Pioneering former White House correspondent Helen Thomas (seated, bottom right in black shirt) poses with attendees at the Palestine Cultural Office’s commemoration of Nakba 63. PHOTO: Nafeh AbuNab

DEARBORN — Speaking before hundreds at the Palestine
Cultural Office’s (PCO) annual Al-Nakba commemoration, iconic journalist Helen
Thomas said, “The Israelis have been tyrannizing the Palestinians for 60
years, and the Arab awakening now scares them as it should.”

“May 15th, 1948, what is called Israel Independence
Day, is our Nakba (catastrophe), when 750,000 Palestinians were evicted from
their homes and lands and became refugees… I dream every day to be there in my
house that strangers confiscated, and live in now,” said Dr. Daad Bakir
Katato, board member for the U.S. Palestinian Community Network of Michigan.
She’s from a city on the northern coast of Palestine.

“This year’s Nakba has a different meaning because the
Arab masses are rising  up against
dictatorship and corruption, and are undergoing a new chapter in history,”
guest speaker Awad Abdul Fattah said.

Fattah, the founder and secretary general of the National Democratic
Assembly Party in Palestine, was placed in prison multiple times while fighting
for Palestinian rights within Israel. He worked as a journalist for
“Al-Fajr,” an English newspaper in Jerusalem, and is also the former
editor of Al-Midan, a weekly Arabic newspaper.

Thomas says she never thought leaders could resort to such
brutality against their own people. “It’s great to say that Arabs have had
enough of a one man totalitarian rule. Enough is enough. The people in Libya,
Syria and Yemen and Bahrain are saying so at an incredible human cost. Freedom
seeking Arabs need our support. It is so hard to believe Syria’s Assad could be
so heartless and ruthless. He and Gadaffi and others are literally trying to
hold on to power at any cost.  The
uprisings by the Arabs showed that man cannot live under tyranny. Those police
states have got to go. The dictator’s days are numbered, I hope,” Thomas
said. The commemoration was May 14 at Burton Manor in Livonia.

“The catastrophe, the Nakba, was designed to make the
Palestinian people disappear from not only geography, but also from history.
The Palestinian people everywhere have proven that they are going to stay in
geography and history and occupation and oppression will disappear…The Zionist
movement wanted to establish a Jewish homeland on Palestine,” Fattah
said. 

Several stood on stage with Thomas as she spoke to the
diverse crowd.  “Under
international law you cannot annex occupied territory. Something that the
Israelis have been doing with impunity and with the allegiance of the United
States. The U.S. has basically remained mute to human tragedy at the behest of
the Israelis. Israel could not survive without the unconditional immoral
support of the United States,” Thomas said.

Noura Erakat, also a guest speaker, addressed the crowd
through a video presentation. Erakat is a Palestinian human rights attorney and
activist who’s currently an adjunct professor of international human rights law
in the Middle East at Georgetown University, and Legal Advocacy Coordinator for
the Badil Center for Palestinian Refugee and Residency Rights. 

“We want an accountable leadership. We want a
democratic government, we want to be counted in a Palestinian national council.
And we want to be included as part of a broad Palestinian national body…”
she said. Erakat urged Palestinians from around the globe to work together and
promote the Palestinian cause through the U.S. Palestinian Community
Network. 

The PCO said it honored Thomas with the “Relentless
Courage” award for her unshakable audacity to speak truth to power.  The Office says Thomas has been the
single journalist to bring discomfort to the most powerful leader in the world
when she stood to ask, “What about Israel’s nuclear weapons, Mr.
President?”

Fordson High School students presented Thomas with a
Lifetime Achievement Award, and a representative from East West Link News gave
Thomas an article written by a young woman who defends Thomas after two
journalism awards given annually in her name were removed following controversial
remarks.

Last May a rabbi asked Thomas, “any comments on
Israel?” to which Thomas replied, “tell them to get the hell out of
Palestine.” Then in December, speaking in Dearborn, Thomas said Zionists
control the White House, Hollywood, Congress and Wall Street.

The Arab American National Museum was asked to remove a
statue of Helen Thomas after the comments in May.

Wayne State University (WSU) pulled the Helen Thomas Spirit
of Diversity Award, and the Society of Professional Journalists stripped Thomas
of the Helen Thomas Lifetime Achievement Award after the Zionists remarks.

WSU President Allan Gilmour told The Arab American News
(TAAN) the decision was made solely under his discretion, and that Thomas
wasn’t anti-Semitic, although the statement issued by WSU announcing the action
calls Thomas anti-Semitic. Gilmour admitted the decision was made too abruptly,
and should have been more carefully examined.

When TAAN asked Thomas whether she was bothered about not
being at the annual WSU Spirit of Diversity award ceremony held on the same day
she said, “I’m not bothered, they should be bothered. They denied
Americans freedom of speech, and that is shameful for any university.”

 Thomas said
removing the award sends a message to students of, “shut-up or you’ll be
hanged.”

For journalists who are afraid to write on a particular
topic because of consequences Thomas says they need courage, especially today,
and should never be afraid. “They should challenge the oppressors,
challenge the Israeli AIPAC. And who in the hell are they, national censors? We
should never be afraid of them. We should declare our rights,” she said.

Thomas said she would “never” take back the
remarks on Israel. “Never, I spoke the truth. I don’t believe in human
tyranny, which is what is happening in Palestine.”

When a local television station asked Thomas if she felt
guilty about the remarks she said, 
“Hell no… I feel fine. They can say anything they want. I believe
in freedom of speech, which they don’t.”

Fattah says Palestinians will never abandon their national
aspirations. “You are proving that the objectives or the goals of
destroying Palestine have not been achieved, because you are here,”
he  said.

“…We will win. No question about it.  Because justice will always prevail,”
Thomas said.