Jonathan Hoffman, fugitive from justice

by Martin Odoni

I had planned to resist the temptation to write – in considerable amusement – about one of this week’s lighter bits of news; Jonathan Hoffman, perhaps the most limited and narrow-minded Zionist bigot in Britain, is in trouble with the law. The former Chairman of the Zionist Federation of Britain and Ireland (ugh, so vainglorious) and I have crossed swords over social media a few times over the last couple of years, and he is one of the most bullying people I have ever encountered online – worse even than Christopher Whittle. So it was difficult to resist having a written gloat at his troubles. Too difficult, as it turns out, because I have seen a statement about it he put up on his Facebook timeline, and I have to let everyone have a quick laugh at it.

To explain, Hoffman and his fellow anti-Palestinian intimidation artist, Damian Lenszner, are facing charges of common assault and the use of threatening words and behaviour. Lenszner faces an additional charge of assault by beating. The two defendants were due to appear in court this week, but both ‘mysteriously’ failed to turn up. Warrants were therefore issued for their arrest. (Subsequently withdrawn when they both reported in of their own volition, I must emphasise.)

Now, Hoffman has put up his version of the events of his O.J.-Simpson-like flight from the long-arm of the law on Facebook, as I say, linked to an article in the Jewish Chronicle about the episode. and here is a screencap of it; –

Jonathan Hoffman makes his excuse for missing court

Before I get to the guts of my response, is it not hilarious to see a Zionist-imperialist like Hoffman complaining about his coverage in a Zionist-imperialist rag like the Jewish Chronicle? That would not be entirely unlike Donald Trump complaining about Fox News Channel being really harsh on him.

But I digress. Let us have a quick, snigger-saturated breakdown of Hoffman’s whines; –

“The reason I failed to appear is bcos[sic] I never got the letter.”

Oh yes, original one there, Mr Heffalump, we can be confident no one has ever heard that one before. Even if we give him the benefit of the doubt, it does not explain why Lenszner failed to show up either. Did he ‘not receive his letter’ either? Wow, courier services in this country have really gone downhill since the Royal Mail was privatised by Hoffman’s beloved Conservatives.

“The journalist knows this . Why has she not printed it? This is a trumped up charge with zero evidence.”

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Urrrggghhhh, apologies for the delay there, I just had to go and be violently sick.

Is Hufflepuff kidding?! 

He must be, right? This is Jonathan Hoffman complaining about ‘trumped-up charges with zero evidence’?! I mean, seriously – Jonathan Huffing-and-Puffing is complaining about trumped-up charges, with his history of McCarthyite dirty behaviour? He is upset about someone supposedly manipulating legal mechanisms against him, when he reports Labour members to the party’s compliance unit so frequently that he has their phone number on speed-dial?

Once again, anyone trying to prove Jeremy Corbyn is one hundred per cent right about Zionists and their total lack of any sense of irony would be wasting effort. Zionists themselves make it absolutely self-evident every day!

“I will fight it strenuously. How appalling that we are charged for opposing Israel Hate”

No, Jimmy Hoffa, you have not been charged for ‘opposing Israel hate’. Opposing hatred of Israel is not a crime – although it could be argued that it should be, given what Israel does to the Palestinians; the Land Day Massacre was a year ago today, and you still try to blame the victims. You have been charged for – or rather with – physical assault and general threatening behaviour. Now, whether you are guilty or not, those are actually against the law in their own right, no matter which ideology – if any – they are carried out in order to advance.

If you are innocent of assaulting and threatening people, you will probably be cleared. If you are guilty of assaulting and threatening people, you will probably be convicted. Israel does not enter into this. It is that simple. Having said that, it is a little difficult to believe you are innocent, given your thuggish past, and your loving associations with hard-right fringe groups like the EDL and Kach Party supporters.

Jonathan Hoffman proving that British Zionists have nothing to do with neo-Nazi groups, by marching with Roberta Moore of the EDL and the Kach Party.

In any event, the wish to see you behind bars is less to do with your opposition to hatred of Israel, and more to do with your bloody-minded and racist enthusiasm for hatred of Palestinians.

“but Nazim Ali – who said that Zionists were responsible for the Grenfell tragedy – has not been charged.”

Okay, I will treat this bit semi-seriously. Nazim Ali’s remarks about Zionism and the Grenfell Tower Fire were foolish and irresponsible, and he definitely should not have said them. However, there are two problems with Jonathan Hissyfit raising them in this context; –

1) They are utterly irrelevant to the matter of Hoffman apparently committing a physical assault. Hoffman raising them appears to be just the flailing, hapless ‘whataboutery’ of a short-tempered, aggressive old man who knows he is in big trouble and is angling for sympathy about a supposed ‘double-standard’. But there is no double-standard, as what Ali said is not comparable to what Hoffman allegedly did. If Hoffman did assault someone – and it would hardly be out-of-character if he did – then he has committed a crime for he which he must be prosecuted. That is true irrespective of any controversial public remarks someone else made on a different matter.

2) If you study his words, Ali was talking about corporations being responsible for the appallingly shoddy safety standards at Grenfell. That he associated them with Zionism was a non-sequitur, and made his statement sound a little idiotic by their obvious inference, but they were not inaccurate as such. So what does Hoffman think Ali can be charged with exactly? It cannot be slander, given nothing Ali said was inaccurate, even if the inferred conclusion was. It cannot be racial hatred, due to Zionism not being the same as Judaism or Jewry, and definitely not being a racial group.

(Many Jews, like me, are not Zionists, and many Zionists are not Jews. Indeed, an awful lot of non-Jewish Zionists are anti-Semites. Having a Jewish State in the world is very handy for political anti-Semitism, as it means there is somewhere to which Jews can be sent away.)

You see? Hoffman is trying to claim that two quite separate incidents effectively carry equal weight, and they simply do not.

Jonathan Hoffman bullies, smears, threatens and lies so routinely and so instinctively that he no longer notices doing any of it. This is why, when he finally gets taken to task, he is convinced that he is a ‘victim’. Because he has simply stopped noticing the reasons why he is not.

In that regard, Hoffman resembles Tommy Robinson, only even less intelligent.

And yes, Hoffman, you can quote me on that.