30 dec 2011
How Many Lies Has Rabbi Rotter Told?
Rabbi Yeshayahu Rotter: living by rules he devises and which only he understands
Rabbi Yeshayahu Rotter founded Rotter.net, one of Israel’s most popular gossip and news sites (Alexa ranks it 72nd of all Israeli sites). He is a Haredi Jew who teaches 12th grade at a Haifa yeshiva which belongs to the Bnai Akiva branch of Orthodox Judaism. Surprisingly, considering the extremism of his politics, Bnai Akiva is considered one of the more moderate sects in the Orthodox movement.
Rotter is one of the most far right-wing figures in the Israeli media world. He not only supports the most extreme of the settler movement, he advocates violence and defiance of state authority to enforce their prerogatives to settle and retain every inch of the Occupied Territories. His son, Meir, is a policeman known not only for beating up Sheikh Jarrah protesters at their weekly protests against Palestinian home expulsions, but for bragging about this at Rotter.net using a pseudonym.
Israeli blogger Moni Dvir just published a post (Hebrew) about Rabbi Rotter that made me realize I knew very little about him, and that what I did think I knew, was based on some suspect assumptions which the man himself has disseminated to the public. In a 2007 Maariv interview (Hebrew), Rabbi Rotter claimed he earned a PhD in Jewish Studies from Boston University. In a separate interview at his own site, he further claims he earned this degree in 1998. He also claims to have a BA and MBA from a third-tier Israeli private college, Yozmot (this link appears to be to the institution mentioned in the Maariv interview, though I can’t be 100% certain).
This bears inspection. A number of us have not been able to verify his doctoral degree. The BU alumni office cannot locate any alumnus by his name. Neither Google Scholar nor an online search of doctoral dissertations turns up anything by him. In reply to my specific request that he confirm the degree mentioned in Maariv, he would only say he had the degrees mentioned in the article from universitaot angliot, which could mean “British” universities or “English-speaking” universities. This seemed a deliberate obfuscation. Repeated civil attempts to get him to be more specific ended in some rather nasty, smearish threats on his part which I’ll go into later.
The best we can say is that while Rotter claims a doctorate, he either doesn’t have one or no record of one exists after numerous attempts to confirm one. I haven’t attempted to confirm with Yozmot whether he has the business degrees he claims from that school. Though it’s such a poorly considered institution I wouldn’t be surprised if he did earn degrees there.
UPDATE: An Israeli reader brought to my attention a story, which has been subsequently confirmed by someone formerly close to the Rotter family, and by this report (Hebrew), that the rabbi worked for Bank Yerushalayim in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Money was allegedly stolen, he was suspected of theft, the bank made a complaint and police opened a criminal file against him. No charges were ever brought, but he was forced to leave the bank, which was when he moved to Haifa where his parents lived. He appears to have an inordinate acquisitive urge, for which there’s nothing wrong in an ordinary person, but which for a rabbi seems somehow grasping and inappropriate.
Another claim made in the Maariv article is that Rotter is an IDF officer:
[He] served in an armored unit and was an officer.
This too is a fudge. In a separate interview the rabbi published on his own site, he notes that during his active service he was a sergeant (not officer-rank). He now serves as a chaplain, which automatically makes his an officer. So in the Maariv story, he appears to make greater claims for his IDF service than are actually warranted. He seems to want readers to believe he was a combat officer, which he was not. In addition, before his IDF service he attended a yeshiva whose students were largely exempted from military duty. Some students could attend a truncated version of service. Given his religious affiliation, my Israeli sources tell me it’s likely he didn’t serve the full three years other Israelis do when they do their duty.
Rotter reveals a rather extraordinary bit of deception, which he proudly claims for himself. He states he’s angry that the Israeli media doesn’t credit the scoops published at his site (as if he owned them or researched and published them himself). So he performed a test. After a terror attack during which the terrorist was wounded and captured, Rotter supposedly published a “scoop” saying that the Palestinian had AIDS. Sure enough, Alex Fishman published (allegedly) a story stating the militant had AIDS. Rotter even notes that all the soldiers involved in capturing the attacker had to get AIDS tests and endure extended exams to ensure they were not infected.
Don’t know about you, but I’m astonished a rabbi would engage in such deliberate infliction of suffering on all those soldiers and their families, who would not know for sure whether or not they had gotten AIDS from contact with this man. And Rotter even reveals this publicly in the newspaper with no shame whatsoever!
But there’s an even worse problem with this story, according to the Seventh Eye, Israel’s major media watchdog publication, Rotter’s story is a crock (Hebrew). Never happened. Not a word of truth in it. The reporter queried Alex Fishman, who denied he’d ever written any such story and a search of Yediot Achronot’s archive never turned up one.
So now we have an Israeli rabbi who not only boasts of deceiving his readers, the Israeli media and the IDF by trickery, but who made the story up in its entirety. I’d guess that one of the reasons Rotter chose Alex Fishman to smear is because he thinks he’s a filthy traitor and media leftist, phrases which commonly echo through the Rotter website in comment threads. I have reported on, and spoken with Fishman a number of times in the past few months due to his excellent reporting about Iran. And this is not the kind of journalist who comes anywhere near doing the sort of shoddy journalism of which Rotter accuses him. In fact, it is Rotter himself who is the shoddy liar, it appears. Though you’d never know it from the rabbi himself, who continues to claim the incident happened precisely as he presented it in the interview. Except somehow he couldn’t manage to provide any proof to the reporter when it was requested. Does this remind you of the story about his alleged PhD?
Now, let’s look at how the good rabbi operates his website. In 2007, he claimed he had 50,000-100,000 visitors every day. By 2011, that number had risen to 1-million according to the marketing come-on offered to potential advertisers. That’s a mighty big jump. But if you’re Matt Drudge or Wonkette, I suppose it’s possible. But is Rotter.net in that league? Readers of the site (and I) have noticed a rather peculiar behavior. If you keep a page of the site open in your browser open for any length of time, when the page refreshes it doesn’t take you back to the same page. Rather, it takes you back to the site’s main page. If you want to continue reading the original page you have to go back to it. That means for every one page you actually visited, three page views might be counted.
I’m not an expert in SEO and how these things are done. So I don’t know for sure whether his claims for his site are legitimate or not. But given his lack of candor (to say the least) it’s highly likely that his claims for site traffic may be as highly exaggerated as his claims of having a PhD. I would hope that anyone thinking of advertising at his site would do their own due diligence to ensure that they’re getting what they expect and what they paid for.
Returning to the Maariv interview, Rotter makes some rather extraordinary claims about his own and his site’s moral and Jewish standards, which bear examination:
Lashon Hara ["gossip" or "slander"]
Journalism is the antithesis to lashon hara. The learned rabbis permitted [Jews to be] journalists. Therefore we should rely on their authority that journalism’s purpose is to warn people about crooks.
Considering the level of sludge and smears in the Rotter threads, it’s astonishing that the fact that his site is a leading source of lashon hara is completely lost on him. Just to take a few wee small examples. When I publish my own blog scoops there, I’m invariably referred to as “traitor,” “saboteur,” etc. Members have threatened to put a bullet in my head. One even created a hoax FBI press release claiming I’d been arrested for making kiddie porn. That post, at least the good rabbi removed because he likely realized that I might have legal recourse to sue him, as so many others have apparently done before me.
Returning to lashon hara, tell me if this sounds like someone for whom this is a cardinal value:
Write whatever you wish. I have nothing to hide. Here in Israel am totally transparent. In fact, it would be fitting to engage in this two-man battle. In Google, we’re finding some interesting things about you. I’m not sure they’re true, but I’m sure they’re written in Google. It’s always possible to quote [them] alone. [After reading these items about you] They’ll no longer ask why we sink to this personal [low] level, as they once asked me. Your profile in Israel is quite interesting.
