Meir Rotter, Radical Rightist Settler, Police Officer, Suppresses Israeli Palestinian Speech

I’ve written here before about the extremist pro-settler views of Israeli police officer, Meir Rotter, who has often been known to provoke fights with Sheikh Jarrah protesters.  He is the son of Rabbi Rotter, who runs one of Israel’s most popular internet news portals, somewhat akin to the Drudge Report, if you can imagine Matt Drudge wearing a talit katan and knitted settler-style yarmulke.

Rotter, under a poorly concealed pseudonym, voiced anti-democratic, anti-State political views on the Rotter forum, and then denied that he was the one who wrote them though I proved he had.  Among other things, he incited violence against the Sheikh Jarrah protesters calling for them to be harmed.  File a complaint?  Fuhgedaboudit.  This is Israel.  No one cares.

Today, thanks to Mondoweiss, we catch up with Rotter in his new role as anti-Palestinian thought police.  He and his police colleagues have been doing their damndest to maintain the peace in Sheikh Jarrah by suppressing the worst, most violent impulses of the Palestinian natives.  Take for example, Azzam Maraka, a shopkeeper in the neighborhood who’s clearly trying to incite pogroms by hanging a picture of Recep Tayyip  Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister in his shop window.  Maraka admires Erdogan because of Turkey’s participation in the 2010 Gaza flotilla and because he’s stood up for Gaza on the world stage.

Personally, I can’t think of anything more likely to destroy the State of Israel than subversive acts like this.  I’m glad Rotter agrees, as he and his colleagues have fined Maraka five times and a total of $650 (up till now, more likely to follow).

Just in case any of you were wondering on what grounds the Israeli Palestinian has been fined: supposedly shops are not allowed to hang signs in their windows on the street.  Er, actually, the “law” appears to apply only to Maraka as other businesses on the street displaying signs of the same size have not been targeted.  ‘Democracy,’ Israel-style.  Free speech?  Never heard of it.

Imagine the level and quality of Israeli policing