Israel Angered At British Ad Ban

JERUSALEM (RNS) A British decision to ban an Israeli tourism ad because it includes holy sites in disputed territory has angered Israel's supporters.

Britain's Advertising Standards Authority nixed an ad sponsored by Israel's tourist agency after it received a complaint that the photograph featured the Western Wall in East Jerusalem, according to ASA's Web site.

The complainant "challenged whether the ad misleadingly implied that East Jerusalem was part of the State of Israel," the ASA said.

Israel captured East Jerusalem during the 1967 Middle East War. The international community has never recognized Israel's control over this part of the city, though visiting heads of state often visit the wall during official trips to Israel.

The ASA told Israel "not to imply that places in the Occupied Territories were part of the state of Israel. "

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat accused the ASA of a "complete ignorance of history." Israel's Ministry of Tourism said it was "entirely accurate" to assert that a visitor could visit East Jerusalem as part of a trip to Israel.

More than 2,000 people have joined a Facebook group denouncing ASA's ruling. The ASA said it has received "lots of feedback" over its decision. "We do appreciate that some people strongly disagree with our decision."

It added that the ruling "does not prevent" Israel from depicting the Western Wall or other parts of Jerusalem in future advertisements, but seeks to "ensure that future ads do not imply that places in the Occupied Territories are part of the state of Israel."

Comments

[lotus321]

12:23 PM on 04/20/2010

I have always been a little confused on the whole Israel/Jew topic. If both Arabs and Jews (which is not a nationality) are semites. How is that the term anti-semite only applies to Jews (which is not a nationality but a religion?

Also, why should the rest of the world care so much about a nation that choses to place itself in the middle of its enemies by choice in 1948. I might be crazy or misinformed, but these are not the same Jews referred to in the Old Testament..the Ottoman empire took care of them.

It is my understanding that the Palestinians are the natives. Am I wrong?

[Mortifyd]

02:47 PM on 04/20/2010

Historically, antisemitism has always been discrimination against Jews simply because they ARE Jews. There are other semitic peoples, but they have not been systematically hounded throughout history for being semites, only Jews have.

The Jews who are in Israel ARE the Jews in the Torah - we are their children who were scattered among the nations from our home, Israel by the Romans.

The Ottoman empire did not "take care" of the Jews in the sense of killing them, in fact the Ottoman empire was better for Jews than a lot of Europe at the time.

Israel is the returning of Jews to a small portion of their native land, Jews are natives of the middle east finally going home. Where do you think Jews come from, outer space?

[lotus321]

06:10 PM on 04/20/2010

I actually didnt know. I was truly seeking some knowledge. So, if I understand you, the Jews used to live there, but were dispersed for many years. During those absent years the land was occupied by others like the Palestinians. Post war the nation of Israel was re-established by the UN by taking back the land the other had occupied for some time.

Ok, now I understand why both the Israelis and the Palestinians are upset.

[Yammo]

06:11 PM on 04/20/2010

That's exactly where you're wrong...Judaism is indeed a nation. You probably haven't met any blond hair, blue eyed Jews recently, despite the fact that Jews lived in Europe for many hundreds of years. Hitler new this, and he therefore was out to kill even the Jews who have converted to Christianity, and even those whose great-grandparents were Jewish.
Imagine if the French were exiled from their land, and most of them scattered throughout the world, leaving very few French in France. The exiled majority share a dream for two thousand years to return to France, their homeland. They still consider themselves a nation - they speak French, they eat frog legs, they adhere to the exact customs and laws set for them while still in their country. Then, one day, the come back to France. It's a barren wasteland - mostly unpopulated, occupied by either desert land or swamps. There are some Spanish folks living there, among with some French who never left. The few Spanish and the French live together in piece, for the most part. However, a nomad tribe, exiled from Italy for causing trouble, try to force themselves into France by calling it theirs. The tribe call themselves Sateplinians, named after Sateplin, which was the British name for France after it was colonized by the British.
Whatever, probably get the analogy by now. If you want to know more, read the book "Myths and Facts: a Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict". $1.71 on Amazon, currently.

