Israeli embassy blurs out ambassador’s non-kosher lobster in photo of lunch with Bolsonaro

Seafood censorship – poor photo-editing effort roundly ridiculed

When the Israeli ambassador to Brazil Yossi Shelley and Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro were photographed having lunch on Sunday and the picture uploaded to Twitter, their plates seemed to hold a bizarre black-coloured foodstuff slipping onto the table at awkward angles.

Closer inspection reveals the dark-coloured mass is in fact a crude attempt at censoring the lobsters the pair were served prior to watching Brazil’s victory over Peru in the Copa America football finals.

The tweet, put out by the embassy, which is still live at the time of writing, says: “Before the Copa America final between Brazil and Peru, President Bolsonaro and Ambassador Shelley ate lunch in Brasilia. They’ll follow the game and wish the Brazilian team luck in search of another title. Go Brazil!”

Shellfish is not considered kosher under Jewish dietary laws, which may explain the censorship in the tweet from the Israeli embassy.

The disguised food has been thoroughly ridiculed on Twitter, with people asking why the pair are eating coal, or whether it was in fact the lobsters which asked to be blurred out due to the company they were keeping.

“Our president has so much humility he even eats smoke”, one Brazilian commenter wrote.

Others noted that the poor photo editing appeared to have been done on Microsoft Paint, and people uploaded images of news articles about Mr Bolsonaro saying the holocaust could be “forgiven but not forgotten” but with black scrawl scribbled over them.

The editing is made all the more unnecessary given the offending food could easily have been cropped out of the bottom of the photograph.

Crustacean expurgation: zooming in on the botched edit reveals parts of what appears to be a lobster shell (Israeli embassy/Twitter)

Earlier this year Mr Bolsonaro awarded Mr Shelley the National Order of the Southern Cross – Brazil’s highest national honour for high-ranking guests.

At the time, Mr Shelley told The Times of Israel he was awarded the honour for his work in economics over the last two years and for strengthening relations between Israel and Brazil in the fields of water technology, security and diplomacy.

The Independent has contacted the Israeli embassy in Brazil for comment.