Tag: Emily Henochowicz

Tell Combined Systems Inc. to Stop Providing Tear Gas that Israel Uses to Kill and Maim Protesters

CLICK HERE TO SEND AN E-MAIL TO COMBINED SYSTEMS INC.

On January 1, 2011, 36-year-old Palestinian Jawaher Abu Rahmah from the West Bank village of Bil’in died at a hospital from the effects of tear gas inhalation suffered at a protest the previous day against Israel’s construction of a wall and settlements on Bil’in’s land. Jawaher is only the most recent protester killed or seriously injured by tear gas fired by the Israeli military. For example, Jawaher’s brother Bassem, was killed almost two years ago, and two US citizens, Tristan Anderson and Emily Henochowicz were injured in 2009-2010.

Much of Israel’s tear gas is provided by the US company Combined Systems Inc. (CSI) located in Jamestown, Pennsylvania. The letters CSI, or CTS, a CSI brand name, are marked on many of tear gas canisters that litter Palestinian villages after they protest. The Israeli military is using CSI’s tear gas as a weapon as it tries to crush the growing movement of unarmed protest against Israel’s illegal confiscation of Palestinian land for Israeli settlements. Even more disturbing, you as a US taxpayer are paying for at least some of the tear gas that Israel is shooting at Palestinian, Israeli and international protesters. For example, in 2007 and 2008, the US State Department provided $1.85 million worth of “tear gasses and riot control agents” to Israel as part of the US’s $3 billion in annual military aid to Israel.

Act now by emailing executives at CSI, and at the companies that invest in CSI, the Carlyle Group and Point Lookout Capital, and telling them to stop providing their tear gas to the Israeli military, before more protesters are killed and maimed.

The Israeli military has a documented history of deliberately firing tear canisters directly at unarmed protesters, and of blanketing entire villages in clouds of tear gas whenever they hold protests against Israeli land seizure. Jawaher’s brother Bassem Abu Rahmah was killed in April 2009 when he was hit in the chest with an extended range CSI tear gas canister fired directly at him by an Israeli soldier, according to B’Tselem. In the villages of Bil’in and Ni’ilin alone, 18 people have been directly hit by extended range CSI tear gas http://adalahny.org/images/teargas-cont.jpgcanisters. Bil’in resident Khamis Abu Rahmah suffered a fractured skull and brain hemorrhage after being shot in the back of his head. An Israeli soldier shot California resident Tristan Anderson directly in the head with a high velocity tear gas canister in a March 2009 protest in Ni’ilin, leaving Tristan partially handicapped and suffering slight cognitive damage. New York City college student Emily Henochowicz lost her left eye when an Israeli soldier shot her directly in the face with an aluminum tear gas canister at a May 2010 protest at the Qalandiyah checkpoint.

And no one knows the long-term health impact for residents of villages like Bil’in and Ni’ilin, and their Israeli supporters, who have been blanketed in tear gas at least once a week over a period of years, each time they hold their weekly protests against Israel’s confiscation of their villages’ land for Israel’s wall and settlements.

For photos and more documentation about the use of CSI’s tear gas by the Israeli military to kill and maim protesters CLICK HERE.

CLICK HERE TO SEND AN E-MAIL TO COMBINED SYSTEMS INC.

IDF resumes use of prohibited tear gas canisters

8 December 2010 | Ha’aretz, Chaim Levinson

The canisters, which are used to disperse demonstrations in the West Bank, have been responsible for serious injuries and at least one death

Israel Defense Forces soldiers recently resumed the use of prohibited tear gas canisters to disperse demonstrations in the West Bank.

These tear gas grenades, which are in effect 40 mm rounds with a range of 250 meters, were responsible for numerous serious injuries and at least one death. In March 2009, the U.S. peace activist Tristan Anderson was hit in the head by one of these canisters while demonstrating against the West Bank separation barrier in Na’alin. Anderson was critically injured and was hospitalized in a minimally responsive state for several months after the incident. He has recovered some physical and mental functions. In April 2009, Bassam Abu Rahma, of Bil’in, died immediately after being hit in the chest by a tear gas grenade. The incident is still under IDF investigation.

