Tony Greenstein | 29 August 2010 | Post Views:

Jonathan Hoffman, Co-Chair of the Zionist Federation Eats Humble Pie!
We all get things wrong and by itself that is no reason to gloat. But Jonathan Hoffman, co-Chair of the Zionist Federation is in a different league. He is the personification of Zionist Hasbarah (propaganda). He deliberately lies whenever he feels that it will serve his needs, except that he is not very good at it.

You will recall the UCU meeting at SOAS on November 4th last year. Hoffman was heckled when he got up to speak but Conservative activist, Raheem Kassam claimed that Hoffman was subject to anti-semitic abuse, the repeated chant of ‘Jewish’ etc. at him.


Hoffman, who hadn’t realised at the time that he was being subject anti-semitic abuse(!) lost no opportunity to claim victimhood. The problem was the meeting was videotaped and it was quite clear that he hadn’t been the subject of anti-semitic abuse. Given the number of Jews in the audience it would have been highly surprising if they also hadn’t noticed. But instead of saying that he was mistaken Hoffman went out on a limb, even when the BBC withdrew, within 24 hours, its report of the alleged incident and later apologised.

In a comment to an article I posted on the Jewdas site Hoffman stated that ‘If Israel ‘nationality’ was confined to Jews that leaves non-Jews in Israel effectively stateless.’ This was in response to my assertion that there is no such thing and never has been an Israeli nationality. An Israeli nationality would be anathema to Zionism, which holds that Israel is the State of the Jews wherever they live. Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister called advocates of an Israeli nationality ‘Canaanites’ i.e. idolaters.

Hoffman is Co-Chair of the Zionist Federation in this country. He is in a position to know that Israel’s use, in English, of the term Israeli alongside the category ‘nationality’ in its passports is a deliberate lie, whose purpose is to confuse. Yet he wrote: ‘If Israel ‘nationality’ was confined to Jews that leaves non-Jews in Israel effectively stateless.’

Precisely Jonathan. And now are you going to admit that Israeli Arabs are effectively stateless?

No. Instead he is now lying again. This time in an effort to defuse critics of his de-facto alliance with the racist English Defence League, which contains numerous fascist and neo-Nazis, including the fruitcake Roberta Moore, head of its Jewish Division, he labelled a photograph on my blog ‘photoshopped’. This was a grossly defamatory attack on photographer David Hoffman, who clearly threatened JH with a libel action. As a result, Jonathan Hoffman has now been forced to publish a humiliating apology on his Jewish Chronicle blog!

The wording below makes it clear that Jonathan Hoffman’s first resort is to lie, lie and lie again.

‘On my Jewish Chronicle blog I described a photograph taken on 14 August 2010 at the pro-Ahava demonstration as “fraudulent”. I also wrote “That photo was ‘Photoshopped’ — and it is bloody obvious that it was ‘Photoshopped’ I do not discuss but I do identify lies and fraudulent Photoshopped photos.”

These statements were entirely without foundation and I had made no attempt to check their accuracy. I accept that the photo was absolutely genuine and had not been tampered with in any way. The photographer, David Hoffman, is a well known and respected photojournalist and I apologise to him unreservedly for my hasty and unfounded comments and for the distress and embarrassment caused.’

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Tony Greenstein

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