Netanyahu Gives Golden Pagers to Diplomats Who Walked Out of His UN Speech
UNITED NATIONS — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday presented gold-plated pagers to every diplomat who walked out of his General Assembly address, calling the devices a “small token of remembrance.”
Aides said the pagers were distributed immediately after the speech to representatives who left the hall during Netanyahu’s remarks. Each unit was engraved with the date of the address and the phrase “We noticed.”
“Those who could not stay deserved something they could take with them,” Netanyahu told reporters. “A pager is personal. It finds you.”
UN officials confirmed that dozens of seats emptied during the speech and that staff later found identical boxes at those places. Several missions said they had not requested the gifts. A few delegations returned the devices to lost and found. Others left them on the table, still in plastic.
Asked whether the pagers were functional, an Israeli spokesman said only that they were “of the highest quality” and “not intended as a communications upgrade.” He declined to say who manufactured them or whether they had been tested.
The State Department said it was aware of the distribution and had no comment on protocol for unsolicited electronics at the United Nations. A UN spokesman noted that gifts above a modest value are customarily disclosed. Gold plating, he added, “would appear to exceed that threshold.”
Netanyahu left the building without taking questions about battery safety. Recipients who spoke on background described the boxes as heavy, warm to the touch, and accompanied by no instruction manual.
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