Can you believe that someone who claims to oppose lashon hara would stoop to trashing me with the muck and mire that deranged folk have written about me online? Clearly, he didn’t care whether any of it was true or not. Just smearing the kaka around would give him joy. I read that e-mail as a quasi threat, and not being one to take threats lightly, I responded decisively:
I would love for you to disseminate some of the nuttier things written about me on Google. Because if you do it will show you to be an utter fool. So please go right ahead.
BTW, I’ve never claimed an academic degree I didn’t earn and anyone asking me which ones I have and from which universities gets a straight answer no matter who they are. I’m sorry you didn’t feel you could show the same candor. And the fact that you threaten me with smears because YOU refuse to confirm where & whether you earned degrees, means you are both defensive and appear to have something to hide…
Rotter prides himself on all the wedding ceremonies he’s performed. In fact, as part of his entrepreneurial spirit, he’s created his own website to promote Jewish matrimonial bliss and shiduchim (matchmaking). But if you’re disabled or divorced, you’re outa luck. Not allowed. I suppose they’re not good for business. Another itty-bitty problem though–guess who’s divorced? You got it, the good rabbi himself. Dya think he bans himself from his own website? Not on your life. When I first read of this oddness I laughed and laughed. Can you imagine someone who is such a hypocrite?
In Maariv, he further waxes rhapsodic about the beauties of Shabbat spent around the dinner table with family and friends. He’s a big devote of Shabbat as any observant Jew should be. There’s only one itty-bitty problem. Rotter.net isn’t shut down on Shabbat. Not only can you access its pages, you can violate the laws of Shabbat by posting there. That’s probably not the worst Shabbat violation though. Rotter is chock full of ads. Anyone who clicks on an ad makes Rabbi Rotter money. He earns money whether they click on a weekday or on Shabbat. But it is a grave sin for a Jew to earn money on Shabbat, which is the supreme day of rest.
I don’t know how such a learned rabbi justifies this violation of a halachic prohibition. I don’t even know if anyone’s asked him. No doubt, as with many Orthodox Jews, he’d say rather cynically what non-observant Jews do at his site is their own business and not his. In that sense, he’s the ultimate Jewish libertarian. Though I don’t believe halacha would countenance libertarianism defined in that way.
To be clear, I don’t keep the laws of Shabbat. I publish posts on weekdays and on Shabbat. So I’m not criticizing Rotter’s behavior in a blanket or categorical way. I’m saying that on his own terms as an Orthodox Jew, he’s violating halacha and that he’s a moral hypocrite for doing so.
A commenter here in the threads noted that in the very early days of the site, it specialized in offering illegal downloads. Now, I have nothing particularly against such sites and won’t argue there’s anything particularly immoral about them (the RIAA takes a different view). But it does seem to me that a rabbi should feel an obligation not to earn money off such an enterprise. Jewish tradition says that a rabbi should hold himself above questionable activities which might be acceptable to an ordinary Jew. Since Jews look to rabbis as moral arbiters, they could construe this type of activity as morally approved when a rabbi does it. A rabbi should set an example, not pander to the lowest moral common denominator. That may be why he has claimed that in those days, his son Noam ran the site. There are reports by Israeli media that he used this story to brush off precisely the moral questions I raised above.
I’ve hardly spoken yet about Rotter’s political views, which are also quite interesting: after the Fogel murders he advocated violent price tag attacks against Palestinians. In fact, his comments sounded very close to calls for genocide. He declared he had no faith in the State to avenge Jewish blood and urged settlers and other extremists to do it on behalf of the Jewish people. He was all defiance of the State. In fact, it seemed rather clear that the entire idea of a secular state was rather repulsive and that he would far prefer a halachic theocratic state in which a settler “Judean” ideology reigned supreme.
The Rotter forum is also being used (Hebrew) by radical settlers as a sort of real-time emergency band radio to broadcast the movement of the IDF in the Territories so wanted settlers may avoid capture at roadblocks set up outside the most extreme settlements, which house Jewish terrorists who resist evacuation of settlements or engage in acts of violence against local Palestinians and their activist supporters. This adds to the image of Rabbi Rotter and his media enterprise as a form of resistance to the secular state and its authority. Not that he’s above benefiting from the advertising revenue generated from citizens of that secular state.
While Rotter’s claim that he allows free speech for right and left at his site is mainly true, it’s clear that some speech is more free than others. Though I have published many scoops there, I have also had many taken down. And for no apparent reason since they violated no Israeli laws, gag orders or censorship. It appears that Rotter can remove anything he likes and for any reason. So his claims of a free-wheeling website with virtually no ideological limits are largely, but not entirely true.
To its credit, Rotter.net is a freer site than many in Israel if you can stand the death threats. I was banned from another site, Fresh, when I posted about Anat Kamm. No reason was given. I was just shown the door.
http://fwd4.me/0jMv
Rabbi Yeshayahu Rotter: living by rules he devises and which only he understands
Rabbi Yeshayahu Rotter founded Rotter.net, one of Israel’s most popular gossip and news sites (Alexa ranks it 72nd of all Israeli sites). He is a Haredi Jew who teaches 12th grade at a Haifa yeshiva which belongs to the Bnai Akiva branch of Orthodox Judaism. Surprisingly, considering the extremism of his politics, Bnai Akiva is considered one of the more moderate sects in the Orthodox movement.
Rotter is one of the most far right-wing figures in the Israeli media world. He not only supports the most extreme of the settler movement, he advocates violence and defiance of state authority to enforce their prerogatives to settle and retain every inch of the Occupied Territories. His son, Meir, is a policeman known not only for beating up Sheikh Jarrah protesters at their weekly protests against Palestinian home expulsions, but for bragging about this at Rotter.net using a pseudonym.
Israeli blogger Moni Dvir just published a post (Hebrew) about Rabbi Rotter that made me realize I knew very little about him, and that what I did think I knew, was based on some suspect assumptions which the man himself has disseminated to the public. In a 2007 Maariv interview (Hebrew), Rabbi Rotter claimed he earned a PhD in Jewish Studies from Boston University. In a separate interview at his own site, he further claims he earned this degree in 1998. He also claims to have a BA and MBA from a third-tier Israeli private college, Yozmot (this link appears to be to the institution mentioned in the Maariv interview, though I can’t be 100% certain).
This bears inspection. A number of us have not been able to verify his doctoral degree. The BU alumni office cannot locate any alumnus by his name. Neither Google Scholar nor an online search of doctoral dissertations turns up anything by him. In reply to my specific request that he confirm the degree mentioned in Maariv, he would only say he had the degrees mentioned in the article from universitaot angliot, which could mean “British” universities or “English-speaking” universities. This seemed a deliberate obfuscation. Repeated civil attempts to get him to be more specific ended in some rather nasty, smearish threats on his part which I’ll go into later.
The best we can say is that while Rotter claims a doctorate, he either doesn’t have one or no record of one exists after numerous attempts to confirm one. I haven’t attempted to confirm with Yozmot whether he has the business degrees he claims from that school. Though it’s such a poorly considered institution I wouldn’t be surprised if he did earn degrees there.
UPDATE: An Israeli reader brought to my attention a story, which has been subsequently confirmed by someone formerly close to the Rotter family, and by this report (Hebrew), that the rabbi worked for Bank Yerushalayim in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Money was allegedly stolen, he was suspected of theft, the bank made a complaint and police opened a criminal file against him. No charges were ever brought, but he was forced to leave the bank, which was when he moved to Haifa where his parents lived. He appears to have an inordinate acquisitive urge, for which there’s nothing wrong in an ordinary person, but which for a rabbi seems somehow grasping and inappropriate.
