WASHINGTON (JWN and agencies)—Israel’s Ambassador to the US Michael Oren on Tuesday blasted the Palestinian Authority for honoring discredited journalist Helen Thomas, saying, “This atrocious act is an indication of the Palestinian Authority’s failure to meet the basic requisites of peace.”

Oren said he “was appalled by the award ceremony given by the PLO delegation in Washington to Helen Thomas, who has been completely shunned by all decent Americans after making anti-Semitic remarks, along with teaching Palestinian children to hate the Jewish State and to glorify suicide bombers.”

Thomas, a senior White House reporter, was forced to retire in 2010 when, asked for her opinion on Israel, she said: “Tell them that they need to get out of Palestine, and return home to Germany, Poland, and America.”

Despite the fact that the Society of Professional Journalists decided to discontinue the yearly lifetime achievement award bearing Thomas’s name, the head of the PLO’s mission to the US, Maen Areikat, honored Thomas for her “long career in the field of journalism, during which she defended the Palestinian position every step of the way.”