Ministry spokeswoman Loma Amin said that on behalf of the people of Israel, the government apologizes to the world both for producing and tolerating such a fraud, and for taking this long to acknowledge it.
Jerusalem, September 20 - Saying it had taken far too long, an official for Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a formal apology today to the world for inflicting upon it the travesty that is self-proclaimed psychic Uri Geller.
Geller was born in the British Mandate of Palestine two years before Israel declared statehood, but spent many of his formative years in the country and served in the IDF. His charlatanry began in earnest only in the 1970's, when he leveraged his proficiency in stage magic techniques to cultivate a reputation for paranormal abilities of questionable utility, such as bending spoons and keys with only his mind, or restarting stopped clocks, supposedly without the use of his hands. Since all of Geller's supposedly paranormal acts have been repeatedly and thoroughly disproved for decades by various scientific and entertainment experts, ministry spokeswoman Loma Amin said that on behalf of the people of Israel, the government apologizes to the world both for producing and tolerating such a fraud, and for taking this long to acknowledge it.
"We in Israel are deeply and collectively ashamed that we have foisted this liar upon the world, and beg your forgiveness," said Amin. "We feel especially sorry for Britain, which has had the misfortune of serving as Mr. Geller's home for many years, and must continually put up with his shenanigans. An apology is also in order for the belated nature of this announcement, and we are also terribly sorry we have not offered one until today."
Geller's fraud was first given moderate publicity after an attendee at a 1971 show in Beersheva successfully sued him for trying to pass off standard stage magic, which uses sleight of hand and misdirection techniques, as actual paranormal, psychokinetic ability. Despite the revelations, Geller continued to gain a following, especially overseas, and, despite a drop in popularity since then, still garners occasional and unwarranted media attention for his comically rigged exploits, often with unexpected negative results. Hidden cameras have on many occasions revealed that Geller makes free use of his hands to bend spoons and keys, relying on audience naivety and misdirection to fool them into thinking he did so using only his mind.
In many instances, Geller has claimed to have wrought some sort of paranormal feat to secure victory for one side in an athletic competition, but, in what one skeptic observer called "The Curse of Uri Geller," this has more often than not been associated with that team losing the competition, often by an embarrassing margin. He once predicted a missing Hungarian model would be found alive and in good health, when in fact she had been murdered.
Given the cumulative embarrassment of being the country that produced such a charlatan, Director-General of the Foreign Ministry Dore Gold ordered his staff to prepare an apology. "Unlike most of the things we end up apologizing for, this one has no semblance of justification," said a staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Mr. Gold stressed that this situation is different from most others. Whereas in most cases there is some context that explains, provokes, or absolves Israel from actual fault, here there is no such mitigating set of circumstances. The Director-General told us that the more contrition we can muster, the better, but it probably won't be enough."