Another claim made in the Maariv article is that Rotter is an IDF officer:
[He] served in an armored unit and was an officer.
This too is a fudge. In a separate interview the rabbi published on his own site, he notes that during his active service he was a sergeant (not officer-rank). He now serves as a chaplain, which automatically makes his an officer. So in the Maariv story, he appears to make greater claims for his IDF service than are actually warranted. He seems to want readers to believe he was a combat officer, which he was not. In addition, before his IDF service he attended a yeshiva whose students were largely exempted from military duty. Some students could attend a truncated version of service. Given his religious affiliation, my Israeli sources tell me it’s likely he didn’t serve the full three years other Israelis do when they do their duty.
Rotter reveals a rather extraordinary bit of deception, which he proudly claims for himself. He states he’s angry that the Israeli media doesn’t credit the scoops published at his site (as if he owned them or researched and published them himself). So he performed a test. After a terror attack during which the terrorist was wounded and captured, Rotter supposedly published a “scoop” saying that the Palestinian had AIDS. Sure enough, Alex Fishman published (allegedly) a story stating the militant had AIDS. Rotter even notes that all the soldiers involved in capturing the attacker had to get AIDS tests and endure extended exams to ensure they were not infected.
Don’t know about you, but I’m astonished a rabbi would engage in such deliberate infliction of suffering on all those soldiers and their families, who would not know for sure whether or not they had gotten AIDS from contact with this man. And Rotter even reveals this publicly in the newspaper with no shame whatsoever!
But there’s an even worse problem with this story, according to the Seventh Eye, Israel’s major media watchdog publication, Rotter’s story is a crock (Hebrew). Never happened. Not a word of truth in it. The reporter queried Alex Fishman, who denied he’d ever written any such story and a search of Yediot Achronot’s archive never turned up one.
So now we have an Israeli rabbi who not only boasts of deceiving his readers, the Israeli media and the IDF by trickery, but who made the story up in its entirety. I’d guess that one of the reasons Rotter chose Alex Fishman to smear is because he thinks he’s a filthy traitor and media leftist, phrases which commonly echo through the Rotter website in comment threads. I have reported on, and spoken with Fishman a number of times in the past few months due to his excellent reporting about Iran. And this is not the kind of journalist who comes anywhere near doing the sort of shoddy journalism of which Rotter accuses him. In fact, it is Rotter himself who is the shoddy liar, it appears. Though you’d never know it from the rabbi himself, who continues to claim the incident happened precisely as he presented it in the interview. Except somehow he couldn’t manage to provide any proof to the reporter when it was requested. Does this remind you of the story about his alleged PhD?
Now, let’s look at how the good rabbi operates his website. In 2007, he claimed he had 50,000-100,000 visitors every day. By 2011, that number had risen to 1-million according to the marketing come-on offered to potential advertisers. That’s a mighty big jump. But if you’re Matt Drudge or Wonkette, I suppose it’s possible. But is Rotter.net in that league? Readers of the site (and I) have noticed a rather peculiar behavior. If you keep a page of the site open in your browser open for any length of time, when the page refreshes it doesn’t take you back to the same page. Rather, it takes you back to the site’s main page. If you want to continue reading the original page you have to go back to it. That means for every one page you actually visited, three page views might be counted.
I’m not an expert in SEO and how these things are done. So I don’t know for sure whether his claims for his site are legitimate or not. But given his lack of candor (to say the least) it’s highly likely that his claims for site traffic may be as highly exaggerated as his claims of having a PhD. I would hope that anyone thinking of advertising at his site would do their own due diligence to ensure that they’re getting what they expect and what they paid for.
Returning to the Maariv interview, Rotter makes some rather extraordinary claims about his own and his site’s moral and Jewish standards, which bear examination:
Lashon Hara ["gossip" or "slander"]
Journalism is the antithesis to lashon hara. The learned rabbis permitted [Jews to be] journalists. Therefore we should rely on their authority that journalism’s purpose is to warn people about crooks.
Considering the level of sludge and smears in the Rotter threads, it’s astonishing that the fact that his site is a leading source of lashon hara is completely lost on him. Just to take a few wee small examples. When I publish my own blog scoops there, I’m invariably referred to as “traitor,” “saboteur,” etc. Members have threatened to put a bullet in my head. One even created a hoax FBI press release claiming I’d been arrested for making kiddie porn. That post, at least the good rabbi removed because he likely realized that I might have legal recourse to sue him, as so many others have apparently done before me.
Returning to lashon hara, tell me if this sounds like someone for whom this is a cardinal value:
Write whatever you wish. I have nothing to hide. Here in Israel am totally transparent. In fact, it would be fitting to engage in this two-man battle. In Google, we’re finding some interesting things about you. I’m not sure they’re true, but I’m sure they’re written in Google. It’s always possible to quote [them] alone. [After reading these items about you] They’ll no longer ask why we sink to this personal [low] level, as they once asked me. Your profile in Israel is quite interesting.
Can you believe that someone who claims to oppose lashon hara would stoop to trashing me with the muck and mire that deranged folk have written about me online? Clearly, he didn’t care whether any of it was true or not. Just smearing the kaka around would give him joy. I read that e-mail as a quasi threat, and not being one to take threats lightly, I responded decisively:
I would love for you to disseminate some of the nuttier things written about me on Google. Because if you do it will show you to be an utter fool. So please go right ahead.
BTW, I’ve never claimed an academic degree I didn’t earn and anyone asking me which ones I have and from which universities gets a straight answer no matter who they are. I’m sorry you didn’t feel you could show the same candor. And the fact that you threaten me with smears because YOU refuse to confirm where & whether you earned degrees, means you are both defensive and appear to have something to hide…
Rotter prides himself on all the wedding ceremonies he’s performed. In fact, as part of his entrepreneurial spirit, he’s created his own website to promote Jewish matrimonial bliss and shiduchim (matchmaking). But if you’re disabled or divorced, you’re outa luck. Not allowed. I suppose they’re not good for business. Another itty-bitty problem though–guess who’s divorced? You got it, the good rabbi himself. Dya think he bans himself from his own website? Not on your life. When I first read of this oddness I laughed and laughed. Can you imagine someone who is such a hypocrite?
In Maariv, he further waxes rhapsodic about the beauties of Shabbat spent around the dinner table with family and friends. He’s a big devote of Shabbat as any observant Jew should be. There’s only one itty-bitty problem. Rotter.net isn’t shut down on Shabbat. Not only can you access its pages, you can violate the laws of Shabbat by posting there. That’s probably not the worst Shabbat violation though. Rotter is chock full of ads. Anyone who clicks on an ad makes Rabbi Rotter money. He earns money whether they click on a weekday or on Shabbat. But it is a grave sin for a Jew to earn money on Shabbat, which is the supreme day of rest.
I don’t know how such a learned rabbi justifies this violation of a halachic prohibition. I don’t even know if anyone’s asked him. No doubt, as with many Orthodox Jews, he’d say rather cynically what non-observant Jews do at his site is their own business and not his. In that sense, he’s the ultimate Jewish libertarian. Though I don’t believe halacha would countenance libertarianism defined in that way.
To be clear, I don’t keep the laws of Shabbat. I publish posts on weekdays and on Shabbat. So I’m not criticizing Rotter’s behavior in a blanket or categorical way. I’m saying that on his own terms as an Orthodox Jew, he’s violating halacha and that he’s a moral hypocrite for doing so.
