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Sunday, November 02, 2008

"So who is your mother sleeping with, Sir?"

This is better than the Welsh sign board:

The incident occurred in November last year, when a standard request for advance questions from the Dutch Foreign Ministry turned into what an officer in the Israeli Foreign Ministry called a "major, major incident." As the Jerusalem Post reported earlier this week, a group of Israeli journalists attempted to use an online translation tool to translate their Hebrew questions into English. The results were less than precise.

"Helloh bud," began the e-mail. "Enclosed five of the questions in honor of the foreign minister: The mother your visit in Israel is a sleep to the favor or to the bed your mind on the conflict are Israeli Palestinian, and on relational Israel Holland."

The e-mailed questions were more than simply an embarrassment for the reporters. According to the Jerusalem Post, the Dutch Foreign Ministry is now considering canceling the entire trip and filing a formal complaint over the incident.

After the questions were entered into the online translation tool, questions like "What, in your opinion, needs to be done regarding the Iranian threat to Israel?" Became: "What in your opinion needs to do opposite the awful the Iranian of Israel." Additional translation errors included "bandages of the knitted domes" instead of "Dome of the Rock" and a question that read "Why we did not heard on mutual visits of main the states of Israel and Holland, this is in the country of this."

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