• steventhedev@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The headline is misleading. From the article:

    Dror Eydar, Israel’s former ambassador to Italy … who is also a columnist with the Israeli daily newspaper Israel Hayom…

    He is no longer in public service and does not represent Israeli interests in any official capacity.

    …former Knesset member Moshe Feiglin…

    He has not held public office since 2015.

    Their statements are incredibly racist and dehumanizing, and have been condemned by the majority of the world. But they do not represent Israel in any official capacity. They are simply not newsworthy outside of documenting their existence on the off chance they reenter public life in the future.

    I won’t stoop to the New Arab’s level of trawling for extremist wannabe politicians. I’ll just look for a current Qatari public figure who are currently holding public office. That didn’t take long.

    • scarabic@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      We need a browser extension that will replace all headlines with AI-created ones based on the article. How could it be worse than the deliberately misleading shit we get today?

    • blitzkrieg@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      “Former Israel ambassador opinions have never represented his country!”

      You’re delusional.

    • pleasemakesense@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      I don’t think anyone thought that this was the official position of the israeli government, and if they did, they should also read the article. Their position as a former diplomat and a politician is about that they are not some fringe nutjobs, but has had or has been in positions of power recently.

      I am sorry you somehow thought that this implied offical positions of israel.

      • steventhedev@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Literally the headline is “Israel diplomat calls…”. It’s incredibly misleading - hell, even the tagline that you copied in as the post body doesn’t even qualify it.

        Feiglin is absolutely a fringe nutjob, and has been pushed out of politics because he was too extreme even for Netanyahu. His wikipedia entry has more content under the “Controversy and criticism” section than outside it.

        I’m less familiar with the other one.

        • pleasemakesense@lemmy.worldOP
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          1 year ago

          He was ambassador to italy as recently as last year, I’m not an english native speaker but having worked as a diplomat would qualify him as being a diplomat, no? Where I’m from it wouldn’t be weird reffering to someone as a diplomat even if they are currently not on a diplomatic mission. Feiglin is a current member of likud, that isn’t being pushed out of politics

          e: also btw, I didnt copy anything, the title and text was automatically generated when I submitted

          • steventhedev@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Yeah, the misleading headline/tagline are 100% on the site. Heck, the community rules require the title to match the article, so it’s not like you had an option.

            Feiglin is a nutjob, but he’s unfortunately a shrewd politician and Israeli politics are currently dominated by finge nutjobs.

            In general, calling someone a diplomat implies that they are currently representing the State. While it is an impressive qualification, and Italy is not a minor posting, he would face very real consequences for saying those things if he were currently holding that position.

            That ultimately is kind of the point: neither of them will face domestic consequences for this. One has always been at the fringe shouting hateful stuff, and the other works for a right wing newspaper as an opinion writer.