[dabblesome]

06:51 PM on 04/20/2010

Nice!
fanned

[lotus321]

09:43 AM on 04/21/2010

ok, i will thanks

[stephenlight]

03:34 PM on 04/19/2010

I guess this is ahy the Founders did that whole 1st Amendment thing....lol.

OK, Thanks UK. Another cheap principled stand. An Anglican specialty since the 1500's lol.....

[Blaster]

02:51 PM on 04/19/2010

I see the antisemites are out on the board tonight. The reason the English did this is because they are a Muslin nation and live in fear but even better all you writers here if you want to boycott Isreal throw away your computers yea all of Microsoft...”

[Pema]

03:37 PM on 04/19/2010

there isnt much semite blood left in the jewish population. i think its the heavy handedness people feel comes out of israels government.

[Blaster]

08:46 AM on 04/20/2010

To Pema
The news that you hear in the US is not telling you the truth about all of the attacks on Isreal every day. As far as i'm conserned they both don't want peace because they get to much money. By the way without Isreal in the region the economics of the area would be rather bland.

[Blaster]

01:19 PM on 04/20/2010

Actualy it was Dyan that did this. But the Arabs hated the Britt to. The brits shot at Jews and arabs for no reason at all. But there was terrosim all over the world so don't blame the Jews besides we are not suerside Bombers.”

[Macready]

08:38 AM on 04/20/2010

the British did this because the ad is deliberately misleading . . .

[Blaster]

09:00 AM on 04/20/2010

The British are not the friend of Jews they took a big defeat from them when they occupied the region.

[pamique]

07:34 AM on 04/19/2010

A germane comment from Mary Steyn at NRO:

This is a question that should be asked more often:

Moshe Ya’alon, a former Israel Defense Forces general who now serves as Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategic affairs minister, posed the following query in an interview published in the Jerusalem Post: “If we are talking about coexistence and peace, why the [Palestinian] insistence that the territory they receive be ethnically cleansed of Jews? Why do those areas have to be Judenrein? Don’t Arabs live here, in the Negev and the Galilee? Why isn’t that part of our public discussion? Why doesn’t that scream to the heavens?”

As Jonathan Tobin points out, the official goal of the Middle East "peace process" is a "two-state solution", in one of which Muslims live alongside Jews and have voting rights and representation in the legislature, while in the other there are no Jews at all and, as in "moderate" Jordan, to sell your house to a Jew is a crime punishable by death. There goes the neighborhood, right? When the western campus left holds its annual "Israeli Apartheid Week", presumably it's in philosophical support of the notion that you don't need to run an "apartheid" system if you just get rid of everyone who's not like you.

[LiteSleeper]

09:48 AM on 04/19/2010

If the goal of the settlers was to be full citizens of a Palestinian state, you'd have a point. However, their goal is to steal land and at best, remain Israeli citizens with full Israeli support subject to Israeli laws while living on Palestinian territory. No people would tolerate such a ridiculous situation. Why should the Palestinians?

[Macready]

05:30 AM on 04/19/2010

The advertising standards board were right to ban the ad . . it is totally misleading . . .

[RightsAtty]

12:08 AM on 04/20/2010

Nonsense! There is nothing misleading about an ad that shows the Western Wall in the old city of Jerusalem and says "Come to Israel". If you want to visit the wall, you must come to Israel. This is political posturing, not "truth in advertising". Moreover, you know, I know, and everyone else must know, that whatever the parameters of a final settlement, it will NOT include Israel giving up the Jewish Quarter of the old city where the wall is located. Could never happen. Given what the Jordanians did to Jewish sites in the quarter -- blowing up synagogues and turning their remains into stables -- Israel will never give up the Jewish quarter, nor should it.

[Pema]

02:48 PM on 04/20/2010

things change. thats all one can count on in life.

[dabblesome]

05:16 AM on 04/19/2010

Christians, Muslims, and Jews.
World War 3 is a very real possibility. We need to solve these issues before it's too late. Get em out in the open, discuss them, compromise, and educate our young to the ways of peace.