A commenter here in the threads noted that in the very early days of the site, it specialized in offering illegal downloads. Now, I have nothing particularly against such sites and won’t argue there’s anything particularly immoral about them (the RIAA takes a different view). But it does seem to me that a rabbi should feel an obligation not to earn money off such an enterprise. Jewish tradition says that a rabbi should hold himself above questionable activities which might be acceptable to an ordinary Jew. Since Jews look to rabbis as moral arbiters, they could construe this type of activity as morally approved when a rabbi does it. A rabbi should set an example, not pander to the lowest moral common denominator. That may be why he has claimed that in those days, his son Noam ran the site. There are reports by Israeli media that he used this story to brush off precisely the moral questions I raised above.
I’ve hardly spoken yet about Rotter’s political views, which are also quite interesting: after the Fogel murders he advocated violent price tag attacks against Palestinians. In fact, his comments sounded very close to calls for genocide. He declared he had no faith in the State to avenge Jewish blood and urged settlers and other extremists to do it on behalf of the Jewish people. He was all defiance of the State. In fact, it seemed rather clear that the entire idea of a secular state was rather repulsive and that he would far prefer a halachic theocratic state in which a settler “Judean” ideology reigned supreme.
The Rotter forum is also being used (Hebrew) by radical settlers as a sort of real-time emergency band radio to broadcast the movement of the IDF in the Territories so wanted settlers may avoid capture at roadblocks set up outside the most extreme settlements, which house Jewish terrorists who resist evacuation of settlements or engage in acts of violence against local Palestinians and their activist supporters. This adds to the image of Rabbi Rotter and his media enterprise as a form of resistance to the secular state and its authority. Not that he’s above benefiting from the advertising revenue generated from citizens of that secular state.
While Rotter’s claim that he allows free speech for right and left at his site is mainly true, it’s clear that some speech is more free than others. Though I have published many scoops there, I have also had many taken down. And for no apparent reason since they violated no Israeli laws, gag orders or censorship. It appears that Rotter can remove anything he likes and for any reason. So his claims of a free-wheeling website with virtually no ideological limits are largely, but not entirely true.
To its credit, Rotter.net is a freer site than many in Israel if you can stand the death threats. I was banned from another site, Fresh, when I posted about Anat Kamm. No reason was given. I was just shown the door.
http://fwd4.me/0jMv
17 dec 2011
Leading Settler Rabbi, Owner of Major Internet Portal, Incited Price Tag Violence, Vigilantism, Genocide, Insurrection Against State
Rabbi Yeshayahu Rotter
Rabbi Yeshayahu Rotter, the founder of Rotter.net, Israel’s major news and gossip portal, wrote a column in HaKol Hayehudi, a website maintained by the extremist Yitzhar yeshiva run by Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburg (co-author of Torat HaMelech, which advocates murdering Palestinian children since they’ll grow up to murder Jews)
In the column published last March, he foreshadows (and incites) some of the most incendiary acts of violence in the entire history of price tag activities: a few days ago settlers directly attacked an IDF West Bank outpost and threw a brick at a senior IDF officer in his vehicle, injuring him.
This follows three mosque arson attacks, repeated death and bomb threats against Peace Now leaders, sexual assaults against peace activists and much more. It’s reasonable, in fact, to wonder whether the very yeshiva students who read this article last March didn’t take it to heart. Their current activities could in fact be seen as acts of homage to their saintly teach, Rabbi Rotter.
Unlike settler rabbis harboring similar views, Rabbi Rotter lives in Haifa. But he might as well live in Yitzhar for all the difference in his views from those who wrote Torat HaMelech. I call him a “settler rabbi” because he is a rabbi of the settlers even if he doesn’t live there.
Haaretz cartoon: the wages of Palestinian terror are DEATH
Similarly, the good rabbi can be proud because while he carefully distinguishes his incitement to violence from actual violence, his son Meir, a police officer widely known to Sheikh Jarrah protesters for his especially violent ways, published his own incitement to violence against demonstrators in the Rotter forum.
Meir Rotter urged police officers to vandalize cars of protesters, slash tires and perform other acts of violence to teach these disgusting leftists a thing or two about how Israel should be run. You can no doubt be certain that Rotter Jr. doesn’t just write, but he does. Do you think Meir has been reprimanded for his extracurricular taunting at Rotter? Of course not. Abba can’t be quite as explicit. He’s a rabbi after all. But the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Rotter’s statement is a lit match on a pool of gasoline. It is the equivalent of a bunch of neo-Nazi Skinhead thugs beating up an Arab, after which a leading Christian cleric endorses the violence.
Rabbi Rotter isn’t stupid. He makes clear (totally disingenuously, I might add) that he is merely stating his “personal opinion” and not inciting anyone to take any action illegal or otherwise. This, he believes, gets him off the hook. Of course, he neglects that he runs one of Israel’s most popular websites and that his views carry weight and authority especially in the far-right settler community.
I was raised always to respect rabbis and though I’ve learned otherwise (regarding some rabbis) over the years, I try to give any rabbi the benefit of the doubt since they still retain at least an aura of moral authority. But not Rabbi Rotter. What he’s counseling is not just immoral and illegal, but he’s counseling violence as both a tactic and strategy for the settler movement. Given his stature, what he’s doing is evil.
It is very hard for me to say that anything a rabbi would do is evil. But this is. If his was just Baruch Marzel or David HaIvri I’d just chalk it up to political sloganeering, but once you mix in Judaism, halacha and related issues, you have a rabbi declaring that our religion countenances violence, illegality and hilul haShem. This cannot be. This is a rabbi who must be denounced by other rabbis and anyone who cares about Judaism. Rabbi Rotter is perverting Judaism.
The rhetoric below is little better than Der Shturmer. In fact, it’s the Jewish equivalent. Do we want genocidaires among us Jews? For that is what Rabbi Rotter is. He believes he’s saving Jewish lives and avenging Jewish dead. But that is not what the State of Israel needs right now. It doesn’t need avenging angels. In fact, avenging angels in the current political climate are Angels of Death. And they will kill Jews and Palestinians without distinguishing between them.
Here is his op-ed:
In the calculations of the murderers [Palestinians] these days more than previous ones, there is no sense of deterrence. Every potential murderer among the Palestinians knows that he will receive the critical support from the Arabs and from Jewish leftists who hate settlers more than Arabs hate them. The only thing that restrains murderers from slaughtering Jewish families in the Land of Israel is “price tag.”
In the past I was very much against this. Because in essence this is taking the law into one’s own hands and you cannot have such a situation in a civilized country. Even this statement could place me in trouble with Shai Nitzan [State prosecutor who pursues security cases]. But I am expressing an opinion and not inciting anyone to act on such an opinion. I am not organizing anyone to do anything, only expressing a difficult opinion in a difficult time.
In a civilized society which takes responsibility for its citizens, who know that it will take every possible measure to protect their lives and will respond with all possible strength to deter such deaths, there is no reason to take such measures [as price tag]. In fact, this is something that is absolutely forbidden. But the question is whether the State of Israel today, under the leftist domination of a twisted media, extreme leftist media figures, some of whom justify crimes against the settlers, and obtuse courts which act as if they are in Belgium or Holland–is it not the case that in such circumstances [the rules prohibiting] taking the law into one’s hands in the face of the enemy slaughtering children upon their parents [the reference is likely to the Fogel family murdered in Itamar] is no longer relevant.
As I said, for these murderers there is no deterrence, it’s only a question of opportunity. They don’t murder every day not because anyone frightens them off, but only because they don’t have opportunity to murder children, women, and the elderly.
