Not everyone’s foray into blogging is successful. Just ask Likud member of the Knesset Ehud Yatom.
MK Ehud Yatom (Likud) made a tentative foray onto the internet yesterday, got burned and beat a hasty retreat. He began an internet diary (“blog”) on the Israblog site but virulent reader responses, relcalling Yatom’s role in the Bus 300 affair caused him to change his mind, reports the Nana website.
The blog was titled “Information on a Knesset Member” but was misspelled in Hebrew. Its stated purpose was for MK Ehud Yatom to express his opinions. The first entry was posted yesterday (Monday) at 12:18 and was headlined, “The trail of blood from Jerusalem to The Hague.” It began, “The terror attack in Jerusalem, at the beginning of the week when the judges in The Hague are happily ironing their robes is a clear message from the terrorist organizations, led by master-murderer Arafat, directly to the hall of justice in Holland, that they will continue to attack, with as much force as they can muster, with or without the barrier”.
Internet surfers quickly discovered the MKís posting and began to respond with a wide variety of stinging comments, some of which related to Yatomís role in killing two captured terrorists during the Bus 300 affair. Apparently, Yatom did not consider the fact that surfers can and do respond to blogs at their own will.
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Yatomís aide, Boaz Yaakobi told Nana that the blog was begun in response to extensive correspondence between Yatom and Ofer Landau, a long-time Israeli blogger. He explained that Yatom was excited by a visit to Landauís blog but decided not to open an independent website, like those of present and former MKs Michael Eitan, Shaul Yahalom, Yossi Beilin and Tzali Reshef, because of the cost. He chose to use a free blog site.
After the blog was taken off-line because of the virulent responses, Yaakobi modified his story and claimed that the blog was his private initiative and that Yatom was not directly involved. This version is supported by MK Ehud Yatomís comment, “I don’t even know what a blog-shmog is. When I left the Foreign Affairs Committee meeting today (Monday), my aide told be that he had posted an article that I wrote after the attack to something called ‘Israblog’. I told him, ‘How could you post it without my permission? What’s a blog? Take it down’.” He added that the claim that the article had been removed because of unpleasant response was a total lie.
I guess he had never heard of disabling comments.
Update: Is there a connection between the blog and this?
Update: Gil has found the original post and comments. It is all in Hebrew, and will take time to translate. Stay tuned.