Within the past hour, Channel 10 Israel news aired a segment (see YouTube Hebrew video above) on our expose of Jerusalem police officer Meir Rotter’s incitement to violence against the non-violent demonstrators at Sheikh Jarrah. In the segment, the reporter called this blog the “Wikileaks of Israel,” to which I can only reply that I’m proud to be.
Rabbi Yeshayahu Rotter is disseminating several false claims in order to protect his son, Meir, who I proved yesterday is the Rotter.net member, Kafe. The latter posted at Rotter.net raged-filled rants against the protesters, Israeli government and media and leftists of all stripes.
First, Rotter.net posted a fictitious claim that someone had created a Facebook account for a “Kafe” who purported to be a moderator of Rotter.net. Second, Rabbi Rotter posted a further distortion when he claimed that my goal was not to harm Meir, but him. In reply, I should point out that my intent was to harm no one, but rather to expose dangerous violent views expressed by an Israeli policemen about citizens he was supposed to be protecting instead of assaulting. And my goal is certainly not to harm Rabbi Rotter unless he decides to join his son in the police force and attack unarmed demonstrators. Besides, I post at Rotter.net myself. Why would I want to harm the forum or its owner?
In the thread they also complain that their privacy has been violated a charge that is ridiculous since Rotter, as a visible, aggressive police officer has become a public figure. Furthermore, his public posts have made him even more so. If I really wanted to violate their privacy I could do so much more than I have already. I know their Israeli ID numbers, home addresses, birth dates, spouses’ names, etc. But my goal isn’t to expose such private information. My goal is make Meir Rotter and the Israeli police aware that there are civilized norms that the former has violated and that he will be held accountable.
Isn’t this the way of the violent Israeli settler right, though? They commit or incite acts of violence against their Arab or Jewish enemies and then when they’re called on it they whine about how THEY are the victims of blood libels. Remember the aftermath of the Rabin assassination when Israel looked in horror at the hatred spewed against their prime minister even before the killing? What did the far right say then? “Boo-hoo, blood libel, you big bad meanies. We’re the victims, not you. Not Rabin. He only lost his life. You’re destroying our reputation.”
Compare this to what Kafe and Rabbi Rotter write in the thread I linked to above. It’s beyond pathetic. Someone should tell them that when you vent hate you shouldn’t back away from it. You should accept it. Don’t collapse in self-pity. That’s a trick designed to divert attention and throw the blame back on the real victims, in this case the Sheikh Jarrah protesters who Meir Rotter assaults with regularity and impunity every Friday in Jerusalem.
The two Rotters are engaged in a rather pathetic attempt to cover their tracks and make themselves out to the victims in this farce of Meir’s own making. They’re clearly trying to sweep up the mess left from Meir, who took the “Kafe” name as a forum member and who uses ‘kafe1@netvision.net.il” as an e-mail address, which exposed his identity. Interestingly, “Kafe’s” member profile at Rotter.net is marked “secret.” Why would he need to use such a designation unless he was attempting to conceal his real identity from fellow forum members? If Kafe is not Meir Rotter then they can prove this by providing a screenshot or link to Kafe’s real member profile along with a date on the page to show that it was retrieved on a date before yesterday, when I exposed the connection between the two. If they do not provide this date, then it would be far too simple for them to change Kafe’s personal data now to make it look like there is no connection.
Meir Rotter is quoted lying in the Channel 10 interview as saying: “Why would I need to post in the forum? Anything I have to say can be said by the police spokesperson[ on my behalf]. I’m a policeman, that’s all.” The Israeli police themselves reacted angrily, according to the reporter, saying they would not respond to the charges and that this was an attempt to smear one of their own. Can you imagine how the formal complaint against Rotter registered with the police by the protesters will be handled?
At least Rotter will know that the world will be watching his behavior. If he behaves in the manner he advocates at Rotter.net, he will be held accountable–if not by the police as he should, at least by this blog and the “anti-Zionist, post-Israeli” Israeli media.
in the meantime in France (a bit off-topic but somewhat related…), our local lobby (you have Aipac, we have Crif) succeeded in cancelling a conference by Stephane Hessel, and is proud of it. For those outside France who don’t know Stephane Hessel yet, he’s one of our highest moral authorities and his wiki-mini-bio already speaks volume…
link to en.wikipedia.org
As he always fought all kinds of injustice for the last 70 years, needless to say he’s not tender with what Israel has become.
the planned conference today had many guests, and many are certainly considered worse than plague for the crif…
(Haneen Zoabi, Leila Shahid, Michel Warschawski, I’m sure you know those names 😉
link to mediapart.fr
but some phone calls and threats later, bam, l’ecole normale superieure cancelled the meeting. what you can do in israel, you can’t even do it in France nowadays, this is insane…
link to ldh-france.org
link to lemonde.fr
-sorry for my crappy english-
Nurit Peled-Elhanan and the former French Minister of Justice, Elisabeth Guigou, were also planned to speak.
Ecole Normale Supérieure is a public institution forming the top bureaucrats of the world-known French bureaucracy: slowest in the Western world.
And Bernard-Henri Lévy (BHL among friends) was of course among the phone callers: between Sakineh, Darfour, Roman Polanski and a trip to Gaza sitting on top of an Israeli tank, preventing BDS-meetings in the public sphere is his new crusade.
To paraphrase Jefferson (paraphrasing a 17th Century Leveller): It is the glory of a free person to be denounced by someone like Rotter.
YOU WRITE: “Isn’t this the way of the violent Israeli settler right, though? They commit or incite acts of violence against their Arab or Jewish enemies and then when they’re called on it they whine about how THEY are the victims of blood libels.”
Assuming their “Arabs and Jewish enemies” haven’t accused them of using the blood of (Arabs and Jewish enemies ??) to make Matzos, this use (by Jewish Israeli Settler right-wingers) of the term-of-art “blood libel” is about the same as Sarah Palin’s use of it. Altho, perhaps her use of the target-symbols should not be called “incitement” to violence.
Let the world take note.
Congratulations Richard. I couldn’t understand a word, of course, but I could certainly see they were referring to this blog, which was shown repeatedly in the video.
It wasn’t the best story since it was rushed and referred only fleetingly to my reporting. But most importantly, it allowed a leader of the Sheikh Jarrah protesters to state on camera the outrages that Rotter has perpetrated during the weekly demos. Either this will make Rotter even more enraged & take this out of the propesters; or else it will force him to mind his p’s & q’s.