Noah Pollack Fact Checks Mohammed Omar
OMAR ever work for the tabloids?
Here’s an amazing case in point: Mohammed Omer, a Gaza-based “journalist.” (Read his bio here, and his personal website, and decide for yourself what his actual profession is.) Anyway, Omer is a hero/celebrity in certain enlightened political quarters, and so he traveled to Europe for three weeks to receive a journalism award and bask in the adulation of the righteous.
Before returning to relentless victimization in Gaza, he had to pass from Jordan to Israel, which required a trip through customs. It is here that Omer appears to have gone crazy. He says that:
the policeman ordered him to strip naked. Omer said in a 10-page statement that after he refused repeatedly, the officer unholstered his weapon, “pressing it to my head and with his full body weight pinning me on my side, he forcibly removed my underwear.”
Omer said he was later allowed to get dressed again, but then was insulted and ridiculed by Israel agents, to the point of tears. He said he eventually vomited and fainted.
He claims that when he came to, an Israeli scratched his face deeply under his eyes, then someone gouged his head, clawed at his eyes and tore his skin. An Israeli pressed his neck to the floor with a boot, he charges, saying he suffered beating, scratching and assaults before Israelis summoned an ambulance that took him to a hospital in Jericho.
What did the hospital in Jericho say? Omer “had no signs of physical injury.” And the Israelis say they have no idea what Omer is talking about. Dutch diplomats — oh, the kindhearted Dutch — whisked him away to Gaza, where Omer now protests his abuse from a hospital, which has magically discovered — wait for it — that he has broken ribs.
Someone should investigate the hospital…
Posted: 11th, July 2008 | In: Reviews Comments (2) | TrackBack | Permalink
