UK BANS ISRAEL TOURISM AD FOR IMPLYING JERUSALEM IS PART OF THE COUNTRY

Breitbart
March 5 2015

Britain has banned an Israeli government tourism advertisement for
implying that the Old City of Jerusalem is part of Israel, AFP reports.

The newspaper ad shows a picture of the walls outside of the Old
City of Jerusalem with the caption, “Israel has it all.” The text
on the image read, “Everyone falls for the Old City, with its narrow
(and car-free) alleys, teeming pilgrims and bazaar-like buzz.”

The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) rejected the ad on
the grounds that it was misleading. The ASA said that the title of
the advertisement, “Israel Land of Creation,” and its references to
the historical sites in the Old City was “misleading” in insinuating
that the lands were part of recognized Israel.

The ASA explained in a statement: “We understood that the status of
the territories in question was the subject of much international
dispute. We therefore considered the presentation of the ad would
mislead consumers into believing that the Old City of Jerusalem was
part of Israel and into taking a transactional decision that they
would otherwise not have taken.”

However, Israel’s Government Tourist Office denied that the tourism
campaign ever implied that the Old City was entirely part of the
modern State of Israel.

Today’s Old City is divided into four quarters: the Jewish Quarter,
Christian Quarter, Muslim Quarter, and Armenian Quarter. During the
Arab-Israeli Six-Day War in 1967, in which Arab forces failed in
their attempt to annihilate the early Jewish state and its people,
Israeli troops successfully retook possession of the Old City of
Jerusalem from Jordanian forces.

The ASA ruling added, “They said the ad did not seek to make
a political statement and believed it would be inappropriate for
it to do so. Rather, they believed the leaflet provided practical
information that made clear that visitors to the places referred to
in the ad, such as the Old City of Jerusalem, could only be visited
via traveling to Israel.”