Iran pegs PM’s wife as commando
Press TV reports Naftali Bennett joke that he a took a terrorism course with Sara Netanyahu as fact
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Did budding politician Naftali Bennett train in an elite commando unit with the prime minister’s wife? In Iran, the answer is an emphatic yes.
Bennett, the head of the resurgent Jewish Home party, jokingly told a Channel 10 interviewer Wednesday that he took a “terrorism course” with Sara Netanyahu.
Iran’s state-run Press TV, though, apparently not getting the joke, picked up the story as serious news, posting a straight-faced article about Bennett’s terror ties with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife.
This isn’t the first time Iran’s media has been caught taking satire a little too seriously. In September, the country’s Fars news agency republished an article from the satirical newspaper The Onion about rural whites in the US preferring Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to US President Barack Obama.
And in July, Press TV reported an Onion story about Facebook being a CIA front.
The confusion on Wednesday morning started when Bennett, a former Netanyahu aide who reportedly left the Prime Minister’s Office over a conflict, was asked by Channel 10 whether he could work with the prime minister and his wife.
“It’ll be fine; we served in the same unit,” Bennett said, likely referring to the elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit of which both he and Benjamin Netanyahu are graduates.
The interviewer then asked if Bennett meant him and Sara.
“Yes… Sara and I went through a terrorism course together,” he said, apparently jokingly, though with a straight face.
After a few seconds of confusion, he added, “there’s nothing 15 [Knesset] seats can’t fix.”
The Times of Israel Community.