Israel's former president Moshe Katsav is convicted of rape and other crimes. But Vos Iz Neias does not report it. Could this be because of the ban issued against VIN by haredi rabbis?
As you can see in the following PDF of VIN's front page, there is no reporting or reposting of articles about Israel's former president Moshe Katsav's conviction, which took place about 9 hours ago, and has been widely publicized elsewhere. Katsav is Orthodox and the rapes happened while he was president:
So does this mean the ban has impacted VIN? Not really.
VIN reported only one negative story about Katsav during this years-long ordeal – that Katsav asked to be temporarily removed from office. It was immediately after after he was indicted on rape charges. But VIN's lone report doesn't say that:
Jerusalem, Israel +President to be Temporarily Removed+
Published on: January 24, 2007 08:42 AM
Jerusalem, Israel - A spokesman for the Israeli parliament says President Moshe Katsav has asked to be temporarily removed from office.
That's it. That is the entire report. Here is a screenshot to prove it along with another screenshot of a Google search of VIN for any news about Katsav. In the latter you will see the rape and abuse charges appear to go unmentioned:
But if you look closely, you'll see the last Google entry shows a story saying Katsav asked to be temporarily removed from office. Clicking on that link takes you to the above posted news brief that does not mention rape or sexual crimes – or any crimes at all.
It appears the story as originally posted did mention these crimes, but was subsequently edited.
The Google cache date is in October of this year, which means the editing / censorship took place before that – most likely on the day the story was originally posted in 2007.
Before his indictment, much fuss was made of Katsav's Orthodoxy, and he was a darling of the Orthodox and haredi communities who saw in him a politician who would fight their fights.
I don't know with certainty why VIN censored its original coverage of Katsav's legal troubles. But one must certainly question why it did not cover his rape convictions today.
Apparently America's preeminent haredi web-based news source didn't think you needed to know.