Jewish Chronicle Editor, Stephen Pollard, says that he is not interested in the truth of what happened. I wrote to Pollard, ex-editor of the Daily Express (owned by Britain's major porn merchant, Richard Desmond, asking why he wasn't interested in printing any details of this story. He wrote back saying that it was only fit for his 'delete folder'. (Correspondence below).
This is of course par for the course for the Jewish Chronicle, the oldest Jewish newspaper in the world and arguably one of the worst too. The 'JC' as it is known, had a peak circulation of 55,000 and only a few years ago it was over 40,000. Now it's less than 30,000 in Britain and still falling under Pollard's screeching. He has made the paper so hopelessly biased on Israel, so incapable of even accepting that there might be a case against Israel's militarism, that except for those already devoted, it is only succeeding in putting off those already committed.
You may recall that I have previously covered the case of Emily Henchowicz, who was blinded in one eye when a tear gas grenade was fired straight at her. This was the same day as the attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and Emily and others were protesting about this attack at the checkpoint at Qualandiya.
Emily, which I didn’t know at the time, is also an Israeli citizen. As an art student she seems to have met with members of ISM and went to this ‘illegal’ demonstration (another example of Israeli ‘democracy’).
Her eye was destroyed and as she describes in a fascinating interview with Democracy Now, she was taken in an ambulance first to Ramallah and then to the Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem. The Palestinian ambulance wasn’t allowed in Israel and she had to be transferred into an Israeli ambulance at the checkpoint.
She describes what an Israeli ‘inquiry’ was like. Emily comes across, unsurprisingly, as a fairly naive kid, stunned by her experiences, but she is taken aback at what the Israeli ‘inquiry’ actually consists of. They weren’t interested in where she and her assailant were standing, the distance between them etc. No they were more interested in why she came to Israel, who her friends were etc. And if they do this for an American/Israel citizen you can be sure that inquiries when it comes to Palestinians are non-existent.
Emily, the daughter of an Israeli born father and granddaughter of holocaust survivors has learnt the hard way that Israel is an oppressive and racist regime.
The final insult of course is that Israel refuses to pay the medical bills for her treatment in hospital. Literally they want their pound of flesh.
Tony Greenstein
Israel refuses to pay medical bills for American-Jewish protester who lost eye
Published 10:50 28.07.10
Emily Henochowicz was wounded by a tear gas canister in a demonstration following Israel's Gaza flotilla raid.
The Israeli government is refusing to pay the cost of medical care for an American-Jewish activist who lost an eye when Border Police officers fired a tear gas canister at her during a demonstration.
Emily Henochowicz, who studying at the Bezalel Academy of Art in Jerusalem and also holds Israeli citizenship, took part in a protest on May 31, shortly after Israel killed nine pro-Palestinian activists in a raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla.
Emily Henochowicz after losing an eye at a protest at the Qalandiyah checkpoint − she was struck by a teargas grenade. Dozens of activists took part in the protest against the Israeli blockade of Gaza next to the Qalandia checkpoint, south of Ramallah.
According to the IDF, demonstrators began to throw stones at the Border Police, after which the army responded by firing tear gas canisters.
According to Henochowicz, one policeman shot a canister directly at her face, shattering her jaw and causing her to lose her left eye. A Haaretz reporter witnessed the incident.
Following her her treatment at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, Henochowicz's father, who had traveled from the U.S., was handed a bill for NIS 14,000. Under advice from his lawyer, Michael Sfard, he asked the Defense Ministry cover the expense, but officials refused.
In justifying the refusal, the Defense Ministry claimed the tear gas was not fired directly at Henochowicz.
"The canister ricocheted at her after it rebound off a concrete barrier and changed direction - it was not shot directly at her," the ministry said in a statement drafted by lawyer Sharon Zimmerman. The statement also accused Henochowicz of putting herself at risk by voluntarily participating in a breach of the peace.
In response, Sfard said that as police were still investigating the incident, it was impossible for the Defense Ministry to judge exactly what occurred.
"Either way, even if wounding of my client was the result of negligence and not criminal intent -even then the State of Israel has a moral, ethical and legal obligation to pay for her treatment," Sfard wrote.
