JPost backtracks claim Knesset member Rothman supports terrorist

Ten months after a Jerusalem Post editorial charged Knesset Constitution Committee Chairman Simcha Rothman (Religious Zionism) with supporting a “Jewish terrorist,” the newspaper has issued an apology that retracts the claim.

“On September 4, 2022, our newspaper published an editorial entitled: ‘Simcha Rothman’s support of Jewish terrorist crosses dangerous line.’ MK Rothman did not make any statement that supports any Jewish terrorist or Jewish terrorist act, and we apologize for any inconvenience that was caused to MK Rothman,” the notice, which was printed in Monday’s edition, reads.

The editorial had implied that the prominent politician supported Amiram Ben-Uliel, who was sentenced to three life sentences plus 20 years for the murder of three members of a Palestinian family, including an 18-month-old, who were burned to death in their home in the Samaria village of Duma in 2015.

The Jerusalem Post made its claim after Rothman on Twitter insisted that “a system of justice, which approves confessions given after torture, is not fit to be called a just system.”

“I don’t know whether Amiram Ben Uliel perpetrated the Duma murder or not,” the MK noted at the time.

Following criticism by right-wing activists and Israeli human rights organizations, in 2018, the Central District Court threw out some of the confessions in the Duma trial as they were obtained under duress.

Accusing The Jerusalem Post of printing an “inciting and false headline,” Rothman filed a libel suit against the paper on Sept. 7, 2022. “Saying that I support a Jewish terrorist [crosses] a dangerous line,” he explained.

Quoting the Book of Proverbs, Rothman responded to Monday’s editor’s note by stating that “He who confesses and gives up [his transgressions] will find mercy.”