Helen Thomas (US)

I would have asked [Bush] why—why do you

continue to support the killing in Gaza?
And that’s what we’re doing.

“The greatest sin of all in the Nazi era was silence.”
When you remain silent to the suffering and the incredible aggression
against a people, then you are culpable.

Helen Thomas is an American journalist and for the last 60 years she has reported on US presidents, she was the journalist who attended the last 10 US presidents' press conferences and was a member of the White House press corps. She is known for asking tough questions and demanding straight answers. On DemocracyNow!, after George Bush jr. gave his final press conference, she talked among others on Obama's upcoming presidency:

AMY GOODMAN: Do you expect to see a change of policy, for example, on Israel and the Occupied Territories?

HELEN THOMAS: No, I don’t.

AMY GOODMAN: Why not?

HELEN THOMAS: Because I think that Obama, during the campaign, made many promises, as every president, potential president does to Israel, that they seem somehow bounded by their promises, promises to uphold all Israeli goals.

I don’t see how the US can provide F-16s, gunships, Apache gunships, phosphorus, possibly phosphorus, and cluster bombs and so forth to kill helpless people, children who are starving to death. They control the checkpoints. They control the arrivals and departures, supplies and people. And the Americans—President Bush has remained silent to that suffering. He has blocked by a veto at the UN any stoppage of the warfare, and he continues to supply Israel.