First Prime Minister Of Canada

Gaza Flotilla: The Media Battle in Israel

As the Flotilla boats to Gaza are prevented from leaving the Greek ports, the Israeli government congratulates its diplomatic efforts in pressuring Greece to stop the activists. Earlier in the week, the Israeli press cited an army debrief when all major newspapers reported the Flotilla activists will carry lethal acid on board their ships, according to army intelligence. The Real News' Lia Tarachansky questions Maj. Gen. Eitan Dangot, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, and the Minister of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs, Yuli Edelstein. She also speaks with Huweida Arraf, the Co-Founder of the Free Gaza Movement, and Ofer Neiman, Editor of the Occupation Magazine about the Israeli coverage of the Flotilla to Gaza, and the media battle between government and activists.

Transcript

LIA TARACHANSKY, TRNN: On Friday, the Greek leadership issued an order preventing the flotilla boats from leaving its shores for Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated the Greek prime minister, George Papandreou, in a speech on Thursday. According to an unnamed top Israeli official, today there is a different Greece when it comes to Israel, the organizers of the flotilla did not understand this, and now they're paying the price. On Wednesday, the Government Press Office held a briefing with Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein.

YULI EDELSTEIN, MINISTER OF PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AND DIASPORA AFFAIRS: First of all, we are not trying to hide. On the contrary, we are proud that we've made a lot of diplomatic efforts in different countries in order to explain to the governments, leaders, people, the things that I've been just saying [snip] probably could influence, you know, in the positive direction this whole intention of coming with this violent and unnecessary flotilla.

TARACHANSKY: On Saturday, Israeli activists gathered outside the Greek embassy in Tel Aviv to voice their opposition.

CROWD: No justice! No peace! Shame on you Greece!

CROWD (SUBTITLED TRANSL.): Let the flotilla into Gaza! Send the traitors to jail!

TARACHANSKY: [incompr.] the media battle between Israel and the coming flotilla sharply escalated when the Israeli press reported flotilla activists were carrying sulphuric acid with the intention of killing as many Israeli soldiers as possible.

Kim Campbell, QC « Iconic Photos

When history of Canada is written, Kim Campbell will be remembered for countless glass ceilings she broke. She was the first female student president at both her highschool and university. She was Canada’s first female Minister of Justice, Attorney General and later first female Minister of Defense. When she became Canada’s Prime Minister, she was not only her first female PM, but also the first baby boomer to hold that office, and the first PM to have been born in British Columbia.

For all these accomplishments, Kim Campbell was better known in Canada for a 1990 Barbara Woodley portrait in which she stood bare-shouldered behind her justice minister robes. In the late 1980s, Barbara Woodley drove across Canada in a van, sleeping inside the vehicle, to take 66 portraits of famous and powerful Canadian women. On the day she came to take Campbell’s photograph, Campbell had just picked up her justice minister robes. Woodley proposed taking her picture with her cello but Campbell said that another photographer had just taken her portrait in that style and accordingly suggested that she put on her new robes.

Woodley recommended that Campbell hold the robes in front of her. ”We both realized that holding the robes while I was fully dressed would look silly, but we had no idea at the time that her photo of me, bare-shouldered and holding the robes on a hanger would become so notorious,” Campbell recalled. The notoriety only began when the National Arts Centre launched an exhibit on the Canadian politicians and included the portrait in November 1992.

At the launch of the exhibition, Campbell bumped into former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. “I had just picked up my QC robes [then]” she said. “Ah, and what were you doing before you picked them up?” responded Trudeau. On its review of the exhibition, the Ottawa Citizen . The British tabloids also gleefully cover the episode; in Italy, due to a translation error, it was reported that Campbell had posed with “nude men” instead of “bare shoulders.”

For all the clamor surrounding it, Campbell’s premiership was short and tumultuous. It lasted for 132 days — the third shortest in Canadian history. She also became only the third PM — and first since Second World War — to be unseated at the same time that his or her party lost an election. What a tragic end for such a promising career.