Israel Matzav

Israel finds someone to attend Mandela's funeral

It took a while but Israel has finally found someone to attend Nelson Mandela's funeral.

The US is sending its president and two former presidents to anti-apartheid hero and former South African president Nelson Mandela's funeral Tuesday. The UK and France sent its prime ministers, as did another 88 countries. Oprah and the Dalai Lama were set to attend. Israel, however, came close to sending no one, in an awkward diplomatic situation that developed throughout Monday.

In the end, Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein will fly to the funeral, along with the first female Ethiopian MK Pnina Tamano-Shata (Yesh Atid), as well as MKs Dov Lipman (Yesh Atid), Nitzan Horowitz (Meretz), Gila Gamliel (Likud Beytenu) and Hilik Bar (Labor).

Edelstein, a former prisoner of Zion in the USSR, said he's "happy that in the end Israel has representation at this important event. As a former prisoner of conscience, I had the privilege of meeting Mandela as a minister in 1996, and we shared experiences from prison and the fight for our rights. This is a sort of closure for me."

But even this delegation almost didn't make it.

The Israel Security Agency (Shabak) was concerned about Netanyahu or Peres visiting South Africa, because of overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian sentiment in the country.

Next in line to visit was Edelstein, who put together a group of MKs to join him.

However, the final decision was delayed for hours. First, because of difficulties finding a free plane. Then, it was unclear that an Israeli plane would be able to land, due to high air traffic.

Eventually, three hours before the Knesset delegation was supposed to fly, Edelstein closed the deal, even reducing the price of renting a small plane from NIS 2 million to NIS 350,000.

It will be interesting to see what kind of reception the Israeli delegation gets....

Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Dov Lipman, Shimon Peres, South Africa, Yuli Edelstein

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:21 PM