After several human rights organizations protested to the military advocate general, use of the extended-range tear gas canister was banned by the IDF and stocks were removed from weapons depots. Haaretz reported six months ago that in a training day on crowd dispersal held at the General Staff command several officers expressed objection to the ban. They said that that using the shorter-range canisters put soldiers in greater danger and put them in closer range of rocks thrown by demonstrators.

Last month, IDF forces resumed their use of the extended-range tear gas grenades, despite their prohibition. They were used to disperse the demonstrations held every Friday in the village of Nebi Salah, between Salafiya and Ramallah, which end with participants hurling rocks at the soldiers and at vehicles plying the road to the settlement of Neve Tzuf. Two weeks ago, one of these canisters smashed the leg of one of the demonstrators. A video from November 12 shows tear gas coming out of the canister as it lay on the ground.

On Thursday, soldiers from the Carmeli reserve brigade fired extended-range tear gas canisters at teens who threw rocks at them. Several shells bearing the words “extended range” were visible on the ground after the incident.

Police exonerate Israeli officer who shot canister that hit U.S. activist’s eye

28 November 2010 | Haaretz, Chaim Levinson

Art student Emily Henochowicz was seriously injured during a protest against the IDF’s raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in late May.

The Judea and Samaria district police found no criminal wrongdoing in the actions of the Border Police soldiers who left an American art student without an eye after getting hit in the face with a tear gas canister at a protest in Qalandiyah six months ago.

The incident took place on May 31, when Emily Henochowicz, a student at Cooper Union College in New York, took part in a small protest against the Israel Defense Forces raid on the Turkish flotilla to Gaza that morning.

Video footage of the incident shows Henochowicz, who carried a Turkish flag, injured from a tear gas grenade. She lost one of her eyes, and suffered several other fractures. Henochowicz has since returned to the United States to complete her studies.

Following the incident, Henochowicz’s family filed a complaint to the Judea and Samaria district police which is responsible for investigating the operational activity of the Border Police in the West Bank. The family argued the policeman shot the canister directly at the student, against regulations.

Henochowicz submitted her testimony, as did the Border Police batallion commander, company commander and the officer who fired the canister. The Border Police officers claimed the gas canister only hit Henochowicz after it ricocheted off a barricade. The police investigators claimed this version of events is backed by video footage of the incident. The police case has been transferred to the central district attorney to decide whether charges will be filed.

Attorney Michael Sfard, representing the Henochowicz family, slammed the police investigation, dubbing the Judea and Samaria police “a sewage treatment plant for the Border Police.” He said the investigation was negligent, pointing out that investigators did not bother to speak to Haaretz reporter Avi Issacharoff and photographer Daniel Bar-On, who were present at the scene and captured the incident in print and photos.

“Every investigation of killing or injuries ends up emitting this stench of blamelessness,” Sfard said. “This particular case shows that the negligence borders whitewash. Anyone who finds no need to question objective witnesses, who have stated the Border Police officer took direct aim, is obstructing the investigation and is as good as confessing to having no interest in finding the truth.”

When reached for comment, police would only say the case was now with the district attorney’s office.

Emily Henochowicz: artist turned pro-Palestinian activist

21 August 2010 | The Guardian

Jewish-American Emily Henochowicz recalls how she lost an eye at a protest in Israel after the storming of the Gaza aid flotilla

As a student artist, Emily Henochowicz has always been fascinated by the way the brain processes visual signals to form images of the physical world around us. That has been a theme of her work at the prestigious New York art college, Cooper Union, which she joined three years ago.

In her first term she made a costume out of papier-mache for the inaugural freshman’s parade that neatly expressed that fascination. It was meant to be a monster cyclops, but the way it came out it resembled a giant eyeball with her arms and legs sticking out of it.

For more than a year she has used a photograph of that eyeball as the icon of her art blog, thirsty pixels. It is all too ironic, she laughs now. The irony is that in May Henochowicz became – in her own words – a cyclops. She lost her left eye as she was demonstrating against Israeli government policy in the Palestinian occupied territories.

With her loss, she became yet another casualty of the ongoing Israeli occupation. But what makes Henochowicz’s story singular was that her experiences were filtered through the lens, the eye, of an artist.

It was art that took her to the Middle East in the first place. She signed up to an animation course in Jerusalem that suited her passion for drawing.

