Culture Minister Miri Regev lashes out at opposition lawmakers amid reports Honduras’ president is reconsidering attending the torch lighting ceremony next week marking Israel’s 70th Independence Day.
“If the Honduran president decides not to arrive in light of the slander from members of the opposition — chief among them [Meretz] MK Tamar Zandberg — it is ugly and shows that the opposition has joined the BDS organizations against Israel,” she tells reporters.
Zandberg on Saturday called for Juan Orlando Hernandez’s invitation to the ceremony to be rescinded, calling Honduras a corrupt human rights violator and saying Hernandez’s presence would dishonor Israel.
The Ynet news site reported earlier today that a representative of Hernandez contacted the Foreign Ministry to say that the Honduran president was reconsidering participating in the ceremony due to the criticism directed at him and the atmosphere created around his arrival.
Other reports, however, said that Hernandez’s concern was not the criticism directed at him, but rather the local political controversy surrounding the ceremony.
Culture Minister Miri Regev at Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl on April 9, 2018. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Help us report truthfully on social media
As a multimedia journalist, my job is to take the quality, fact-based journalism produced by The Times of Israel newsroom and make it accessible across every platform — from Instagram posts to podcasts to short-form videos.
This is how many, especially young people, consume news these days. But misinformation is rampant on social media. Our team at ToI produces accurate, responsible short-form reporting on Israel and the Jewish world.
If you believe in the importance of factual social media journalism, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to sustain responsible multimedia reporting.
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you, David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
From the Liveblog of
Monday, April 9, 2018
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on Google
