I Won a Defamation Lawsuit
I often write in first person but rarely about myself. This article is an exception of the rule. It is about a legal battle that pitted the sanctity of free speech against the emotional weight of Israeli bereavement. I was sued by by Lara Metodi, a bereaved mother (or Gold Star mother in American parlance), who also happens to be a local celebrity (Big Brother finalist) for sharing a video of her late son, Nitai Metodi. T
he video had been initially posted and disseminated across the internet by the son or his friends who filmed themselves dancing and celebrating (in Israeli slang “holding a ‘hafla’”) in a Palestinian house in Gaza whose residents were expelled or fled – who knows. For sure, the property looked looted. The walls were vandalized with graffiti such as “A good Arab is a dead Arab. The soldiers boasted about killing “twenty terrorists.” Were all of the twenty terrorists? I have chosen not to jump full head into the controversy and just shared the video........





















Toi Staff
Sabine Sterk
Gideon Levy
Mark Travers Ph.d
Waka Ikeda
Tarik Cyril Amar
Grant Arthur Gochin