Her choice of Jerusalem had little to do with the fact that she was the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, or that her father was born in Israel and that she herself was Jewish and an Israeli citizen. It had even less to do with any political beliefs she might have on either side of the Israeli-Palestinian divide, though she had been disturbed by Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war of 2008-9.

It was all about art. But a month after she arrived in Jerusalem, an Israeli friend and peace activist took her into Palestinian East Jerusalem. That day changed everything.

“It was a little bit shocking,” she says, recalling the event in a Manhattan cafe. “Suddenly a huge group of Hassidim came down the street. These little Palestinian kids – just five or six years old – linked arms and were standing in the middle of the street. The Hassidim were on the other side, singing prayers at them. It was such a powerful image for me: that line of children, so strong and defiant, this huge group of adults in front of them.”

The next day Henochowicz captured the moment in a dramatic painting that shows the children in front of a swirl of black-clad Jewish men. And then she acted on impulse – something that as an artist she says she is wont to do. She went to Ramallah on the West Bank and joined the protest campaign the International Solidarity Movement.

Over the next few weeks Henochowicz threw herself into the fray, protesting outside Israeli settlements in the West Bank and along the separation wall. She was aware of the dangers, not least because it was with the ISM that fellow-American Rachel Corrie had been demonstrating in 2003 when she was crushed to death by a bulldozer.

“I had a fear the whole time I was going to get hit with tear gas,” Henochowicz says. “I knew the way that it was used. Forget UN regulations, this is Israel, the rules don’t apply here – tear gas is fired directly into crowds.”

At first she kept what she was doing from her parents, certain that they would disapprove. But eventually she told them.

“They were incredibly upset, particularly my dad. He had been to Yeshiva, Jewish school, and speaks Hebrew.’ How could you do this to me?’ he said, but I wasn’t doing it to him.”

Paradoxically, shortly before the incident in which she lost her eye, Henochowicz decided, partly out of concern for her parents, that she would avoid demonstrations and dedicate herself instead to teaching art to Palestinian children. But on the morning of 31 May she awoke to the news that a Turkish flotilla attempting to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza had been raided and nine activists killed.

Mayhem and confusion ensued. She was swept along by the reaction, and found herself at a protest rally at the Qaladiya checkpoint, facing Israeli soldiers. “I was scared in a way I’d never been before.”

It was so quick, maybe just a minute from the first stones being thrown to the tear gas canister striking her in the face.

“I remember a weird crunch feeling and thinking, ‘Oh, I’ve been hit!’ Then there was the thought: ‘Hey guys, my brain’s ok! My brain’s ok!”

“And then I remember falling back and being held, and cameras rushing to me and clicking away and me thinking ‘Oh, I’ve become one of those images’.”

She was treated in a hospital in Ramallah and Jerusalem before returning to Maryland in the US. She has had multiple operations for a fractured skull as well as losing the eye.

The Israeli government has refused to pay thousands of dollars in medical costs, on the grounds that Henochowicz chose to put herself at risk and that she was hit by mistake by a ricochet.

“That’s preposterous,” she says. “A ricochet? From what wall? Where? How? This was no ricochet.”

Henochowicz is now preparing for term to start at Cooper Union. She wears a pair of glasses, the left lens of which she has painted with swirls to obscure the empty socket behind it.

She says she has adapted with amazing speed to the loss. “I go through a lot of my days not even thinking that I’m seeing only through one eye. I’m so fine in other ways, I’m perfectly healthy.”

She stresses how unfair she thinks it is that she gets so much attention, while Palestinians who are injured with depressing frequency go without notice. “I’m white, I’m Jewish, I’m an Israeli citizen and American. When I’m hit by tear gas there are articles, the Israeli government gets involved. When Palestinians are hit, who gives a shit?”

She doesn’t know what the longer-term impact will be on her art. She remembers telling the doctor who informed her she had lost an eye: “But I’m an artist, that’s not supposed to happen!”

“I’ve been sad because this is a moment in my life I can never escape, and that’s what gets me more than the loss of my eye,” she says. “Twenty years from now I will still carry this moment, and I desperately don’t want it to be the end of my story.”

Emily Henochowicz speaks out: art student shot with tear gas canister interviewed on Democracy Now!