[Macready]

10:26 AM on 04/19/2010

the only way that is going to happen is by the US pulling the plug on israel, cutting the hot-line to the Pentagon, and UN sanctions, trade embargoes, the freezing of israeli assets abroad, etc etc etc . . . only then will israel sit down and negotiate until then . . . bibi will be banging the war drums . . and doing everything he can to stay in power and there will be no peace in the Middle East . . . I think bibi would start wwIII just to stay in power . . .

[Enliberate]

03:25 PM on 04/19/2010

Wow. A sudden change of heart? Discuss? Compromise? EDUCATE?!!!! Please indicate how you have exhibited this new approach.

[donanobispace]

03:09 AM on 04/19/2010

To all the pro-Israeli folks who align themselves with the European take over of North America you are aligning yourselves with genocide.

[dabblesome]

03:33 AM on 04/19/2010

What in the world are you talking about? This is relevant how?

[Enliberate]

03:56 AM on 04/19/2010

And, you are relevant, how? By the way, I don't know what he is talking about either.

[dabblesome]

03:53 AM on 04/19/2010

Speaking of genocide. How was it, that a small tribe of people from the desert of Arabia become the dominant ethnicity from Morocco to Sudan to Syria and Iraq down into southwestern Iran? I wonder what happened to all those indigenous folks who lived there prior to the Muslim invasions? Hmmm. Maybe we should look at the situation in Darfur to get some clues.

[Pema]

09:30 AM on 04/20/2010

my family feld damascus and went to homs, or sometimes mapped as hims. it was convert or die, not wanting either , they hoofed it outta there...

[dim]

02:43 AM on 04/19/2010

I've been reading the comments (and posting myself) with some dismay.

On one side we have people who rightly say that Israel annexed East Jerusalem against international law imposed by the winners of WWII (though I suspect not so altruistically, but with the purpose of protecting their own gains after the war). They also rightly point to land grabs and ethnic/religious discrimination, which are in my opinion inexcusable.

On the other side we have people who rightly point to Israel's superior historical claims and illegal Arab aggression in 1948 (later wars were alternately started by both sides, though I tend to think of them as installments of the same war, and resulted in Arab losses). They also rightly point out that the clamour for a Palestinian state did not exist when Arab countries controlled those bits.

By the way, I am not including here the more rabid posters from either side, who either try to rewrite history or just repeat nonsense over and over again with the hope that it sticks.

What's left? Kaddafi's one state solution? I am inviting you all to be creative and, rather than rehashing the same old arguments, come up with some realistic initiatives.

[holyheretic]

02:01 AM on 04/19/2010

My “New Atheists series”
-------------------------------

ALL RELIGIONS ARE ANCIENT MONUMENTS TO SUPERSTITIONS, IGNORANCE, FEROCITY; AND MODERN RELIGIONS ARE ONLY ANCIENT FOLLIES REJUVENATED.
Baron d'Holbach
Quoted in Jonathon Green, The Cassell Dictionary of Insulting Quotations
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Baron_d'Holbach

Baron d'Holbach
Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach (8 December 1723 – 21 January 1789) was a French-German author, philosopher, encyclopedist and a prominent figure in the French Enlightenment. He was born Paul Heinrich Dietrich inEdesheim, near Landau in the Rhenish Palatinate, but lived and worked mainly in Paris. He is best known for being one of the first self-described atheists in Europe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baron_d'Holbach

[imworking4me]

01:08 AM on 04/19/2010

Just wanted to thank you for the “scholarly” Wikipedia link you provided. It is farcical, not factual. If you had read it, you would have seen in the middle of the citing “The neutrality of this article is disputed.” In fact, it was produced by Wiki Project/Palestine—no doubt a “completely unbiased” group—which is why the page got a “C” rating, i.e., not much better than blatant propaganda.

And then you go on to talk about the “20 – 70” massacres committed by “pre-state Jewish terrorist groups.” Wow. Between 20 and 70?? Now that’s exact and trustworthy! LOL! Which is it, 20? 30? 40? (More likely it was closer than zero!) No doubt you know the exact number and names of these massacres. You must think that readers are as idio/tic as you are.