The Defense Ministry responded: "From our reports, we know that the Border Police acted in accordance with the law at the violent demonstration at Qalandia, and that the shooting of tear gas canisters at demonstrators was justified. Of course, we regret that Emily Henochowicz was wounded in her eye. But under such circumstances, the Defense Ministry does not cover the expenses of medical treatment."
On 3 Jul 2010, at 22:34, tony greenstein <tonygreenstein@yahoo.com> wrote:
Dear Mr Pollard,
Below is a link to a story I blogged about an ordinary American Jewish student, Emily Honochowicz, who lost an eye peacefully protesting at a checkpoint in Jerusalem, the same day as the Mavi Marmara. A tear gas canister having been shot directly at her.
http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2010/07/day-american-jewish-art-student-emily.html
I realise that the habits of editing tabloid newspapers die hard but isn't it time you covered not just this but the more general drift towards a police state in Israel? The attacks on secular Arab MK Haneen Zoabi, no supporter of Hamas, a liberated woman but clearly not the type that Israel's knee-jerk supporters like, being the object of virulent abuse in the Knesset.
Instead of being an echo chamber to Jonathan Hoffman isn't it about time you actually started reporting the more uncomfortable facts? When people look back this period of the Jewish Chronicle will come to be seen as one of its darkest and least glorious chapters.
regards
Tony Greenstein
Well, we all know that Pollard is not interested in the truth and quite blatantly so...Watch this space!
ReplyDeleteBtw, I wouldn't say he's New Labour- he's a Tory, although he's probably not pleased about Cammeron's criticism of Israel. I'd say that the BNP is more his sort of thing, even if he doesn't admit it.
I can't believe he's my age! Too much lochshen pudding!
There speaks the irrelevant Trot - if the JC is such a lousy newspaper why do you seek to dictate the editorial content? Arrogance or what? The BBC may be sycophants to you and your fringe accomplices (witness the appalling way they changed the story about the antisemitic abuse of me at SOAS)but the JC is not.
ReplyDeleteJonathan Hoffman
Ah the unspeakable in defence of the insufferable!
ReplyDeleteSurprising how many people seem to have reacted to this story.
Of course I don't seek to dictate anything to the JC, merely to point out that it's boast about being the voice of the Jewish community is even less apt now and that it deliberately distorts its coverage of Israel by omitting salient facts.
I look forward to J Hoffman organising a demonstration to support Israel's decision to blind Emily Honchowicz in one eye and then refuse to pay the medical bills.
But then JH would have to defend the fact that Israel is now in the hands of the mad racist right for whom any sign of a leftist, let alone Trotskyist, presence is anathema. That is where the 'Jewish' state has ended up.
Only someone like JH could believe that the BBC are 'sycophants' of us given their appalling coverage of the Gaza Aid flotilla. What JH means is that the BBC isn't quite yet the equivalent of German state radio after 1933. In other words even the slightest hint that there is another viewpoint gets JH in a rage.
The reason that the BBC changed its story about 'the antisemitic abuse' he claims he suffered at SOAS last year is because it was untrue, a lie in other words. The video of the event showed that the allegations were spurious. Even JH admits that it wasn't until 2 weeks later, when a Tory student activist made such allegations, that he realised he was a victim!
You're just a propagandist Jonathan. Truth to you is much what it was to Goebbels, except that the latter was far more talented than you.
Usual mendacious Soviet-style drivel from Greenstein whose literacy level does not even extend to knowing the difference between 'its' and 'it's'.
ReplyDeleteDescending to Nazi abuse is a sure sign he recognises the emptiness of his arguments
Jonathan Hoffman
First I'm a 'Trot' now I'm acting 'Soviet style'. Perhaps our city economist is getting rather muddled with political categories.
ReplyDeleteWhat I do note is that Hoffman has nothing whatsoever to say about the vicious attack on an unarmed and peaceful demonstrator who happened to be Jewish. Nothing whatever to say. That is why JH is a propagandist windbag.
