Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas tells an Ohio radio interview that she knows she "hit the third rail" with remarks about Israel that led to her retirement.

Thomas tells WMRN-AM in Marion, Ohio, that "you cannot criticize Israel in this country and survive."

She stepped down from Hearst News Service in June after a rabbi and independent filmmaker recorded her calling for Israelis to get "out of Palestine."

Thomas has kept a low profile since then. She tells the radio station that leaving the White House was hard for the first two weeks and was like being in a coma.

The sometimes-emotional interview aired Tuesday and was recorded a week earlier at Thomas' Washington, D.C., home. Asked if she's anti-Semitic, she responded "Baloney!"

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Information from: WMRN-AM, http://www.wmrn.com