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BYE BYE GAZA - Barry Chamish

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film me at the Modiin police station submitting a complaint<br />

against Shaul Rotem, general manager of Ashdod Port.<br />

After Eitan's death, Transportation Minister Meir Sheetrit<br />

ordered Rotem to conduct a commission of inquiry into the<br />

tragedy. Within a day his commission opened and closed,<br />

concluding that a giant wave snuck into Ashdod port,<br />

wrecking Eitan's car and sucking him into the water where he<br />

drowned.<br />

The problem was Eitan's car was parked inside the harbor<br />

behind the breakwaters, where big waves cannot enter. I<br />

took two photos of the crime scene to the police station,<br />

along with a list of published testimonies by eye-witnesses.<br />

My complaint asked if Rotem's commission grilled the<br />

conflicting witnesses. Did he ask the managers of Eitan's<br />

company, Isratrop, why they claimed Eitan drowned at 7 AM,<br />

when port workers told the police that they saw him alive at 8<br />

AM? Did his commission find the source of the<br />

contradictions? Did they bring a wave engineer to study the<br />

damage to the car and determine if it was caused by a<br />

wave? Did they demand an autopsy of Eitan's body?<br />

The answer is no on all accounts, so I charged Shaul Rotem<br />

with concealing evidence in a public commission. The police<br />

investigator immediately understood the validity of my charge<br />

and agreed to begin an investigation. Write me if you'd like to<br />

see a copy of the police agreement to investigate the death<br />

of Raful Eitan. With the agreement in hand, I called Tal and<br />

asked her if Yediot Ahronot would like to report my police<br />

complaint. She agreed that if the police agreed to investigate<br />

the Raful death, it was a significant story. Even moreso<br />

because, since the Walla piece appeared, I had appeared on<br />

two radio shows announcing my successful opening of a<br />

police investigation into the circumstances of Raful's demise.<br />

She informed her editor, Buki Naeh and he agreed it was an<br />

important story. So he assigned his reporter Reuven Weiss<br />

to the story. Weiss assured me he would pop by my place<br />

62<br />

62

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