6 August 2010 | Democracy Now!

Emily Henochowicz speaks out: art student who lost her eye after being shot by Israeli tear gas canister in West Bank protest discusses her life, her art, and why she plans to return

JUAN GONZALEZ: Today, a Democracy Now! global broadcast exclusive interview with Emily Henochowicz, who—you may remember her name. She’s the twenty-one-year-old American art student who lost her eye in May after being shot in the face by an Israeli tear gas canister.

Emily is entering her senior year at Cooper Union’s prestigious art program here in New York City. This past spring, she chose to study abroad in Israel at a leading art school in Jerusalem. Emily holds Israeli citizenship. Her father was born in Israel, and her grandparents are Holocaust survivors. Soon after she arrived in Israel, Emily began spending time in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. And many of her drawings began to reflect the harsh realities of Palestinian life in the Occupied Territories.

AMY GOODMAN: On May 31st, news broke that Israeli commandoes had attacked a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in the Mediterranean and killed nine activists onboard. Emily decided to take part in a protest against the Israeli assault, and she joined demonstrators at the Qalandiya checkpoint in the West Bank. Israeli border police began firing tear gas canisters at the protesters. One of them hit Emily in the face and blasted her left eye out of her head. Several bones in her face were crushed. She was rushed to the hospital, but her eye could not be saved.

The Israeli Defense Ministry said, well, according to preliminary checks, the border police dealt lawfully with the protest and that the firing of tear gas was justified. But witnesses and a Ha’aretz journalist who was there said Israeli forces fired directly at the demonstrators, rather than into the air in accordance with regulations. The Israeli police have begun a criminal investigation.

Meanwhile, Emily is back here in the United States recovering from her injuries, but her left eye is gone forever. Last week, Israel refused to pay her medical bills of $3,700 for the treatment she received at the hospital in Jerusalem. The government claims she was not intentionally shot and said she had endangered herself by participating in the demonstration.

Well, Emily Henochowicz is now here in New York getting ready to enter her senior year at Cooper Union, not far from our studios, and she joins us here in our studio for her first broadcast interview.

Welcome, Emily, to Democracy Now!

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: Hi.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go back in time. How you ended up in Israel?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: Well, you know, I was just like any junior in college wanting to go on an exchange program, and I really liked the program that Bezalel had, and I went for that reason. It really wasn’t for any kind of political reason that I ended up there.

AMY GOODMAN: And so, what happened when you got to school there?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: Well, the problem is, they gave us three weeks off for Pesach, which was just enough time to really go around and not just read about what’s going on with the settlers and the wall and all these things, but to actually go out there and see it. And I just opened my eyes and started getting involved.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And you started getting involved in protest movements or in support movements for the Palestinians? Exactly how did you get involved?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: Yeah, so, it’s sort of a mixture. I mean, I had gone to a number of demonstrations at places where—like at Nabi Salah, where they were trying to get their water supply back, and every week they have a demonstration where they try to go to their well. And then there’s, you know, Bil’in, with the wall. And I spent a lot of time in Sheikh Jarrah, because I’ve joined the ISM and they have a tent there that they the keep someone in the tent twenty-four hours a day to kind of check to make sure that the settlers at the outpost don’t do anything crazy, and if they do, that there’s international witnesses there to document, at least.

AMY GOODMAN: Sheikh Jarrah is in East Jerusalem?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: You were drawing pictures there?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: I mean, I guess—I mean, I draw pictures kind of everywhere. I don’t know. I definitely sketched a lot when I was there.

AMY GOODMAN: By the way, we’re going to show some of your pictures, and we’re going to post them on our website at democracynow.org.

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: OK, great.

AMY GOODMAN: By the way, “Thirsty Pixels,” your blog—

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Why do you call it “Thirsty Pixels”?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: Because what kills computers keeps us alive.

AMY GOODMAN: And how do thirsty pixels kill computers?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: Because water kills a computer. That’s—but these pixels, they want water. That’s why.

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about your evolution then. You’re in Sheikh Jarrah. You’re seeing things.

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, where you come from, your parents are—your grandparents were Holocaust survivors?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: Mm-hmm.