Israel is always right. However many it kills or injures, however many houses or villages it demolishes, however much it attacks its own Arab citizens, Hoffman will remain silent because all that is important is a 'Jewish' State, regardless of how much of a liability it has become for Jews.
Is it any wonder that Zionist demonstrations these days are shriller and smaller?
Hoffie:
ReplyDelete"Usual mendacious Soviet-style drivel from Greenstein whose literacy level does not even extend to knowing the difference between 'its' and 'it's'."
What does Tony's being a 'Trot' (or not) or a mistake in the correct uses of 'its' and 'it's' gotta do with anything?
It's amazing that an annoying twit like you can rise through the ranks of the BZF, although to us that's music to our ears.
Tony was well within his rights to alert the JC of Emily's, now also financial, misfortune. But Emily's a 'self-hater' is she not? Not worth spending JC's precious printing ink on.
What's more the, JC is likely to be one of the first newspaper casualties in the 'New Media' battle. Good riddance to a chip wrapper, I say... That and 'I told you so'.
What does her religion matter? Like many of the brainwashed ISM kids she got herself into danger. She admits it, look at what her father said: "Emily, just please don’t do anything dangerous." Same as happened with Hurndall and Corrie. Regrettable but they should not naively put themselves in the path of danger. And I would say the same if it was my children. The blame is with ISM.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile you carry on your pathetic personal vendetta against Israel. We never hear a peep out of you about the woman in Iran who faces death by stoning for alleged adultery. Your double standards are there for all to see.
Singling out Israel - antisemitism par excellence.
JH
"Perhaps our city economist is getting rather muddled with political categories."
ReplyDeletePathetic. What does my profession have to do with anything? You are stuck in a 1960s time warp of class envy. Get real Tony. The Revolution isn't happening and the USSR has collapsed. You conduct your irrelevant class warfare: while you brave class warriors besiege Waitrose in Brighton, the rest of us will get a life....
JH
Your photo caption decribes Stephen Pollard as "chubby". What has Stephen's physical appearance got to do with anything? That is simply gratuitous.
ReplyDeleteYou are on insecure ground since you are not exactly an Adonis.
Maybe those who disagree with you should start decribing you in their blogs as a poisonous ugly little dwarf?
JH
It would seem that Jonathan knows when he is beaten. Hence his 4 posts. I notice he has nothing to say about being caught with his pants down when he lied about being the 'victim' of anti-semitic abuse.
ReplyDeleteBut then he didn't know that the meeting, the whole meeting, was being recorded!
I think being a City economist is as relevant as my 'trot' 'Soviet-style' beliefs! It's not my fault that JH is politically illiterate and doesn't understand the difference between those who betrayed the Russian revolution and those who fought against that betrayal.
As it happens I'm not a trot but a Marxist and revolutionary socialist!
As for Pollard being chubby, well that was the least unkind thing I could say about this hireling for a pornographer and a censor of any news that contradicts his own thesis.
JH asks what does her religion matter? Well this is the classic definition of chutzpah. JH, obviously oblivious to what he himself writes goes on to say that singling out Israel is anti-Semitic. Why? Is a state a person? Is singling out Iran for condemnation over stoning people to death anti-Iranian?
Is criticising Israel for taking the eye out of a demonstrator anti-Semitic? This is just to cheapen the term. Fact is that JH doesn't give a fuck about anti-Semitism hence why he is happy to devalue the currency.
And why are the ISM brainwashed? They grew up in a society that supports Israel, many of them Jewish. If anything they are the opposite of brainwashed, unlike Hoffman who accepted everything he was brought up to believe in.
Yes of course Emily got herself into danger and her father warned her. But what a commentary on Israel that going to a demonstration involves personal danger including possible loss of an eye or a life. That is a telling commentary on Israel's claim to be a 'democracy'.
Yes the same happened with Tom Hurndall and Rachel Corrie. Peaceful protestors murdered by the Israeli state and in Hurndall's case the Zionists were forced to admit it for the first time ever.
The 'blame is with the ISM'. Interesting example of JH's logic. Apparently a civil rights group is to blame because Israel has murdered 3 of its members and injured goodness knows how many more.
