Helen Thomas is back at work

Helen Thomas is back at work–this time, with a column in a weekly Virginia newspaper.

Thomas was forced to resign last summer from her job as a columnist for Hearst after the controversy over her comments about Israel. But she has now secured a home for her weekly column in the Falls Church News-Press, which is located in Falls Church, Virginia.

In a statement, Nicholas Benton, owner and editor of the News-Press, said he had spoken with Thomas for over eight hours before deciding to take her on. He called her “progressive” and said that he is “firmly convinced that she is neither bigoted, nor racist, nor anti-Semitic.”

Benton called Thomas’ comments about Israel “intemperate and inappropriate,” but said that they were “in response to a question about Israel, not Jews, and were intended to mean that in these times, Jewish people are free to live wherever they wish, because the era of anti-Jewish persecution is ended. That was not adequately expressed because of the impromptu nature of the incident.”

Thomas did not issue a statement. Her first column for the News-Press focused on Social Security. Huffington Post