Israel’s Propaganda and Diaspora Minister, Yuli Edelstein, said the Arabs are a “deplorable nation.” His spokesman: He meant every one of them
Israel’s Propaganda and Diaspora Minister, Yuli Edelstein, told a crowd in a public diplomacy event in Or Yehuda that “as long as the Arab nation continues to be a deplorable nation, which continues investing in infrastructure for terrorism, education to hate, and welfare for the families of shaheeds (martyrs), there will be no peace.” It can be seen in his Facebook page, here (Hebrew). The Hebrew epithet used by Edelstein to describe Arabs – נפסד – is rather difficult to translate: I put it as “deplorable” but it can also mean “morally bankrupt.”
I phoned the minister’s office for comment, and asked his spokesman: “Are you aware of the fact there are some 80 million Arabs in the world, from Sudan to Syria?” He replied: “Yes, there are – and the minister meant them all.”
So there you have it: Israel’s Propaganda Minister (in Hebrew, he is called the Minister of Hasbara) believes each and every Arab is involved in rather deplorable actions. Seems that’s all you do, if you’re born an Arab. Why did his spokesman go an extra mile in confirming Edelstein’s comment? Possibly because Edelstein is a Yisrael Beitenu minister, and such comments play well with that base.
Edelstein (on the right) believes all Arabs support terroism. (Photo: drmikeevans, CC BY-SA 2.0)
During the same event, Edelstein openly deplored racism – at least, some sort of racism. He was very angry about calls made by extreme ultra-Orthodox in Beit Shemesh towards policemen, displaying the tact and broad-mindedness we have came to expect of our ultra-Orthodox brethren: “Nazis, go back to Russia.” Edelstein, himself a Russian immigrant, noted that he was jailed in Russia for Zionist activities and said, “That’s not what I sat in prison with my Zion prisoners brothers for! That’s not what I made aliyah for! We will not let anyone exclude others – neither because of gender or intra-Jewish ethnicity! The land of Israel belongs to us all.” It’s a good bet that Edelstein would not realize his comments contradict each other.
December 26, 2011
10:01 am
Truly a creature worthy of contempt.
December 26, 2011
10:14 am
““Are you aware of the fact there are some 80 million Arabs in the world, from Sudan to Syria?”
lol. There are 80 million Arabs in Egypt alone.
December 26, 2011
10:16 am
Geez, a fair point. A statistic from the 1980s stuck to my mind…
December 26, 2011
10:24 am
Besides for the fact that it’s completely disingenuous to talk about the complexity of translating a word like “nifsad” and then haphazardly calling Edelstein Israel’s Propaganda Minister…
December 26, 2011
10:26 am
Oh, I fully stand by “Ministry of Propaganda.” I refuse to use the Zionist euphemism.
December 26, 2011
12:50 pm
Isn’t this guy a Likud member? When did he join Lieberman?
(not that it matters, these two parties are cut from the same cloth anyway)
December 26, 2011
2:06 pm
I was under an impression that there are several propaganda agencies and ministries, Foreign Affairs should in principle engage in propaganda aimed at wider international audience (what is their aim it is hard to tell), and there is also domestic propaganda, e.g. IDF communication outfits, there is also Tourism Ministry, communications of Prime Minister plus a large government related NGO sector.
So giving Edelstein a lofty title of Propaganda Minister wrongly implies that he is coordinating all that stuff.
December 26, 2011
4:15 pm
Edelstein went from a place where all Jews were rootless cosmopolitans to a place where all Arabs are נפסד and still doesn’t catch the tune.
December 26, 2011
4:19 pm
Sorry for my ignorance and I know it’s probably irrelevant, but in the photo, who is the plastified person next to Edelstein?
December 27, 2011
12:11 am
“Are you aware of the fact there are some 80 million Arabs in the world, from Sudan to Syria?”
I think it was an excellent question. When a private individual arrives at a sweeping generalization, that may be on the basis of some hearsay, stemming from conversations with buddies on a hunting trip or prowling some web sites. But a highly ranked member of government has various bodies of experts at his or her disposal to provide the fruits of their investigations. As those investigation did not even reveal the approximate number of the Arab (and the degree of their geographic dispersion, as Mauritania is 3000 km to the west of Sudan and Oman is 1500 km to the east of Syria), one may doubt the accuracy of more involved statistics.
The cited statement is based not on population but on investments. First, in “infrastructure of terror”. How many millions of shekels, dirhams, dinars, ouguiyad etc. were spent on that infrastructure and what were fruits of that expenditures? From reports on “Cast Lead” operation we know that this infrastructure includes quite ordinary housing, schools, hospitals, universities, and chicken farms. Which nation is more deplorable: one which employs chicken to spread terror, or one which feels terrorized by the chicken?
One can also harbor a suspicion that Israel, so ready to condemn Arabs, has chicken farms of her own. And make no mistake: they contribute to the war effort. I have extremely limited experience with IDF, but my single visit to a military facility made a deep impression: the amount of eggs in the kitchen was simply enormous.
December 27, 2011
5:03 am
I’ve got to agree with Edelstein: During last few centuries Arabs (I’d even generalize to all Muslims) have proved to be the most useless, dangerous and unreliable part of our planet’s population.
Indeed, achievements by Arabs could be counted by the fingers of one hand, while cases of atrocities, wars and destruction are countless.
December 27, 2011
12:15 pm
[...] by Israel's Minister of Information and Disapora, Yuli Edelstein, who fittingly enough is also in the news for saying that Arabs are a "deplorable [...]
December 27, 2011
12:44 pm
I thought racism and incitement were forbidden on this site.
December 27, 2011
12:51 pm
Edelstein is from the former USSR, so he must be from Beitenu. LOL so much for racist generalizations. And yeah, there ain’t many evidence that the majority of Arabs reject terrorism against the infidels and primitive antisemitism.
December 27, 2011
5:54 pm
You have your exchange with the spokesperson on tape?
December 28, 2011
1:43 am
So, Arab nations are NOT deplorable? They’re nice, good, modern countries?
Which ones?
Libya? Syria? Yemen? Egypt?
Which Arab countries are modern, first-world, progressive and civil?
Why does the truth anger you?
December 28, 2011
5:14 pm
Comment deleted for being offensive and trollish. Next such comment will get the user banned.
December 30, 2011
9:37 am
Comment from.California: World-wide Jewry is being soiled by the actions of Zionist inclined Israel which forsakes the tenets of the Torah. If the state of Israel represents the true nature of Judaism, then the universal laws of cause and effect will operate to bring catastrophe to the Jewish people. Just as the world asked how Germany that produced Bach, Brahms, Einstein et al could have committed such horrors during the last two World Wars, similarly are asking how the Jewish nation which regularly gives to the world Nobel prize winners, could carry out on-going genocide, ethnic cleansing, and the horrible, brutal, and murderous treatment of a dispossessed people as the Palestinians not to mention the origins of the state of Israel in 1948 when forcibly removed over 800,000 Palestinians from their land. For this, the world rightly condemns Israel.
January 20, 2012
12:06 pm
There is no Propaganda office in Israel. The translation is purpusly twisted to project the agenda of the translator. Hasbara means explanation, literaly, and that’s what this office is doing to counter all lies spread by the Arab media. I won’t trust news on this website given this twisted translation. I am a native speaker of Hebrew and understand the culture in the region better than the writer of this twisted article.