MK Simcha Rothman
MK Simcha RothmanIsraelnationalnews

A right-wing lawmaker has filed a libel suit against The Jerusalem Post, following the publication of an opinion piece last week accusing him of supporting a “Jewish terrorist”.

MK Simcha Rothman (Religious Zionist Party) filed a suit Sunday afternoon against the Post and its editor-in-chief, Yaakov Katz, seeking 280,000 shekels ($82,123) in compensation, arguing that an editorial piece published by the outlet last Thursday misrepresented his views.

The article, originally titled "Simcha Rothman's support for Jewish terrorist crosses a dangerous line”, now appears on the Post’s website with the amended headline “Rothman’s criticism of the Supreme Court – editorial”.

Rothman has in the past condemned the use of torture to extract a confession from Amiram Ben-Uliel, the Israeli man convicted of throwing a firebomb into a Palestinian Arab home in the town of Duma in 2015, killing three and severely injuring one.

The authors of the editorial, who were unnamed in the piece, claimed that according to Rothman “a Jew accused of violence is innocent even after conviction and after all appeals are exhausted, but for Palestinians it is different.”

Rothman sent the Posta cautionary letter, threatening the sue if the piece in question was not amended or removed.

After the filing of the lawsuit, Rothman accused the outlet of spreading “fake news”.

“I did all I could to avoid having to file a libel lawsuit, which to me is the most extreme measure, but the paper chose to put up as its main headline an accusation claiming that I support terrorism, with intentional distortions; and since this is fake news during an election period, it especially needs to be taken into account that this is crossing a red line.”