No wonder that JH finds the EDL such good company when he employs such fascist arguments.
Israel.
I am accused of not having uttered a word about the woman in Iran, Sakineh (she has a name JH) under threat of hanging now. I have signed a petition protesting about this. On the Alef list, run by left-wing Israeli professor Avraham Oz of Haifa University, I have engaged in a long discussion where I have made my views about the barbaric and medieval Iranian regime clear to all and sundry. And for the record I am opposed any way to the death penalty, even for fools like JH, and in particular the cruel and vicious nature of what has been proposed and I support any attempts to replace that regime with a secular one.
But the hypocrisy of JH is stunning. He purports to support Sakineh but says nothing whatsoever about Israel's treatment of the Palestinians or Israeli Palestinians or the witchhunt of their Knesset members, one of whom was injured at another demonstration or the many aspects of discrimination such as evicting families from East Jerusalem to allow settlers to take their place.
If you are genuinely concerned about Sakineh and others in Iran, then shut the fuck up and say nothing. Because support from Zionists is the kind of support Lenin once described vs the Labour Party. Namely the support a rope gives to a hanging man. There is nothing the Iranian regime wants more than to associate her with Israel which is making military threats against Iran.
It would seem that Jonathan knows when he is beaten. Hence his 4 posts. I notice he has nothing to say about being caught with his pants down when he lied about being the 'victim' of anti-semitic abuse.
ReplyDeleteBut then he didn't know that the meeting, the whole meeting, was being recorded!
I think being a City economist is as relevant as my 'trot' 'Soviet-style' beliefs! It's not my fault that JH is politically illiterate and doesn't understand the difference between those who betrayed the Russian revolution and those who fought against that betrayal.
As it happens I'm not a trot but a Marxist and revolutionary socialist!
As for Pollard being chubby, well that was the least unkind thing I could say about this hireling for a pornographer and a censor of any news that contradicts his own thesis.
JH asks what does her religion matter? Well this is the classic definition of chutzpah. JH, obviously oblivious to what he himself writes goes on to say that singling out Israel is anti-Semitic. Why? Is a state a person? Is singling out Iran for condemnation over stoning people to death anti-Iranian?
Is criticising Israel for taking the eye out of a demonstrator anti-Semitic? This is just to cheapen the term. Fact is that JH doesn't give a fuck about anti-Semitism hence why he is happy to devalue the currency.
And why are the ISM brainwashed? They grew up in a society that supports Israel, many of them Jewish. If anything they are the opposite of brainwashed, unlike Hoffman who accepted everything he was brought up to believe in.
Yes of course Emily got herself into danger and her father warned her. But what a commentary on Israel that going to a demonstration involves personal danger including possible loss of an eye or a life. That is a telling commentary on Israel's claim to be a 'democracy'.
Yes the same happened with Tom Hurndall and Rachel Corrie. Peaceful protestors murdered by the Israeli state and in Hurndall's case the Zionists were forced to admit it for the first time ever.
The 'blame is with the ISM'. Interesting example of JH's logic. Apparently a civil rights group is to blame because Israel has murdered 3 of its members and injured goodness knows how many more.
No wonder that JH finds the EDL such good company when he employs such fascist arguments.
Israel.
I am accused of not having uttered a word about the woman in Iran, Sakineh (she has a name JH) under threat of hanging now. I have signed a petition protesting about this. On the Alef list, run by left-wing Israeli professor Avraham Oz of Haifa University, I have engaged in a long discussion where I have made my views about the barbaric and medieval Iranian regime clear to all and sundry. And for the record I am opposed any way to the death penalty, even for fools like JH, and in particular the cruel and vicious nature of what has been proposed and I support any attempts to replace that regime with a secular one.
But the hypocrisy of JH is stunning. He purports to support Sakineh but says nothing whatsoever about Israel's treatment of the Palestinians or Israeli Palestinians or the witchhunt of their Knesset members, one of whom was injured at another demonstration or the many aspects of discrimination such as evicting families from East Jerusalem to allow settlers to take their place.