When there is no deterrence, when there is no price tag then there is no cost for the murderers ["everything is free"]. What is free? Even the blessings and satisfaction offered by various Israelis who arent’t afraid to express their views [favoring killing settlers] and the media which airs these views.
In such circumstances we must examine deterrent forces like price tag and just as in a there are no limits [constraints], “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” ”In a place where there is no man, be a man.” To my sorrow, in everything concerning settlers and deterrence “there is no man.”
If there is only one consideration why not let it be price tag, since the only price to be paid is by the person who commits such an act. He will find himself in prison for many years and he and his family will suffer greatly for this. Therefore, it’s appropriate to consider the cost when considering price tag [attacks].
But this should be his only consideration and nothing beyond it [i.e. he shouldn't take into account any moral considerations either regarding the State of Israel or the intended victims]. Because the Palestinians are “dead men” [a chilling locution meaning "as good as dead" or lit., "children of death"]. There is no better definition for them. Every one of them intends to kill us, even an infant a single month old.
There is much to consider in this racist, rancid rant. First, I’d say Rabbi Rotter is not just an extremist, but he’s delusional. In fact, Biderman’s cartoon above is a perfect representation of the minds of Jewish paranoiacs like him. He has absolutely no sense of reality.
He’s little different from schizophrenics and individuals with bipolar disorder who engage in acts of violence because they misperceive reality. But in this case, it isn’t just himself that he endangers or those around him. He in fact incites others who respect and admire him and infects them with his own demented perception of the world.
Second, price tag as a policy will not deter a Palestinian militant as Rotter claims. In fact, as was shown in the case of the Palmer stoning incident, those Palestinians threw rocks because settlers had previously torched their village mosque in a price tag attack. Such acts incite Palestinian violence, not deter it.
Price tag has little to do with the Palestinians in fact. It is actually an act of political protest meant to both damage the State’s power and protest policies which rein in settler power. The only way price tag might become a deterrent to Palestinian violence is if it turned into mass pogroms against Palestinians. And even then, it would still do just the opposite. For every Palestinian into whom was thrown the fear of God, there would be two who would turn in the opposite direction and attempt to take it to Israelis and make them pay. That’s the thing about price tag. Everyone pays, not just the Palestinians.
The ultimate goal of price tag and Rabbi Rotter isn’t just vengeance against Palestinian murderers, it is the toppling of the civil state and its replacement with a Torah-true kingdom in which religion and nationalism have become united. Sort of an Islamic Republic of Iran, if you will. There will be no democracy there. No Arabs too. No secular Jews. And God forbid, no leftist media. Only Torah-true Jews. Judeans, if you will.
You can just imagine what will be necessary to attain this vision. How much blood will be shed. Both Palestinian and Israeli, Jewish and Muslim. Make no mistake, this is the cry of the genocidaire. It was like Milosevic’s cries for Serbians to kill Croat Muslims in Srebrenica before they could kill Serbians. Others may think of other parallel historical situations. If your enemy has nothing but murder in his heart, then you’re justified in killing him first. That’s why Rotter must lie and claim that it is the Palestinians who will be guilty of the genocide he wishes for them.
http://fwd4.me/0jN4
Leading Settler Rabbi, Owner of Major Internet Portal, Incited Price Tag Violence, Vigilantism, Genocide, Insurrection Against State
Rabbi Yeshayahu Rotter
Rabbi Yeshayahu Rotter, the founder of Rotter.net, Israel’s major news and gossip portal, wrote a column in HaKol Hayehudi, a website maintained by the extremist Yitzhar yeshiva run by Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburg (co-author of Torat HaMelech, which advocates murdering Palestinian children since they’ll grow up to murder Jews)
In the column published last March, he foreshadows (and incites) some of the most incendiary acts of violence in the entire history of price tag activities: a few days ago settlers directly attacked an IDF West Bank outpost and threw a brick at a senior IDF officer in his vehicle, injuring him.
This follows three mosque arson attacks, repeated death and bomb threats against Peace Now leaders, sexual assaults against peace activists and much more. It’s reasonable, in fact, to wonder whether the very yeshiva students who read this article last March didn’t take it to heart. Their current activities could in fact be seen as acts of homage to their saintly teach, Rabbi Rotter.
Unlike settler rabbis harboring similar views, Rabbi Rotter lives in Haifa. But he might as well live in Yitzhar for all the difference in his views from those who wrote Torat HaMelech. I call him a “settler rabbi” because he is a rabbi of the settlers even if he doesn’t live there.
Haaretz cartoon: the wages of Palestinian terror are DEATH
Similarly, the good rabbi can be proud because while he carefully distinguishes his incitement to violence from actual violence, his son Meir, a police officer widely known to Sheikh Jarrah protesters for his especially violent ways, published his own incitement to violence against demonstrators in the Rotter forum.
Meir Rotter urged police officers to vandalize cars of protesters, slash tires and perform other acts of violence to teach these disgusting leftists a thing or two about how Israel should be run. You can no doubt be certain that Rotter Jr. doesn’t just write, but he does. Do you think Meir has been reprimanded for his extracurricular taunting at Rotter? Of course not. Abba can’t be quite as explicit. He’s a rabbi after all. But the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Rotter’s statement is a lit match on a pool of gasoline. It is the equivalent of a bunch of neo-Nazi Skinhead thugs beating up an Arab, after which a leading Christian cleric endorses the violence.
Rabbi Rotter isn’t stupid. He makes clear (totally disingenuously, I might add) that he is merely stating his “personal opinion” and not inciting anyone to take any action illegal or otherwise. This, he believes, gets him off the hook. Of course, he neglects that he runs one of Israel’s most popular websites and that his views carry weight and authority especially in the far-right settler community.
I was raised always to respect rabbis and though I’ve learned otherwise (regarding some rabbis) over the years, I try to give any rabbi the benefit of the doubt since they still retain at least an aura of moral authority. But not Rabbi Rotter. What he’s counseling is not just immoral and illegal, but he’s counseling violence as both a tactic and strategy for the settler movement. Given his stature, what he’s doing is evil.
It is very hard for me to say that anything a rabbi would do is evil. But this is. If his was just Baruch Marzel or David HaIvri I’d just chalk it up to political sloganeering, but once you mix in Judaism, halacha and related issues, you have a rabbi declaring that our religion countenances violence, illegality and hilul haShem. This cannot be. This is a rabbi who must be denounced by other rabbis and anyone who cares about Judaism. Rabbi Rotter is perverting Judaism.
The rhetoric below is little better than Der Shturmer. In fact, it’s the Jewish equivalent. Do we want genocidaires among us Jews? For that is what Rabbi Rotter is. He believes he’s saving Jewish lives and avenging Jewish dead. But that is not what the State of Israel needs right now. It doesn’t need avenging angels. In fact, avenging angels in the current political climate are Angels of Death. And they will kill Jews and Palestinians without distinguishing between them.
Here is his op-ed:
In the calculations of the murderers [Palestinians] these days more than previous ones, there is no sense of deterrence. Every potential murderer among the Palestinians knows that he will receive the critical support from the Arabs and from Jewish leftists who hate settlers more than Arabs hate them. The only thing that restrains murderers from slaughtering Jewish families in the Land of Israel is “price tag.”
In the past I was very much against this. Because in essence this is taking the law into one’s own hands and you cannot have such a situation in a civilized country. Even this statement could place me in trouble with Shai Nitzan [State prosecutor who pursues security cases]. But I am expressing an opinion and not inciting anyone to act on such an opinion. I am not organizing anyone to do anything, only expressing a difficult opinion in a difficult time.
