WASHINGTON: Helen Thomas, oldest active member of the White House Press Corps, retired on Monday after coming under fire for her controversial remarks that the Jews should “get the hell out of Palestine” and go “back home to Poland, Germany, American and everywhere else.”

Thomas began her long career with the wire service United Press International in 1943, and started covering the White House in 1960, according to a biography posted on her website. She became a columnist for Hearst in 2000.

Thomas posted an apology on her website, stating: “I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians. They do not reflect my heartfelt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon.”

The daughter of Lebanese immigrants has covered the administrations of ten US presidents in a career spanning nearly 60 years. At 89, she is only member of the White House Press Corps that has her own personalized chair in the official press room.

Despite her apology, Thomas’s speaking agency said it dumped the octogenarian journalist as a client due to her remarks. Thomas also was dis-invited as a speaker for the graduation ceremony at a high school later this month.

The principal of Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Md., said in an e-mail to students and parents yesterday that next Monday’s speech was canceled, saying “graduation celebrations are not the venue for divisiveness.”

The national director of the Jewish Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman, said Sunday that Thomas’ apology didn’t go far enough.

“Her suggestion that Israelis should go back to Poland and Germany is bigoted and shows a profound ignorance of history,” Foxman said. “We believe Thomas needs to make a more forceful and sincere apology for the pain her remarks have caused.”

There are calls for her to resign, be fired or, at least, lose her coveted front-row seat in the White House press room.

Over the weekend, Lanny Davis, a former special counsel and White House spokesman for President Bill Clinton, and Ari Fleischer, President George W. Bush’s press secretary, called upon Hearst to fire or suspend her.  At very least they said her White House press credentials should be revoked.  “If she had asked all blacks to go back to Africa, what would White House Correspondents Association position be as to whether she deserved White House press room credentials — much less a privileged honorary seat?” Davis declared.

“If a journalist, or a columnist, said the same thing about blacks or Hispanics, they would already have lost their jobs,” Fleischer said.

Thomas’ colleagues in White House press corps, until now, have tended to be more forgiving of the feisty 89-year-old press corps dean.

Thomas made her comments at a White House Jewish Heritage Celebration at the end of May. Questioned about the Palestinians for RabbiLIVE.com, Thomas said, “Remember, these people are occupied and it’s their land.”

The “Thomas Affair” has taken on wider political ramifications, which now include President Obama.

Take, for example, what Rabbi Shmuley Boteach wrote in the Huffington Post on Monday:

“Helen Thomas’s stomach-turning comments about the Jews returning to Germany and Poland, where six million were gassed and cremated into piles of ash, are striking for their racism and insensitivity. Whether she said them out of senility or anti-Semitism are beside the point. Either way she has no business working for any respectable media organization or sitting as the senior White House correspondent directly in front of the President of the United States. When Don Imus made racially charged statements against a woman’s basketball team, candidate Obama demanded he be fired. It will be interesting to see how President Barack Obama, who could not offer a single word of support for Israel since the flotilla affair, will react.”