Robert Aumann: Helen Thomas' words are wake-up call

Hebrew University Professor and Nobel Laureate says "we should be grateful to her, because she said out loud what people are thinking and we need to be aware of that."

By MORDECHAI I. TWERSKY
Hebrew University Professor and Nobel Laureate Robert Aumann, responding to recent comments by former White House Press Corps reporter Helen Thomas in a recent Playboy Magazine interview that Jews should “get the hell out of Palestine” and “go home to Poland, Germany and America,” says Jews should be 'grateful' to Thomas for “saying out loud what people are thinking.”
The outspoken Aumann, who last week addressed a Knesset caucus on the subject of the delegitimization of Israel, said Thomas' words should serve as a wake-up call.
“I think we should be grateful to Helen Thomas, because she said out loud what people are thinking and we need to be aware of that,” said Aumann, who fled his native Germany in 1938 and immigrated to Israel from the United States in 1956. “This is becoming more and more widespread.”
After making her comments in an interview in June 2010, Thomas was rebuked by the White House and soon after announced her “retirement” from her employer, Hearst Newspapers. In a Playboy Magazine interview published earlier this month, the unrepentant Thomas defended her original comments. “I knew exactly what I was doing – I was going for broke,” she told Playboy.