The Giro d'Italia brochure
1.5 million copies of Giro d'Italia brochure trashed due to 'electioneering'
Promotional brochure, produced by Tourism Ministry for bicycle race, contained greetings from tourism, culture ministers that were deemed illicit election propaganda; all copies withdrawn under orders from AG Mandelblit, new version printed without greetings at a cost to taxpayers of NIS 250,000-300,000.
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit instructed the government to nix a promotional leaflet produced and printed by the Tourism Ministry in a million and a half copies for the Giro d'Italia
bicycle race, merely because it contained greetings from the tourism and culture ministers, which he considered to be election propaganda.
The Tourism Ministry was thus forced to reprint the leaflet without the greetings, replacing them with a photo of a cyclist. The decision cost Israeli taxpayers NIS 250,000 to NIS 300,000.
The original draft for the leaflet contained photos of Tourism Minister Yariv Levin and Culture Minister Miri Regev, who head the two ministries credited for bringing the Giro to Israel.
The original promotional leaflet contained greetings from Ministers Levin and Regev
Mandelblit, however, vetoed the publication and ordered the photos removed. The leaflet's million and a half copies were to be bundled for distribution with the weekend newspapers, and included information about the event and the routes riders were set to take.
In the leaflet, Levin and Regev also invited the public to come and watch the cyclists, to take part in the unique experience and to visit the touristic sites through which the routes passed.
AG Mandelblit ordered 1.5 million copies of a Giro d'Italia leaflet to be destroyed due to containing illegal electioneering (Photo: EPA)
While the leaflet's text received approval from all relevant legal advisers, chairman of the country's Central Elections Committee, Supreme Court Justice Hanan Melcer, ruled that a radio commercial in which the culture minister invited the public to attend events for Israel's 70th Independence Day should be taken off the air.
By so deciding, Justice Melcer overturned a previous decision by Attorney General Mandelblit, who ruled it did not constitute forbidden election propaganda.
Justice Melcer's ruling on a radio spot featuring Culture Minister Regev led to the brochure being nixed as well (Photo: Hillel Meir/TPS)
Nevertheless, following Melcer's decision Justice Ministry officials contacted Natan Ben Yakir, legal adviser for the Government Advertising Agency—that produced the leaflet—and clarified that the justification for Melcer's decision regarding the radio spot also applied to inviting the public to events through printed advertising.
The leaflet, however, was printed the day before Melcer's decision was made, which meant all million and a half copies of the leaflet—which were already printed and were set to be sent to newspapers for insertion into weekend papers—had to be discarded.
The Giro d'Italia's third and final leg in southern Israel (צילום: תומר מלארון וסייקלינג אקדמי)
Tourism Ministry Director-General Amir Halevi then contacted the attorney general in an urgent missive, impressing upon him that reprinting the leaflets without the ministers' greetings will lead to squandering public funds.
The director-general further maintained that a radio spot using the minister's own voice could not be compared with a printed brochure in which the ministers' words are secondary and marginal and comprised merely an eighth of the overall publication.
Tourism Ministry Director-General Amir Halevi contacted AG Mandelblit to decry changing the leaflet, but to no avail (Photo: Chen Galili)
Not distributing the pamphlet, Halevi alleged, may bring about a situation in which no crowds will gather to cheer on cyclists, rendering the event a failure in the eyes of the entire world.
Halevi's overtures did not help, however, and the attorney general insisted that the brochure be reprinted without Levin and Regev's words, which the ministry did, printing a million new copies at a cost of NIS 250,000 to NIS 300,000.
The Tourism Ministry provided comment on the matter, saying that, "As part of the project of bringing the Giro to Israel, the ministry made an obligation to disseminate an official message to Israel's citizens to come and watch the race, as is the custom in Europe.
Tourism Minister Levin (3rd left) and Culture Minster Regev (2nd left) wrote greetings for the leaflet (Photo: Oren Aharoni)
"In light of that fact and under the recommendation of the professional ranks, a brochure was created that also included short messages from the tourism and culture ministers calling on the public to do the same.
"The brochure received all of the requisite legal authorizations for publication. After printing, the ministry was made to shelve it due to Justice Melcer's decree, despite the fact that the ministry's director-general forewarned that doing so will incur needless expenses."
