Egyptian press mistranslates 'Post' story to report that 127 North Koreans came to Israel to join IDF.
By JOANNA PARASZCZUK
Egyptians must have been surprised on Tuesday when they opened their newspapers to read that 127 North Koreans had immigrated to Israel to join the IDF.Mistranslating a story in The Jerusalem Post, Egypt’s state news agency MENA mistakenly wrote that 127 men and women from Kim Yong-un’s totalitarian dictatorship – instead of from North America – had landed at Ben-Gurion Airport.Unnoticed, the erroneous report was picked up by Egypt’s dailies, including Al-Masry al-Youm, Shorouk News and Al-Mashhad.Al-Masry al-Youm’s story, which included a color photograph of IDF soldiers captioned “Occupying forces – the Israeli army,” said the Post had reported that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was at the airport to greet the new arrivals from North Korea, and that the initiative had been organized by the Jewish Agency and the Immigrant Absorption Ministry.According to the Daily News Egypt, MENA’s Arabic Desk managing editor Ahmed Kashkoosh said the mistake was likely a translation error, perhaps made because the translator was fasting for Ramadan. The Post reported that 350 olim from North America arrived on a Nefesh B’Nefesh flight from New York on Tuesday morning, 127 of which would soon begin serving in the IDF.