. She apologized for the remarks, saying, on her website that:

"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."

If that's really what's in her heart, it's a little hard see how the RabbiLIVE words came out of her mouth. And it's also hard to believe that the taped statement reflects anything other than a belief that Israel should not exist. Maybe someone can fuzz that up if they try, but it will be difficult.

Furthermore, although many people know better than to say it in English on camera, the basic sentiment is shared by most Palestinians, most Arabs, probably most Muslims (I'm obviously getting way beyond anything I can prove here), and probably by many of those who sympathize strongly with the Arab side in the long argument/struggle/war over whether Israel should and will exist.

Thomas (whose parents were immigrants from Lebanon, by the way, and I mention it without meaning to imply that there is anything nefarious about Americans of Arab descent being reasonably likely to side with the Arab side in this dispute, any more than it is nefarious for U.S. Jews to mostly side with Israel) may have done us a favor by putting the fundamental question squarely on the table.

I'm Jewish and I support Israel's existence. I try to avoid the common phrase "right to exist." Doesn't work for me. What does it mean, exactly, and who gets to decide who else, or which other country, has a right to exist?

As a matter of history, every country in North and South America has, perhaps, a questionable "right to exist" on land taken by conquest from the previous occupants. Or does the historical offense of taking someone else's land by force go away if you can hang onto the land long enough?

The Euro-Americans can't even make the claim, as Zionists do, that Jews had a pre-existing nation on the territory in question, and that Jews maintained a presence in the disputed land all along. I don't find those claims particularly dispositive (think about who else could make a claim if prior occupancy was the key determinant), but if "right to exist" is the issue, it seems superior to anything our own country can muster as an excuse for taking over land that had been someone else's for centuries.

When I say I support Israel's existence I mean I think that — on balance and ignoring for the moment many important details and sub-arguments — after the centuries of persecution of the Jews in many lands after they lost their own, topped off by the unspeakable barbarity and evil efficacy of the Holocaust, it seemed necessary (at least to the Jews) for the Jews to have a land in which they were guaranteed refuge and decent treatment.

A catastrophe
But the creation of Israel has turned out to be a catastrophe — al-Nakba — for the group that the world now knows as the Palestinian Arabs. (Let's note here, without trying to settle it, the argument that the catastrophe has many elements of self-infliction. There are only so many arguments I can have with myself in the course of one measly post that started out to be about Helen Thomas.)

If I was Palestinian, I would probably believe that Israel does not need to exist, if its existence amounts to mitigating the Jewish catastrophe by substituting a Palestinian catastrophe.

But where does that get us. I support Israel's existence — but in peace with, and with justice for, its neighbors. I always hope that Israel will make reasonable, generous offers on borders and the rest of the issues to bring about the creation of a viable Palestinian state, and that whoever is speaking for the Palestinians will respond in kind, seeking the best possible compromise for the benefit of those now alive rather than trying to redress grievances of past generations.

I wish I believed that this is possible. To the extent that the neighbors believe that peace and justice can be achieved only by Israel's non-existence, we have a problem — a big, tragic problem that cannot be solved until Israel ceases to exist, and that is not a reasonable negotiating position.

So the tragedy bleeds from year to year and, most of the time, without an honest discussion of the real goals of the two sides. Instead, we have a dialogue of the deaf in which each side tries to tell the world that the other side is lying about its goals.

Palestinians say that Israelis have no serious intention of allowing a viable Palestinian state to come into existence. If you want to go deeper, you have to look into the Taba Summit of 2001, which, I fear, is the closest the parties have come, or will come anytime soon, to a settlement.

Israelis say that the Arab side will settle for nothing less than the destruction of Israel. If they truly believe that, it becomes a lot harder for Israel to "take chances for peace," as the saying goes.

I am not one of those knee-jerk Israel apologists who talks as if Israel's existence is hanging by a thread. Israel is the strongest country in the region and is backed by the world's only superpower.

On the other hand, when much of the world expresses outrage that Israel insists on regulating the shipment of goods into Gaza, they ignore a legitimate Israeli concern about what might be shipped onto their border for use by a group that is publicly pledged to Israel's non-existence, however long it takes to bring that about.

Helen Thomas does not speak for the Palestinians, nor for Arabs generally, nor for all skeptics of Israel's good intentions. Apparently, she doesn't even speak for herself, since she claims to believe the opposite of what she said to the surprised rabbi with the video camera. She's an old lady for whom I wish a pleasant retirement. But when her candid reaction to a non-leading question about what is needed in the Middle East was for the Jews to go home to Germany and Poland, she was whistling more than Dixie.