AMY GOODMAN: And your father, an Israeli citizen?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: They went from—where were they in the concentration—did they—were they in concentration camps?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: No, they weren’t in concentration camps. My grandparents, they’re from Poland. And they—I don’t know the full story, but I do know that they were all around Europe trying to find a place where they could just live and that there was no place where they could really be. And they were really ardent Zionists, and they came to Israel, lived there for ten years.

AMY GOODMAN: And your dad, born there?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: Mm-hmm.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And in terms of your transformation, as your father was here in the United States—was he aware? Were you communicating with him, while you were there, of how you were changing your perspective or viewpoints on what was going on in Israel and the Occupied Territories?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: You know, I found it very difficult at first to tell my parents that I had been to the West Bank and that, you know, that I’m drinking tea with Palestinians. But, of course, I had to tell them. But it took me like a month to really get to it. My dad reacted, you know, like a concerned father, but also felt that somehow I was personally attacking him by, you know, going to all these things. But he came around, really, so…

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to break and then come back and find out how he came around. And also, here you are protesting at checkpoints, and your grandfather actually was a border guard many years ago. But we’ll ask you about that after break.

This is Democracy Now! We’re talking to Emily Henochowicz, twenty-one-year-old art student here in New York, Cooper Union, lost her eye in May when she was in the West Bank protesting the Israeli commando attack on the Gaza aid flotilla. Back in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: Our exclusive this hour, our broadcast exclusive, is an interview today with Emily Henochowicz, twenty-one-year-old art student here in New York at the prestigious Cooper Union. She lost her eye in May after being shot in the face by an Israeli tear gas canister.

Emily, before we go to that moment, your grandfather was a border guard?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: Yeah. I don’t know very much more about that, but I do know that he was a border policeman when he was in Israel.

AMY GOODMAN: So talk about May 31st, 2010. Where were you?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: I had stayed at the ISM apartment in Ramallah. And—

AMY GOODMAN: That’s the International Solidarity Movement.

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: Yeah, the International Solidary Movement. And I got a call that morning. And, of course, the numbers were completely inflated that morning, like twenty-one people were killed on a flotilla or whatever. But basically, there was going to be a demonstration starting in Ramallah, and we were all going to hold all these flags from all the different countries that people had represented from the flotilla. And so, I went out to that demonstration.

AMY GOODMAN: And this was the Gaza aid flotilla—

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: —of ships that were coming to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza.

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: Yeah. And, well, the PA kind of closed the demonstration down from Ramallah, but we continued it at the Qalandiya checkpoint, which is between Jerusalem and Ramallah, so—and from there, I guess I had this notion that because we were protesting deaths, that somehow it—that tear gas wouldn’t be used in that kind of manner. I thought maybe it would be more of a, quote-unquote, “Israel proper” kind of demonstration, where they don’t use the same kind of violence against demonstrators. But I was mistaken.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Give us a sense of what actually happened, in terms of how many people were there at the protest. What—was it largely of Israelis or ISM folks, or was it Palestinians? And then what transpired, in other words, from the beginning of the protest to the time that they began firing the tear gas canisters?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: Well, of course, it was a Palestinian-organized demonstration. There were mostly Palestinians there. There weren’t—there wasn’t that large of a group when I was there, because it had kind of—we had packed up and moved from before, where there were more people. And there were a few Israeli peace activists. And I was there with a friend from ISM, and I think there were two other people who I had just met, who had just joined ISM, who were also there that morning.

And what was it that you wanted to—

JUAN GONZALEZ: And then, what happened just in the period before the Israeli soldiers began firing their tear gas canisters?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: Well, Jonathan Pollak like climbed up on this fence and put a Palestinian and Turkish flag up at the checkpoint.

AMY GOODMAN: And he is another ISM member?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: No, he’s an Israeli peace activist.

AMY GOODMAN: Oh, the Israeli peace activist.

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: And after they had put the flags up, the border policemen came, and they took the flags down. And at one point, a few Palestinian boys by the wall started throwing just trash from the ground. And at that point, the border policemen started firing tear gas.

AMY GOODMAN: And where were you?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: I was—this kind of area where there were a few barricades. It’s hard—I don’t know—hard to say without a map. But, you know, here’s the wall right here. Here’s Qalandiya checkpoint. I’m somewhere over here.