If you are genuinely concerned about Sakineh and others in Iran, then shut the fuck up and say nothing. Because support from Zionists is the kind of support Lenin once described vs the Labour Party. Namely the support a rope gives to a hanging man. There is nothing the Iranian regime wants more than to associate her with Israel which is making military threats against Iran.
I forgot to say that the reason Emily's religion is relevant in a 'Jewish State' [uh, are you really that thick Jonathan?] is because Israel is touted as a safe haven for Jews, not as somewhere to come and be blinded if you demonstrate against oppression.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't waste too much time arguing with JH. You know he's a dishonest hypocrite who only cares about Israel's image- not the reality. Any negative coverage of Israel is bias as far as he's concerned. Best the BBC doesn't report at all. And human rights abuses elsewhere in the world only matter to him when they can be used to deflect from Israel's or accuse people of singling out Israel.
ReplyDeleteYou have pointed out that you don't single out Israel,but even if you did,so what? Israel deserves to be singled out for being the world's biggest hypocrite and getting away with more than any other country.
I can't believe JH is still lying about that SOAS incident. The partly Jewish audience laughed at him because he is a notorious Zionist bigot, not because he's Jewish.It has already been pointed out that Mike Cushman, also a Jew, said 'D'you really want to know?', not 'Jew'! Pollard is obviously going along with it because he wants to whip up fear in the mainstream Jewish community and discredit the Palestine solidarity movement. But as I said, Pollard is not interested in the truth and I expect he has asked Hoffman to stick to this version of events to defend his decision to keep the factually incorrect story on the website.
Notice how religion suddenly doesn't matter when you're a Jew who supports justice for Palestinians, but it matters when you are a Zionist and laughed at, as Hoffman was, apparently, he claims, because he's Jewish.
Hoffie:
ReplyDelete"Regrettable but they should not naively put themselves in the path of danger. And I would say the same if it was my children. The blame is with ISM."
Rephrased in real JH-speak: 'Israel can do no wrong and those who say otherwise are antisemites'.
And no doubt Jews who got injured in pogroms in Russia and elsewhere were also naively putting themselves in danger! Of course that was real anti-semitism not the kind which justifies demonstrating with the EDL!
ReplyDeleteTony, that goes without saying: they KNEW about the antisemitism in these countries and didn't emigrate to the fledgling Jewish State. Silly buggers!
ReplyDeleteI'll up the ante: JH is highly irresponsible for living in the UK (WITH his poor kids!), a well known antisemitic hell hole...
In Hoffie's invert-o-world, if you get beaten up by the police, you owed it to yourself for demonstrating. Or something. For being in the wrong place, no doubt... Like that poor chap who died from a heart attack: walking around with a tricky ticker like that: he had it coming...
Regrettable but they should not naively put themselves in the path of danger. And I would say the same if it was my children.
ReplyDelete- This was one of the reasons the Nazis banned Jews from public spaces, because they were causing such a public nuisance to decent people, and were only putting themselves in danger.
It's good to see fanatical statist worshippers like Hoffman spouting the exact same crap as the Nazis used to do, in order to support and stigmatise the victims of their appalling state oppression and violence.
They've only got themselves to blame - especially when they should be doing somthing more worthwhile such as debasing themselves before a rancid racist regime.
What I want to know Gert,
ReplyDeleteis what the government is going to do about these zionist cultural terrorists in Britian who deliberately go out of their way to put themselves in danger by going about in public?
These zionists know they're naively putting themselves in the path of danger by not emigrating to Israel, where they'll be nice and safe, as long as their name isn't Emily Henochowicz. Obviously they're just hypocrites. Why should I give a shit if the British police beat them up in public or take one of their eyes out?
At least the Nazis tried to help Jews by banning them from public spaces, thus protecting them from any harm their presence was always likely to cause. It's hardly the Nazis fault the Jews were a danger to themselves and to others. To claim otherwise just means you're brainwashed and biased.
Whatever you do, don't put yourself in danger by objecting to violent racist regimes. Do what ZF and JH do, support them and their appalling crimes.
Joe,
ReplyDeleteit's not a very British thing to do to kick a man when he's down. Apart from a slavish support for Israel (probably something to do with his upbringing) JH has nothing of the original about him. Indeed everything he says and does is trite and shallow.