In a civilized society which takes responsibility for its citizens, who know that it will take every possible measure to protect their lives and will respond with all possible strength to deter such deaths, there is no reason to take such measures [as price tag]. In fact, this is something that is absolutely forbidden. But the question is whether the State of Israel today, under the leftist domination of a twisted media, extreme leftist media figures, some of whom justify crimes against the settlers, and obtuse courts which act as if they are in Belgium or Holland–is it not the case that in such circumstances [the rules prohibiting] taking the law into one’s hands in the face of the enemy slaughtering children upon their parents [the reference is likely to the Fogel family murdered in Itamar] is no longer relevant.
As I said, for these murderers there is no deterrence, it’s only a question of opportunity. They don’t murder every day not because anyone frightens them off, but only because they don’t have opportunity to murder children, women, and the elderly.
When there is no deterrence, when there is no price tag then there is no cost for the murderers ["everything is free"]. What is free? Even the blessings and satisfaction offered by various Israelis who arent’t afraid to express their views [favoring killing settlers] and the media which airs these views.
In such circumstances we must examine deterrent forces like price tag and just as in a there are no limits [constraints], “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” ”In a place where there is no man, be a man.” To my sorrow, in everything concerning settlers and deterrence “there is no man.”
If there is only one consideration why not let it be price tag, since the only price to be paid is by the person who commits such an act. He will find himself in prison for many years and he and his family will suffer greatly for this. Therefore, it’s appropriate to consider the cost when considering price tag [attacks].
But this should be his only consideration and nothing beyond it [i.e. he shouldn't take into account any moral considerations either regarding the State of Israel or the intended victims]. Because the Palestinians are “dead men” [a chilling locution meaning "as good as dead" or lit., "children of death"]. There is no better definition for them. Every one of them intends to kill us, even an infant a single month old.
There is much to consider in this racist, rancid rant. First, I’d say Rabbi Rotter is not just an extremist, but he’s delusional. In fact, Biderman’s cartoon above is a perfect representation of the minds of Jewish paranoiacs like him. He has absolutely no sense of reality.
He’s little different from schizophrenics and individuals with bipolar disorder who engage in acts of violence because they misperceive reality. But in this case, it isn’t just himself that he endangers or those around him. He in fact incites others who respect and admire him and infects them with his own demented perception of the world.
Second, price tag as a policy will not deter a Palestinian militant as Rotter claims. In fact, as was shown in the case of the Palmer stoning incident, those Palestinians threw rocks because settlers had previously torched their village mosque in a price tag attack. Such acts incite Palestinian violence, not deter it.
Price tag has little to do with the Palestinians in fact. It is actually an act of political protest meant to both damage the State’s power and protest policies which rein in settler power. The only way price tag might become a deterrent to Palestinian violence is if it turned into mass pogroms against Palestinians. And even then, it would still do just the opposite. For every Palestinian into whom was thrown the fear of God, there would be two who would turn in the opposite direction and attempt to take it to Israelis and make them pay. That’s the thing about price tag. Everyone pays, not just the Palestinians.
The ultimate goal of price tag and Rabbi Rotter isn’t just vengeance against Palestinian murderers, it is the toppling of the civil state and its replacement with a Torah-true kingdom in which religion and nationalism have become united. Sort of an Islamic Republic of Iran, if you will. There will be no democracy there. No Arabs too. No secular Jews. And God forbid, no leftist media. Only Torah-true Jews. Judeans, if you will.
You can just imagine what will be necessary to attain this vision. How much blood will be shed. Both Palestinian and Israeli, Jewish and Muslim. Make no mistake, this is the cry of the genocidaire. It was like Milosevic’s cries for Serbians to kill Croat Muslims in Srebrenica before they could kill Serbians. Others may think of other parallel historical situations. If your enemy has nothing but murder in his heart, then you’re justified in killing him first. That’s why Rotter must lie and claim that it is the Palestinians who will be guilty of the genocide he wishes for them.
http://fwd4.me/0jN4
3 dec 2011
Jewish Settlers Attack Shepherds near Nablus
Jewish settlers Saturday attacked Palestinian shepherds near Salem, a village east of Nablus, according to local sources.
Witnesses said a group of settlers battered Najeh Abdul Qader, 60, while herding his sheep.
Ghassan Daghlas, an activist monitoring settlement activities in the northern West Bank, said settlers also attacked seven shepherds near Salem, but the village residents intervened before the Israeli army had stepped in.
Armed settlers were also seen at the entrance of Beit Fourik, a town west of Nablus.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=18221
Settlers 'beat elderly farmer' near Nablus
Israeli settlers assaulted a 60-year-old man cultivating land in the northern West Bank on Saturday morning, a Palestinian Authority official said.
Najih Abdul-Qadir was tilling his fields near the illegal Itamar settlement east of Nablus when a group of ultra-orthodox Israelis approached him and beat him severely, PA settlement monitoring official Ghassan Doughlas told Ma'an.
Abdul-Qadir was moved off his lands by the group, Douglas added.
Settlers from Itamar have violently blocked Palestinians from tending land near the compound, where a young couple was stabbed to death along with three of their young children in March.
Amjad Awad was found guilty of the killings by an Israeli court on Monday, and his cousin Hakim Awad has been jailed for life for the murders.
Palestinians say the Israelis living inside the West Bank exercise a violent campaign against them with virtual impunity from Israel's army, to intimidate them and push them from their lands.
Some 500,000 Israelis live in Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. There are about 2.5 million Palestinians in the same territory.
All settlements are considered illegal under international law.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=441425
Jewish settlers Saturday attacked Palestinian shepherds near Salem, a village east of Nablus, according to local sources.
Witnesses said a group of settlers battered Najeh Abdul Qader, 60, while herding his sheep.
Ghassan Daghlas, an activist monitoring settlement activities in the northern West Bank, said settlers also attacked seven shepherds near Salem, but the village residents intervened before the Israeli army had stepped in.
Armed settlers were also seen at the entrance of Beit Fourik, a town west of Nablus.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=18221
Settlers 'beat elderly farmer' near Nablus
Israeli settlers assaulted a 60-year-old man cultivating land in the northern West Bank on Saturday morning, a Palestinian Authority official said.
Najih Abdul-Qadir was tilling his fields near the illegal Itamar settlement east of Nablus when a group of ultra-orthodox Israelis approached him and beat him severely, PA settlement monitoring official Ghassan Doughlas told Ma'an.
Abdul-Qadir was moved off his lands by the group, Douglas added.
Settlers from Itamar have violently blocked Palestinians from tending land near the compound, where a young couple was stabbed to death along with three of their young children in March.
Amjad Awad was found guilty of the killings by an Israeli court on Monday, and his cousin Hakim Awad has been jailed for life for the murders.
Palestinians say the Israelis living inside the West Bank exercise a violent campaign against them with virtual impunity from Israel's army, to intimidate them and push them from their lands.
Some 500,000 Israelis live in Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. There are about 2.5 million Palestinians in the same territory.
All settlements are considered illegal under international law.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=441425
1 dec 2011
Outpost built in memory of Fogel family razed
Civil Administration, IDF forces demolish Givat Ariyeh outpost, set up after murder of five family members in Itamar.
Civil Administration personnel and police and IDF forces on Wednesday night razed the illegal West Bank outpost of Givat Ariyeh, located near Itamar.
The outpost, which was set up following the murder of the five Fogel family members in March, housed two families and five men.
During the operation, three permanent structure, two makeshift structures and a synagogue were razed. The demolition team met no resistance, but the settlers claimed that the forces also destroyed a control panel and the electricity system that powered a security camera purchased by the Shomron Regional Council in the aftermath of the Itamar murders.
