There are lots of good ideas in this thread. What I want to say is that (It takes one kind of mind to be an IT support person) __and__ (It takes another kind of mind to be a programmer.) I am telling you that from my own experience. Programming is like getting paid to do a puzzle. IT is different. Not better, not worse. IMHO (AND I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO MAKE A BLANK LINE)

I'd like to suggest that you write your interpretation of this issue and SEND IT TO OBAMA. --- newline --- Or even forward this discussion on to the Obama administration so they can be aware of these issue and their importance to people in the industry who understand the issues on a "deeper than casual" level. We are not involved in the record industry but do understand technology. --- newline --- Certainly the RIAA is pressing as hard as it can to retain its out of date feudal control and (imagine hands choking a throat) influence on the distribution of money. --- newline --- Peace out.

Several (different) issues:
-- Re the comment from Satanicpuppy: "The real hilarity of it is, in the Netherlands, of all places, you can find tons of english speakers. Hell, the people who got the letter probably spoke decent english. Why, in gods name, would you do such an amatuer translation, and not just assume that someone will be able to read it."
-- Decent English you say?

Telephone tag: You've understood it wrong. The original thoughts were written in Hebrew, then Altavisa Babelfish was used to translate the Hebrew into Dutch. We see it in English because someone further translated the errant Dutch into English so we could have a quasi-relevant view of how bad it sounded.
What we are shown in the original post is a (Babelfish?) translation of a Dutch sentence into English - which sentence was generated by a Babelfish translation of a Hebrew sentence into Dutch. What we are seeing is a lot like a game of telephone but with nodes not quite so smart as human, operating by algorithm and hence unable to check and correct themselves.

Limitations of Babelfish: Personally I've used Babelfish to translate Dutch to English and have been well amused. On the other hand I know enough Dutch to look at the Dutch and correct the translation, make it "good enough" that I can understand it. I have used the Babelfish engine to generate Dutch from English and I shudder because I understand how terrible the ensuing Dutch must be. I keep my sentences simple.

Limitations of those Israelis: Thus I can infer that the responsibility level and experience of the Israeli (diplomats?) is low. Their common sense is also low. I know better than to use a metaphor or a colorful phrase in a translation Black-Box. I know it will come through twisted. The low responsibility comes in, in that they didn't run it through a Dutch native speaker. Or just write it in English, the common international language.

CF the Bushies and beyond: My, it's good to see something other than the studied professionalism, acting and falseface of our US crew.

Looking up source: I looked at the Jerusalem Post website to see if I could tell what was being said from the original article since that would tell me a lot more and clear up whether the original was put in in Hebrew script or transliteration. Herbrew is not the easiest language to deal with because of the alphabet and the absence of vowels in normal writing. Alas that article costs money. I would be pleased to read it if someone would post it to me or the group. Thank you.

Better than Babelfish: And one final comment, should anyone else be trying a similar trick. There is a company called Babylon that will give you a 30 day trial of their superior translation product. At least this was true last time I checked.
(A plug for myself!: A free copy for this plug would be accepted with pleasure.)