AMY GOODMAN: You were standing in a group of people. And you saw them starting to fire?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: You know, I didn’t see them firing. I saw it starting to land. And so, I was trying to find out where it was coming from so that I could get away from it. But it must have been very close, because I just—it just felt like there was no time between it landing—between seeing it and it landing for you to actually find out where it was coming from.

JUAN GONZALEZ: I think one of the articles that was written afterwards quoted you as saying to a friend, “I didn’t expect to have this kind of trouble. Maybe I should move away from here,” or something like that.

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: Well, I—you know, I noticed that it was starting to get dangerous. And I had just, you know, started talking to my parents, and really, they were just saying, “You know, Emily, just please don’t do anything dangerous.” And there I am. And I’m like, “This is getting dangerous. I told my parents I wouldn’t do this. Oh, gosh!” So, it was one of those kinds of moments. So, a little kind of crunch, and then, that was it, so…

AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean, a “kind of crunch”?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: I don’t know. It was just sort of a bizarre sensation when it hit me in the face.

AMY GOODMAN: Did you understand what had happened?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: Yeah. I mean, I didn’t lose consciousness.

AMY GOODMAN: What happened then?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: Well, at that point, I was—I think this is who had done this. This woman, Nariman Tamimi—I think that’s her name—and she came and ran into the—ran into the gas and the firing and grabbed me before I could reach the ground. And she—and put—she has this little magical backpack with all these medical supplies, and she put gauze on my face, and she got all these other people there around me. And they brought me on a—they brought me on a truck, and they rushed into the Ramallah hospital. And, you know, from there, I guess, yeah, the rest is history.

AMY GOODMAN: So you were brought first into a Palestinian hospital?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: Right, in Ramallah, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: And then?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: And then I was transferred to Hadassah hospital. And I went on an ambulance. And then, of course, I had to go on another ambulance, because we had to go through the checkpoint.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: Well, because a Palestinian ambulance can’t pass through the border, because Palestinians from the West Bank aren’t allowed into Israel. So they took me out of that ambulance, put me in another amulance, and then continued the journey to Hadassah.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And the treatment that—once you got to the Hadassah hospital, did any Israeli officials try to question you or try to detain you at all?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: No. I mean, try to detain me? I mean, I don’t think that I had done anything criminal by being injured, but—

AMY GOODMAN: Your dad came?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: My dad did come.

AMY GOODMAN: He’s a doctor here in the United States?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: Yeah. And he spent the whole week there with me in the hospital. And a lot of people came to visit. I know that Nariman wanted to visit me, but she couldn’t, of course, because she—

AMY GOODMAN: The woman who had first—

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: Yeah, I think that she—

AMY GOODMAN: —helped you.

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: —is such a—I mean, she’s a real hero. And she—you know, she’s from Nabi Salah, and because it’s Area C, and they don’t allow a lot of the building permits in that area, there’s a demolition order on her house. And she has to go through all this stuff, where she is constantly fighting this and not getting—you know, and like so many Palestinians, not really getting a voice about it. And I was there in the hospital, and so many people just came and showed me so much love. Some of the people from Sheikh Jarrah came, and just a bunch of my friends and everything. And it was great, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: What kind of response have you gotten from the Israeli Jewish community and the Jewish community here at home?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: I guess it’s mixed. I did anger a rabbi, I suppose. But I think that—like, some of the—I mean, the people that I’ve talked to understand that I’m coming to this from a humanitarian standpoint, and that because the Holocaust memory is third generation for me, I can distance myself from that urgent need for a Jewish homeland and that kind of feeling of insecurity, and I can look at—and I can look at the situation and see that there are some basic inequalities going on.

AMY GOODMAN: Emily, you’re an artist.

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Since as long as you can remember—

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: Basically.

AMY GOODMAN: —you have been drawing. What does it mean to lose your eye?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: I don’t know. It’s hard to pinpoint it. I always—I had always been so fussy about my eyes. You know, I always wanted my prescription to be perfect, and I was scared of getting Lasik surgery, because I didn’t want anything to happen to my eyes. Because I really—I am a visual artist, I really—I’m always, like, observing things and drawing about what I’m observing. But I’ve realized that you only really need one eye. And it hasn’t stopped me from being able to do my work, from walking around, and just being a normal person. In a way, I have this kind of new appreciation for depth, because everything is a little bit—because now that my depth perception kind of is weakened, it means that when I’m looking at something two-dimensional, I don’t have that stereo cue to tell me that it’s actually two-dimensional. I can kind of—I can appreciate it more for its three-dimensional quality. So that’s kind of nice, but…

AMY GOODMAN: Today you’re not wearing glasses.

