Dubai: Helen Thomas, known as the Dean of the White House press corps, was "lynched" by the pro-Israel US media, Arabs and Arab-American journalists and commentators said.
"We denounce what happened to her," Makram Mohammad Ahmad, Secretary-General of the Arab Journalists Union, told Gulf News. "She is a veteran journalist, who has been courageous and capable of asking the hard questions that many can't raise."
Thomas was forced to retire on Monday over her remarks about Israel. Jews, she appeared on tape saying, need to "get the hell out of Palestine".
She was subjected to one of the "worst types of intellectual terrorism," Jamal Fahmi, from the Egyptian journalists syndication, said.
Ray Hannia, an Arab-American journalist, blogged that though Thomas "survived attacks from every US president from Eisenhower to Obama … but alas ... couldn't stand up to this country's fanatically pro-Israeli media and movement."