So it's not fair to harp on about his 'provocation' thesis. Of course if used to describe anti-Semitism and the pogroms the it is clearly anti-Semitic but JH really doesn't think that conceptually.
When you have the mentality of a Zionist scribe you really don't think beyond the next 'battle' to defend Israel's honour. Analogies just don't come into the picture because what Israel/Jews (he of course mixes the 2 with gay abandon) suffer is unique and therefore can't be compared by definition.
Let me give a concrete example. Hoffman writes above that:
'Descending to Nazi abuse is a sure sign he [i.e. TG] recognises the emptiness of his arguments.'
I suspect Hoffman wrote this without even blushing. This from a man who represents a movement which has spent much of its energies bracketing its ideological foes with Nazism!! You couldn't make it up.
Maybe she should have found a different place to protest? She could have gone home to the US and protested there and there would have been scant chance for injury.
ReplyDeleteI see no obligation the State of Israel may have assumed by simply working to control a protest that was taken too far by the demonstrators themselves.
Joe:
ReplyDeleteIt's obvious and can be extended to soooo many situations around the world: e.g. what were these dumb leftist Argentinians thinking during the 'Dirty War', huh? Opposing a Junta in the knowledge that you could end up tortured or worse: 'disappeared'. Sheer folly.
And of course the Palestinians: they know very well it's not safe to try and hold on to their land, so why do it? "Safety first", is what I say...
Anyway, annoying twit Hoffie has declared RIP British Justice over at the Palestinian-free Richard Millett blog and the wannabe legal eagles of British Zionism are all in agreement.
Well LL describes himself as an 'international jewel thief' (I kid you not - just hope they're not African blood diamonds).
ReplyDeleteHe is absolutely right. israel is no place to protest and she should have done it in the USA, despite holding joint US/Israeli citizenship.
So next time someone says Israel is the 'only democracy in the Middle East' we can quote our jewel thief LL to back up our claim that a state where you can't protest without losing eyes or limbs or life is no democracy.
Thank you LL. Sometimes your sort are invaluable!
I wouldn't be too sanguine about 'scant chance for injury': in "the leader of the Free World" dissent on Israel won't cost you an eye but it can cost you a future or a livelihood.
ReplyDeleteEach country has its own means of suppressing dissent: on this occasion Israel used a slightly, shall we say 'biblical' method, the US opts for more cash related tricks.
Anyway, annoying twit Hoffie has declared RIP British Justice over at the Palestinian-free Richard Millett blog and the wannabe legal eagles of British Zionism are all in agreement.
ReplyDelete- It doesn't serve the criminals right for nothing to have happened to them.
Is there no justice in this world?
Criminals everywhere are getting away with being anti-Israeli unscathed!
It seems those who are anti-Israeli can escape punishment after all, and they have a cheek to complain!
It seems to me that, in order for justice to work properly, you need to be within reach of one of Israel's many goon squads. You don't even need to be in Israel itself, as in Emily's case, who was in illegaly occupied Palestine.
You don't even need to be in Israeli territorial waters either, as in the case of those mass-murdered aboard the MV Mavi Marmara who were all in neutral international waters.
Now it seems not even British courts are safe for zionists to be seen in public in.
Soon, the only place safe for the likes of Hoffman will be Israel - it's a sick world.
Joe:
ReplyDeleteYou have to wonder though whether Israel would really want Hoffie to join the fray. Haven't they got enough of a humanitarian crisis on their hands?
RIP British Justice, Gert.
ReplyDeleteThese anti-Israeli antisemites are getting away with it here in GB, and HMG plans to do the same thing for pro-Israeli antisemties too -
Ken Clarke moves to block war crimes prosecutions
The New Statesman
22 Jul 2010
It's anarchy out there on the streets if you happen to be Jewish.
It seems to me the only safe place for the Hoffman's of this world is to stick their own head up their own arse and pretend they've emigrated to Israel. There isn't much to tell between the two anyway, and I doubt Hoffman is ever going to notice the difference given his own self-enforced exile from reality anyway.
All the best!