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: No.

AMY GOODMAN: But you have painted over your glasses on the—where your left eye was.

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: Describe your glasses to us.

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: You know, it’s really—there’s not much. It’s just really that I had gone to the surgeon, and I was asking him, you know, “Do I need an eye patch? What should I do?” And he put tape over my glasses. And when the tape started to peel, and I tried to put it back on, I just-–I just said, “Eh, whatever.” And I took out some markers and just started doodling on them. It was really nothing more than that, just a kind of very quick decision.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And you’ve had some differences with your surgeon in terms of long-term treatment, in terms of how you’re going to deal with the loss of your eye in the future?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: I don’t know. I mean, I guess, for me, like I understand that a prosthetic is only for cosmetic reasons. And I might still want to have one, but I guess I just feel like I am not—that this is who I am, that I don’t have two eyes. And I feel strange having the idea of people looking at me, looking deeply into my eyes, and me knowing that they’re looking at a piece of plastic or glass, you know? But he’s been a great surgeon. He did really, really good work on me, and he’s given me really great care. So it’s just more on a philosophical basis, maybe, that we disagree.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to say, we did call the Israeli embassy, and we asked them to join us. They declined an interview, but they did send us a statement that said, quote, “We express our deepest sympathy with Emily Henochowicz on her injury. Ambassador Oren and embassy officials have met privately with Emily and her family. We wish to stress that this unfortunate incident is currently undergoing investigation. This investigation will be thorough and transparent. It should be noted that the demonstration began as an illegal protest, which turned violent and had to be dispersed with anti-demonstration means. Emily retains her full right to legal remedy, as well as any claims with her insurance company.” That’s the statement of the Israeli embassy.

What do they mean, your insurance company? Who’s paying for what happened to you?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: Well, I mean, the hospital bill, we haven’t actually signed the check yet, because we’re still hoping that we can get Israel to pay for what had happened to me. But everything I’ve been getting in America has, of course, been under my insurance and out of pocket.

AMY GOODMAN: But so far, they will not pay?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: No, no. So far, no.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And when they say that there’s an investigation, has anyone interviewed you or talked to you about what happened that day from the Israeli government?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: I did—I had this investigation, this—I’m forgetting the word. Like a week ago, they talked to me. But I don’t know. It didn’t seem very thorough to me, because I was expecting, you know, “Where were you standing? Where were they standing? You know, how far were the border policemen from you?” I thought those would be the kinds of criteria for the questions. But it seemed—they seem to be much more interested in why I came to Israel and how my time at Hadassah was. So, I don’t know. We’ll see.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you plan to return to Israel or the West Bank?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: Definitely, definitely.

AMY GOODMAN: You also have Israeli citizenship?

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: I do. They haven’t taken that, so… You know, my heart has been there, and now that I have been changed physically for my whole entire life, I have to go back there. It is part of me, you know? And those people—I must say that one reason that I’ve felt so strongly about supporting the Palestinians is that they’ve been so incredibly friendly and open to me and other internationals—just really warm people. And I really just—I want to give them my love, you know? So I have to go back.

AMY GOODMAN: Emily Henochowicz, I want to thank you very much for being with us.

EMILY HENOCHOWICZ: Thanks.

AMY GOODMAN: Twenty-one-year-old student here in New York, Cooper Union, going into her senior year, lost her eye in May after being shot in the face by an Israeli tear gas canister. She was protesting in the West Bank on the day that the Israeli commandos killed members of the Gaza aid flotilla onboard those ships headed to Gaza. That does it for our show. Her art can be seen at thirstypixels.blogspot.com, and we’ll link to them at democracynow.org.

Emily Henochowicz Speaks Out: Art Student Who Lost Her Eye After Being Shot by Israeli Tear Gas Canister in West Bank Protest Discusses Her Life, Her Art, and Why She Plans to Return