Independent Uses Mandela’s Funeral To Bash Israel
DO you shape the news to fit your agenda? Do you see in every news story the chance to bang a drum for what it you believe in or desire? In his “2013 – the year in review. Peter Popham writer in the Independent of Nelson Mandela. He tells us:
It took his death, but the world came together for a moment for Nelson Mandela
The world came together. But what’s this? The lead photo has a caption:
You could cook up all manner of angles to report on Mandela and Israel. You could point out that Mossad agents trained Nelson Mandela in hand-to-hand combat, weaponry and sabotage. You vould say that Netanyahu hailed Mandela as “a freedom fighter who rejected violence”. You say that Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu did not travel to South Africa for the memorial service due to “logistical concerns” and cost.
You could point out that the trip would have been expensive (a figure of $1.9m has been cited) but that Netanyahu invests $2,700 a year on ice cream, $18,000 on clothes, hair, and makeup and a private room onboard a flight for Margaret Thatcher’s send off.
Working out how that man thinks could be tricky.
You could ays that while the US sent a battery of fomer and curent Presidents, Israel did send Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, the first female Ethiopian MK Pnina Tamnu-Shata (Yesh Atid), as well as MKs Dov Lipman (Yesh Atid), Nitzan Horowitz (Meretz), Gila Gamliel (Likud Beytenu) and Hilik Bar (Labor).
Edelstein noted: “I hope that the leaders in our region will abandon terror like Mandela and will choose dialogue as a way to live in peace with Israel.”
And you could note that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan did not attend the memorial, and Turkey was instead represented by Deputy Prime Minister Beşir Atalay.
Other country’s who didn’t send their tops man were: Czech Republic, El Salvador, Iran, Malaysia (represented by the energy minister), Nepal, Belarus, Holland, Poland, Angola, Algeria, Saudi-Arabia, Slovakia, Sudan, Vatican, United Arab Emirates, Russia, Greece, Philippines, Peru, Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay. And that’s not all.
But what Popham went with was:
Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel claimed that he couldn’t afford the trip. His absence reminded us of Israel’s closeness to the apartheid regime
Bam! It’s almost as if Popham’s trying to use a dead man’s funeral to make some kind of point.
Posted: 2nd, January 2014 | In: Politicians, Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
