Opinion: Helen Thomas' Jewish Problem Writ Large

(June 7) -- We've all been there. Each one of us has, at one time or another, said something we've ended up regretting. (Many of us have also tried to cover it up with the old, "I was drunk when I said it so pay it no mind" excuse.) Fortunately, most of us haven't had the misfortune -- as Helen Thomas did -- of doing it in public.

But, why does the "Oops! Did I say that?!" always seem to be about the Jews?

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we're harder to spot? I have blue eyes, light skin and a fairly straight nose, which, before I order the pastrami on rye, causes many a person to routinely mistake me for a gentile. In my travels as a musician, I've met many types of people and have been involved in numerous conversations with strangers which, after a few beers, turned anti-Semitic. When I've replied, "I'm Jewish," they always backtrack with the booze excuse.

Perhaps Thomas, today's Jew-hater of the minute, who has since retired, had one gimlet too many with her tuna nicoise right before she said what she thought about Israel. Or, maybe it was just her advanced age that caused her to trip up. Whatever the case, her misguided, but in all likelihood, honest remarks, were the equivalent of saying, "It's about time those whiny Jews packed up and shut up."

Ellen Ratner, a Washington bureau chief for Talk Radio News Service and a Fox News contributor, thinks we should give Ms. Thomas a break because "she's almost 90" and doesn't know what she's talking about. Yet, no matter her age, Ms. Thomas seems completely coherent in her recent books and political columns.

But what interests me is not so much why it came out, but that, even in this day and age, the presence of yet another publicly visible anti-Semite has been revealed.

Whether it's a mega-famous celebrity like Mel Gibson or a highly respected political correspondent, little snippets of what some of us really think regarding the Jewish people have been falling out of our storage closets with more frequency as of late.

The flotilla incident seems to have opened the floodgates and made the sport of Jew-hating quite popular and trendy. And this increase in anti-Zionism is slowly being legitimized throughout the world. Artists such as Elvis Costello and The Pixies are boycotting Israel like they did Sun City. Nelson Mandela has compared the situation in Israel to apartheid in Africa. And, in a New York Times op-ed piece this weekend, even Michael Chabon, a member of The Tribe himself, declared that Jews are not so special after all.

No matter which part of the world we're born in, we are all blank slates when we enter it. It's up to our parents, teachers, peers and society at large to program us with the correct codes of ethics and morals necessary to live a decent life. "Do unto others ..." "Treat others as you would yourself ...", etc. etc.

It's when that programming goes astray that some of us end up with the belief that an entire race of people is to blame for one thing or another. And it happens everywhere, all the time, regardless of the language we speak or the God we believe in.

Perhaps we need to get back to basics and bring back the Trident commercial of 30 years ago in which the grandpa asks the grandson who "Jimmy" is, to which the grandson replies, "He's my Jewish friend."

But why must it take a chewing gum company -- or the pleas of a senselessly beaten and bloodied black man -- to teach us all how to get along?