Housing Minister (Bayit Yehudi) Uri Ariel was traveling from Marseilles to Paris on erev Shabbos Parshas Toldos 5774 when an emergency stop caused the train to partially derail. The minister was stuck in the train for four hours.
When the event occurred he phoned Israel Ambassador to Paris Yossi Gal and requested assistance to get out in time to make it to Paris for Shabbos. The promised assistance never arrived and the minister eventually turned around and headed back to Marseilles to avoid chilul Shabbos, aware he did not have sufficient time to make it to Paris as planned. Ariel spent Shabbos with relatives in the French city.
The daily Yediot Achronot quotes sources close to the cabinet minister saying “A minister in the government yet the embassy did nothing to assist him. They repeatedly told him ‘soon, soon’ but nothing ever happened. It simply did not matter to them.”
The Foreign Ministry responds saying “The ambassador in Paris and his staff were in contact with railway officials and police commanders as well as the Ministry of the Interior and they decided it was too dangerous to get a rider out of the train under the conditions that existed. No one on the train was permitted to get out”
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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2 Responses
sounds like some one is trying to make a scandal out of a mole hill.
Ariel, like most Israelis, think the Ambassador and his staff are miracle workers who have nothing to do but perform miracles for any and every Israeli who finds himself in a tight corner. Ministers are of course the highest priority and the Ambassador should have chartered a helicopter to wait for Ariel when he was extricated from the train, before anyone else of course as he is a Minister in the Government of Israel, and there are not many more important people in the whole world than a Minister in the Government of Israel. The Minister was unfortunately in a train crash but B”H not injured. When it was safe to leave the train he did so and went to the nearest city where he could stay for Shabbos. End of story and not worth reporting, except for the cheap jibes at the Ambassador and his staff, who also had Shabbos to prepare for.