The council stressed that the camera was purchased by donations, and was not funded by the Defense Ministry.
"As a result, the entire community is cut off from the electronic security system that protected it since the massacre," claimed a council member.
A security official argued in response that the electric system was built illegally and was disconnected in order to prevent the Civil Administration personnel from being electrocuted during the demolition.
Meanwhile, the Shomron Settler Committee claimed that a garden, a holy ark and religious artifacts were destroyed during the demolition, adding that three torah scrolls were confiscated as well.
Shomron Regional Council head Gershon Mesika arrived at the site shortly after the demolition work had begun and expressed his support for the residents, vowing that the outpost will be rebuilt.
"To brutally destroy a neighborhood built in memory of the (Fogel) Family immediately after their murderers' verdict was read is an obtuse and evil act," he said.
http://fwd4.me/0huF
Civil Administration, IDF forces demolish Givat Ariyeh outpost, set up after murder of five family members in Itamar.
Civil Administration personnel and police and IDF forces on Wednesday night razed the illegal West Bank outpost of Givat Ariyeh, located near Itamar.
The outpost, which was set up following the murder of the five Fogel family members in March, housed two families and five men.
During the operation, three permanent structure, two makeshift structures and a synagogue were razed. The demolition team met no resistance, but the settlers claimed that the forces also destroyed a control panel and the electricity system that powered a security camera purchased by the Shomron Regional Council in the aftermath of the Itamar murders.
The council stressed that the camera was purchased by donations, and was not funded by the Defense Ministry.
"As a result, the entire community is cut off from the electronic security system that protected it since the massacre," claimed a council member.
A security official argued in response that the electric system was built illegally and was disconnected in order to prevent the Civil Administration personnel from being electrocuted during the demolition.
Meanwhile, the Shomron Settler Committee claimed that a garden, a holy ark and religious artifacts were destroyed during the demolition, adding that three torah scrolls were confiscated as well.
Shomron Regional Council head Gershon Mesika arrived at the site shortly after the demolition work had begun and expressed his support for the residents, vowing that the outpost will be rebuilt.
"To brutally destroy a neighborhood built in memory of the (Fogel) Family immediately after their murderers' verdict was read is an obtuse and evil act," he said.
http://fwd4.me/0huF
9 oct 2011
At least three Palestinians injured as Jewish settlers clash with farmers
Jewish settlers clashed with Palestinian farmers on Sunday as they tried to pick olives from land owned by the family of two men convicted of killing a young settler family in March.
At least three Palestinians were injured when dozens of settlers armed with sticks and stones attacked the group of about 50 workers as they tried to harvest the olives from land which belongs to the Awwad family from the nearby village of Awarta, an AFP correspondent reported.
The olive groves lie very close to the edge of the Itamar settlement where a young couple was stabbed to death along with three of their young children earlier this year, in an attack by two young Palestinian men from the Awwad family in Awarta.
Israeli troops arrived at the scene and broke up the clashes, and were trying to protect the farmers, although the settlers remained close by, throwing stones and shouting: “Death to the Awwad family.”
Settler officials told AFP they were protesting over the fact that the Palestinians were working land belonging to the Awwad family.
Hakim Awwad, 18, confessed to the murders before an Israeli military court in September and was sentenced to five consecutive life sentences, while his 19-year-old cousin Amjad Awwad admitted his involvement on October 4. He has not yet been sentenced.
Palestinian sources confirmed the land belongs to the Awwad family, part of which lies within the boundaries of the settlement.
Benny Katsover, head of the committee representing settlers in the northern West Bank, said the army had allowed the Palestinians to pick olives from a grove next to the settlement’s boundary which belonged to the Awwad family.
“It is an absolute scandal to allow these Palestinians to come so close to Itamar, above all when we are talking about the family of those murderers who killed the Fogel family,” he told AFP.
“Once again, the army is putting the lives of Itamar residents in danger,” he said.
Twelve-year-old Tamar Fogel, who lost her parents, two younger brothers aged 11 and 4, and her three-month-old baby sister, in the grisly stabbing attack, was one of those who went out to confront the farmers, he said.
David Haivri, a spokesman for settlers in the northern West Bank area, accused the farmers of attacking the demonstrators.
“The Palestinians threw stones at the demonstrators and shouted death threats at them, saying: ‘We’ll do the same to you as to the Fogels’,” he said in a statement emailed to AFP.
The military said it was looking into the incident but had no immediate comment.
http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/10/09/170943.html
Jewish settlers clashed with Palestinian farmers on Sunday as they tried to pick olives from land owned by the family of two men convicted of killing a young settler family in March.
At least three Palestinians were injured when dozens of settlers armed with sticks and stones attacked the group of about 50 workers as they tried to harvest the olives from land which belongs to the Awwad family from the nearby village of Awarta, an AFP correspondent reported.
The olive groves lie very close to the edge of the Itamar settlement where a young couple was stabbed to death along with three of their young children earlier this year, in an attack by two young Palestinian men from the Awwad family in Awarta.
Israeli troops arrived at the scene and broke up the clashes, and were trying to protect the farmers, although the settlers remained close by, throwing stones and shouting: “Death to the Awwad family.”
Settler officials told AFP they were protesting over the fact that the Palestinians were working land belonging to the Awwad family.
Hakim Awwad, 18, confessed to the murders before an Israeli military court in September and was sentenced to five consecutive life sentences, while his 19-year-old cousin Amjad Awwad admitted his involvement on October 4. He has not yet been sentenced.
Palestinian sources confirmed the land belongs to the Awwad family, part of which lies within the boundaries of the settlement.
Benny Katsover, head of the committee representing settlers in the northern West Bank, said the army had allowed the Palestinians to pick olives from a grove next to the settlement’s boundary which belonged to the Awwad family.
“It is an absolute scandal to allow these Palestinians to come so close to Itamar, above all when we are talking about the family of those murderers who killed the Fogel family,” he told AFP.
“Once again, the army is putting the lives of Itamar residents in danger,” he said.
Twelve-year-old Tamar Fogel, who lost her parents, two younger brothers aged 11 and 4, and her three-month-old baby sister, in the grisly stabbing attack, was one of those who went out to confront the farmers, he said.
David Haivri, a spokesman for settlers in the northern West Bank area, accused the farmers of attacking the demonstrators.
“The Palestinians threw stones at the demonstrators and shouted death threats at them, saying: ‘We’ll do the same to you as to the Fogels’,” he said in a statement emailed to AFP.
The military said it was looking into the incident but had no immediate comment.
http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/10/09/170943.html
14 sept 2011
Itamar Settlers Attack Palestinians on West Bank Road
Jewish settlers from Itamar settlement, southeast of Nablus, attacked early Wednesday Palestinians commuting on a West Bank road near the settlement, setting the car on fire and beating its three passengers, according to Palestinian security sources.
They said that the car was on its way from Nablus to Bethlehem when settlers attacked it inflicting serious damage to the car and harm to the Beit Fajjar, Bethlehem area, residents.
The three were taken to hospital for treatment and reported in moderate condition.
Jewish settlers had escalated their attacks on Palestinians and property in the last few months in what they refer to as “price tag” revenge acts against Palestinians.
An Israeli military court sentenced on Tuesday a Palestinian teenager to five life sentences after it found him guilty of killing a family of settlers from Itamar earlier in the year.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=17345
Jewish settlers from Itamar settlement, southeast of Nablus, attacked early Wednesday Palestinians commuting on a West Bank road near the settlement, setting the car on fire and beating its three passengers, according to Palestinian security sources.
