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Israeli politicians easy targets on April Fools' Day

Facebook has become the platform for April Fools' Day hoaxes in Israel, where politicians are mocked on the background of social and security tensions.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) and Finance Minister Yair Lapid (back to camera) congratulate Israeli far-right leader Avigdor Lieberman after he was sworn in as Israel's Foreign Minister at the parliament in Jerusalem November 11, 2013. Lieberman was sworn in as foreign minister on Monday after his acquittal on corruption charges, a development that could further complicate peace talks with the Palestinians. REUTERS/Amir Cohen (JERUSALEM - Tags: POLITICS TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY) - RTX159MP
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In 2011, Yair Lapid was the anchor for Israeli TV Channel 2's Friday evening news program. That same year, April 1 fell on a Friday, so Lapid's program covered international April Fools’ Day. Two years later, as the newly minted finance minister of Israel, Lapid experienced the other side of the coin and became a subject in the reports of the day’s best pranks. In Lapid’s case, a fake Facebook profile with his name posted an amazing status update on April 1: “We’ll raise taxes on corporations; we’ll work to stop the theft that is the nontaxable income of international companies; we’ll increase the public share in natural resources. That should be enough to cover the parties that the tycoons and politicians held here in the last few years.”

Surprised Internet users expressed enthusiastic support for the militant and unequivocal message, until they discovered that it was just a prank. But it’s a shame to end tradition, and the Facebook profile was active again this April 1. And so wrote "Lapid" this week: “Friends, after much deliberation, I have decided — in contrast to the opinions of the senior staff of my ministry, who threaten to quit — to cancel the Woodside deal and to instead nationalize its appointed share of the Leviathan gas reserve. The tax incentives demanded by the Australian corporation are scandalous, and more evidence that we’ve become a state whose corporations, domestic and foreign, condescendingly demand exemptions and grants, as if the Israeli public was born to serve them. … I’ve instructed my staff to prepare a five-year plan for the state administration of resources, which will guarantee cheap and available energy for all of the people of Israel, and the creation of a fund to invest the immense revenues we’ll produce in education, welfare and infrastructure. We were once slaves, but now are free. Happy holiday of freedom!” This closing was a riff on traditional Passover wishes.

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