Travel Costs To Keep Netanyahu From Mandela Memorial
Neither Israel’s prime minister nor president will attend South Africa’s commemorations of the late Nelson Mandela this week, officials said, a notable absence at events expected to draw more than 70 world leaders.
Palestinians, who hail South Africa’s first black leader as an inspiration in a conflict with what they call Israeli “apartheid”, will be represented by President Mahmoud Abbas.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who praised Mandela as “a freedom fighter who rejected violence”, will not attend Tuesday’s ceremony in Johannesburg due to the costs of travel and security, aides said. President Shimon Peres, who is 90, had been advised by his doctors not to make the trip.
“The president is recovering from flu and doctors advised him not to fly,” a spokesman for Peres said.
The foreign ministry said Yuli Edelstein, speaker of Israel’s parliament, would attend instead.
Like Mandela, Peres is a winner of the Nobel peace prize. As defence minister in the 1970s, he was also involved in military and trade ties with South Africa’s white rulers. In 2010, he denied a newspaper report that Israel had offered to provide the apartheid state with nuclear weapons in 1975.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