They said that the car was on its way from Nablus to Bethlehem when settlers attacked it inflicting serious damage to the car and harm to the Beit Fajjar, Bethlehem area, residents.
The three were taken to hospital for treatment and reported in moderate condition.
Jewish settlers had escalated their attacks on Palestinians and property in the last few months in what they refer to as “price tag” revenge acts against Palestinians.
An Israeli military court sentenced on Tuesday a Palestinian teenager to five life sentences after it found him guilty of killing a family of settlers from Itamar earlier in the year.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=17345
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Israeli security sources say the Israeli government will push for a construction plan in the illegal Itamar settlement, south of the West Bank city of Nablus.
Within the next few days, the plans should be approved, the sources said. Prime Minister Netanyahu pledged to carry out the plan in response to the Itamar incident, where a family of five Jewish settlers were stabbed to death. The plans were revealed in a response letter by Israeli national home front minister Matan Vilnai to Knesset member Yaakov Katz, the leader of the extremist National Union party. Vilnai asked Katz on the government's official position on a construction plan covering 13 West Bank settlements. |
Vilnai said there were currently no active plans in Itamar and that Israeli war minister Ehud Barack and government agencies had set borders for Itamar to allow its expansion.
The letter also said that in the next few days, a modified zoning plan would be produced and brought to the government for approval and licensing.
Vilnai also addressed the illegal Rechelim settlement outpost in the letter. The outpost is classified as illegal by the Israeli government and therefore has not been given a zoning plan.
“The government is currently weighing plans to legalize and document Rechelim, but the political leadership still needs to issue an official decision in this regard,” he said.
The letter also referred to the illegal outpost of Naghot near Al-Khalil. He said the matter is currently under legal procedures designed to weigh the possibility of converting it into a “legal settlement”.
The letter also said that in the next few days, a modified zoning plan would be produced and brought to the government for approval and licensing.
Vilnai also addressed the illegal Rechelim settlement outpost in the letter. The outpost is classified as illegal by the Israeli government and therefore has not been given a zoning plan.
“The government is currently weighing plans to legalize and document Rechelim, but the political leadership still needs to issue an official decision in this regard,” he said.
The letter also referred to the illegal outpost of Naghot near Al-Khalil. He said the matter is currently under legal procedures designed to weigh the possibility of converting it into a “legal settlement”.
29 may 2014
Young Awarta residents clean up on 12 April 2011, after the most recent Israeli home-to-home invasions in the village.
Israeli forces operating to protect the Itamar settlement in the northern West Bank failed to "fully implement the defensible means available," despite assessments that "recognized the existing threats," the results of an investigation showed.
The internal Israeli military probe looked into the circumstances around the murder of five settlers, three of them children, in the Jewish-only settlement of Itamar, in mid-March.
Details of the investigation remain scant, and while the statement from the military's Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Benny Gantz expressed "appreciation of the security forces that operated to apprehend the assailants," military officials could not immediately confirm whether the Palestinian men detained in connection with the killings had been tried in a court.
Israeli reports of the killings, which took place the night of 11 March, said unknown assailants broke into the settlement and killed five of the seven members of the Fogul family who were sleeping at home. The case remained under an Israeli gag-order until officials announced that two teenagers from the Palestinian village of Awarta were identified as the prime suspects.
An Israeli intelligence document leaked in mid-April said "The two, residents of the village of Awarta, confessed during the investigation to planning and carrying out the attack and staged a reconstruction," but family members vociferously denied the claim, with one family saying their son was likely tortured.
The teen, 19-year-old Hakim Awwad, according to his family was too ill to have carried out the gruesome attack. His mother Nouf told Ma'an that Hakim was still recovering from a testicular surgery, which prevented him from walking long distances and required him to use the toilet every hour.
"We have the medical records, he is in unstable health," she said at the time, adding that the family had gathered papers to present as evidence in his defense.
Hakim, and his relative Amjad Awad were identified by Israeli officials as the main suspects in the killing, while four others were identified as also being involved in the crime.
The six were some of the hundreds rounded up by Israeli forces during a month-long investigation that saw the village of Awarta locked down under a military curfew for five days immediately following the killings, and several more days periodically after that.
Men, women and children were taken into military custody during house-to-house raids, and compelled to give fingerprints and DNA samples.
The settlement, which is guarded by Israel's military as part of its occupation of the West Bank, was also accused of failing to protect the settlers. The report on the incident, according to the military statement, said "the Command's situational assessment recognized the existing threats despite the lack of concrete intelligence information."
Tensions between settlers and their Palestinian neighbors in the northern West Bank are tense, with hundreds of reported incidents of settler-violence, harassment and vandalism targeting Palestinians and their property are cataloged each year.
Palestinians are often reported to throw rocks at passing settler cars.
The military report said that although soldiers operating in the area had identified a general threat, "they failed to translate the assessment into a concrete operational plan and to fully implement the defensible means available."
In the statement, the military chief of staff ordered the "immediate implementation of the conclusions of the incident including accelerating the development of security mechanisms in the region."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=392027
Israeli forces operating to protect the Itamar settlement in the northern West Bank failed to "fully implement the defensible means available," despite assessments that "recognized the existing threats," the results of an investigation showed.
The internal Israeli military probe looked into the circumstances around the murder of five settlers, three of them children, in the Jewish-only settlement of Itamar, in mid-March.
Details of the investigation remain scant, and while the statement from the military's Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Benny Gantz expressed "appreciation of the security forces that operated to apprehend the assailants," military officials could not immediately confirm whether the Palestinian men detained in connection with the killings had been tried in a court.
Israeli reports of the killings, which took place the night of 11 March, said unknown assailants broke into the settlement and killed five of the seven members of the Fogul family who were sleeping at home. The case remained under an Israeli gag-order until officials announced that two teenagers from the Palestinian village of Awarta were identified as the prime suspects.
An Israeli intelligence document leaked in mid-April said "The two, residents of the village of Awarta, confessed during the investigation to planning and carrying out the attack and staged a reconstruction," but family members vociferously denied the claim, with one family saying their son was likely tortured.
The teen, 19-year-old Hakim Awwad, according to his family was too ill to have carried out the gruesome attack. His mother Nouf told Ma'an that Hakim was still recovering from a testicular surgery, which prevented him from walking long distances and required him to use the toilet every hour.
"We have the medical records, he is in unstable health," she said at the time, adding that the family had gathered papers to present as evidence in his defense.
Hakim, and his relative Amjad Awad were identified by Israeli officials as the main suspects in the killing, while four others were identified as also being involved in the crime.
The six were some of the hundreds rounded up by Israeli forces during a month-long investigation that saw the village of Awarta locked down under a military curfew for five days immediately following the killings, and several more days periodically after that.
Men, women and children were taken into military custody during house-to-house raids, and compelled to give fingerprints and DNA samples.
The settlement, which is guarded by Israel's military as part of its occupation of the West Bank, was also accused of failing to protect the settlers. The report on the incident, according to the military statement, said "the Command's situational assessment recognized the existing threats despite the lack of concrete intelligence information."
Tensions between settlers and their Palestinian neighbors in the northern West Bank are tense, with hundreds of reported incidents of settler-violence, harassment and vandalism targeting Palestinians and their property are cataloged each year.
Palestinians are often reported to throw rocks at passing settler cars.
The military report said that although soldiers operating in the area had identified a general threat, "they failed to translate the assessment into a concrete operational plan and to fully implement the defensible means available."
In the statement, the military chief of staff ordered the "immediate implementation of the conclusions of the incident including accelerating the development of security mechanisms in the region."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=392027
