Aletho News

Hollywood director latest sexual predator to find refuge in Israel

MEMO | October 4, 2023

Disgraced Hollywood director Brett Ratner, who stands accused by multiple women of rape and sexual harassment, revealed last week he relocated to Israel just days after being a special guest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the UN General Assembly in New York.

Ratner has followed in the footsteps of other sexual predators who have fled to Israel in recent years, including another Hollywood director, Bryan Singer, who moved to Israel several years ago after being accused of rape and sexual assault of several minors.

Thanks to lax extradition laws and the so-called “law of return” known as ‘Aliyah’ – which grants citizenship to Jews across the world based on ancestral claims that are two millennia old – Israel has become a sanctuary for Jewish sexual predators as well as countless fraudsters, money launderers, and war criminals.

According to Jewish Community Watch, an organization that tracks accused pedophiles, over 60 US citizens accused of pedophilia have successfully fled to Israel in the past few years.

However, in an interview with Hareetz last year, the head of Magen for Jewish Communities, an Israeli NGO that tracks sexual predators, revealed that “there are about 100 rabbis, teachers, and other figures who have been accused, charged or convicted of sexual abuse overseas and subsequently found refuge in Israel.”

Awareness of Israel’s safe haven status for sex offenders received a boost in recent years due to the case of Israeli-Australian citizen Malka Leifer, the headmistress of an ultra-Orthodox girls’ school in Australia, who fled to Israel in 2008 after allegations surfaced of her sexually abusing female students.

She was finally extradited in 2021 and faces trial in Victoria on 70 charges of child sex abuse.

Another predator who fled to Israel and is finally facing extradition is Mexican diplomat Andres Roemer, who stands accused of rape and sexual harassment by over 60 women. After more than two years of dragging their feet, Israeli authorities arrested Roemer on Monday.

Despite the serious accusations against him, Roemer even had a street named after him in the city of Ramat Gan.

But while Roemer is finally expected to face justice, Mexico is still seeking the extradition of the former head of the criminal investigation agency, Tomas Zeron, who is wanted in connection to the disappearance of 43 students in southwestern Mexico in 2014.

Zeron is also accused of embezzling over $50 million and torturing suspects.

Despite being wanted by Interpol, Zeron has been living in an upscale apartment building in Tel Aviv since late 2019 due to his ties to the Israeli tech sector, including embattled firm NSO Group — makers of the Pegasus spyware.

Furthermore, western media reports revealed earlier this year that Israeli authorities are “unlikely” to extradite Zeron as “payback” for Mexico’s support of the Palestinian cause and their approval of UN inquiries into Israeli war crimes against Palestinians.

October 4, 2023 - Posted by aletho | Supremacism, Social Darwinism | Israel, Mexico, Palestine, United States