Hoax Alert: The Haskel Hoax (2024)

According to Yossi Lempkowicz writing in the ‘European Jewish Press’; the grandmother of a member of the Israeli Knesset is claiming she was subjected to an ‘anti-Semitic hate crime’.

He writes that:

‘The grandmother of Sharren Haskel, a member of the Knesset, was attacked and beaten by ‘’Arab thugs’’in an attack in France, she said on social media X.

‘’My 88-year-old grandmother was attacked by Arab thugs, and I have no hope that the French authorities will be able to deal with this,’’ Haskel, who is a MK for the New Hope party, wrote, calling and on Jews in the diaspora to emigrate to Israel, their “national, cultural and historical homeland”.

French media reported that the elderly woman had lodged a complaint with the police about the attack, which occurred on June 24.

In her complaint, the victim, who was not named either in the media or by Haskel, recounted that she was leaving her home in the Val-d’Oise, north of Paris, to attend a medical appointment when two men assaulted her. One of them punched her in the face, breaking a tooth and knocking her to the ground. She was kicked in the back, while one of the men shouted “dirty Jew” and called her a “dirty old woman”.

Haskel criticized the French government for not doing enough to combat anti-Semitism, claiming that it “ignores and allows the dissemination of slander against Israel”, particularly in the wake of the October 7 Hamas pogrom in southern Israel, which triggered the ongoing war against Hamas terrorist group in the Gaza Strip.’ (1)

This sounds plausible until we note what Lempkowicz says next:

‘In her complaint, which was only lodged on July 1, the victim, who was not named either in the media or by Haskel, recounted that she was leaving her home in Val-d’Oise, north of Paris, to attend a medical appointment when two men assaulted her. One of them punched her in the face, breaking a tooth and knocking her to the ground. She was kicked in the back, while one of the men shouted “dirty Jew” and called her a “dirty old woman”.

The victim said that she was wearing a Star of David around her neck and that the two men may have noticed, “otherwise they wouldn’t have known” that she was Jewish.’ (2)

They key bit here is that the two ‘Arab men’ are presumed to have known that she was jewish because she was wearing a star of David around her neck, but this is difficult to sustain when we note that it would have been difficult to notice such a necklace in the moment let alone target a woman because of it given that this was clearly a crime of opportunity based on all descriptions of the attack.

Haskel was also called a ‘dirty old woman’ but yet we don’t mention age as a factor in the attack instead jews are focusing entirely on the unsupported claim that the attackers said ‘dirty jew’ and fail to mention the issue of how Haskel was so quickly and easily allegedly identified as a jew by said attackers (the star of David necklace in this context is plausible but insufficient by itself).

A good example is provided by Arutz Sheva’s account of the incident:

‘The perpetrators struck the elderly woman in the face, breaking her tooth and knocking her to the ground. She was then kicked in the back, as the attackers called her a “dirty Jew” and said she deserved to be assaulted.

The attackers fled the scene and have not been apprehended by police.’ (3)

Notice that no mention is made of the phrase ‘dirty old woman’ and only ‘dirty jew’ allegedly said by the attackers and also that no discussion of how Haskel was identified as a jew by said attackers is attempted. This is because both the additional contextual alleged statement and how Haskel was identified as a jewess by the attackers significantly undermines the claim that the attack on Haskel was motivated and/or related to her jewishness.

The simple truth is that while Haskel was almost certainly the victim of a crime – probably by two Arab men – it likely wasn’t motivated by ‘anti-Semitism’ or the fact that she was jewish at all but rather because she was an easy target as a old woman who was alone and seemingly also distracted.

References

(1) https://ejpress.org/grandmother-of-a-member-of-the-knesset-attacked-and-beaten-in-france-by-arab-thugs/

(2) Ibid.

(3) https://worldisraelnews.com/dirty-jew-mks-grandmother-attacked-in-france/