Insofar as your assertion that “the IDF fought it's battles in 1948 mostly outside the 55% allocated by the UN Plan - ie in the Palestinian Partition”, are you so stooopid as to expect that an army engaged in a war is going to retreat back into its own territory just to be nice to its enemies? That was your most idiotic assertion yet: How “cruel” of the Israeli forces to push their enemies out of their territory granted them by the Partition!

[holyheretic]

01:05 AM on 04/19/2010

"FOR ME THE JEWISH RELIGION, LIKE ALL OTHERS,
IS AN INCARNATION OF THE MOST CHILDISH SUPERSTITIONS"
Albert Einstein

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5g6vLZj4hBdG1G_1NBqX6s8DMbCIg
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/34220
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1951333/Einstein-thought-religions-were-childish.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/17/science/17einsteinw.html?_r=2
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/983265.html

http://holocausthagaddah.blogspot.com/

[Hedonist]

01:40 AM on 04/19/2010

"If relativity is proved right, the Germans will call me a German, the Swiss will call me a Swiss, and the French will call me a citizen of the world. If relativity is proved wrong, the French will call me a Swiss, the Swiss will call me a German, and the Germans will call me a Jew."
Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was one of the founders of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He served on the University's first Board of Governors and Academic Council. He delivered the University's inaugural scientific lecture and edited its first collection of scientific papers. His unique relationship to this institution found a lasting expression in the bequest of his literary estate and personal papers to the Hebrew University in his Last Will and Testament.

[holyheretic]

01:57 AM on 04/19/2010

It's taken more than a century, for Einstein's celebrated formula e=mc²
to be corroborated?

On Nov 20, 2008 it was reported that Einstein’s formula was finally corroborated thanks to a heroic computational effort by French, German and Hungarian physicists.

A brainpower consortium led by Laurent Lellouch of France's Centre for Theoretical Physics, using some of the world's mightiest supercomputers, have set down the calculations for estimating the mass of protons and neutrons, the particles at the nucleus of atoms.
http://www.physorg.com/news146415074.html”

[dabblesome]

02:51 AM on 04/19/2010

Good work exposing that taqiyya. Using quotes in an attempt to misinform.

[holyheretic]

01:59 AM on 04/19/2010

The greatest Jew ever, the “deeply religious nonbeliever” Einstein said: I AM BY HERITAGE A JEW, BY CITIZENSHIP A SWISS, AND BY MAKEUP A HUMAN BEING, AND ONLY A HUMAN BEING, WITHOUT ANY SPECIAL ATTACHMENT TO ANY STATE OR NATIONAL ENTITY WHATSOEVER.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein

Einstein also said: I AM AFRAID OF THE INNER DAMAGE JUDAISM WILL SUSTAIN—ESPECIALLY FROM THE DEVELOPMENT OF A NARROW NATIONALISM WITHIN OUR OWN RANKS, AGAINST WHICH WE HAVE ALREADY HAD TO FIGHT STRONGLY, EVEN WITHOUT A JEWISH STATE. ...
Albert Einstein
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_views_of_Albert_Einstein

[dabblesome]

12:59 AM on 04/19/2010

Just take a walk through Londinistan. Would real Brits ever allow such a thing to happen? Of course not.

[Enliberate]

03:29 AM on 04/19/2010

Alright, after having a decent conversation with you, I have to say I'm disappointed at your recent antics. Nice avatar, now your fans are in double figures so gotta give 'em a little image, huh? Anyway your postings are cr@p. Oh, so shocking, that the sacred name of London should be so hideously altered in to a "-stan". Shivers, I tell you. "Islamism" is a meaningless self-contradictory term. A ready-made insult. Any doctrine calling itself Islamic could not engage in such an unbalanced emphasis on political gain at the expense of violation of moral code. Your take on various historical turning-points is as gullible as they come. RFK? You couldn't be more wrong. Or fooled. 9/11? Much to talk about there......doesn't always get through, so let's leave that alone for now. And your constant harping on Ft. Hood is especially annoying. All sorts of people go crazy all the friggin time. Turning to a dark ideological force can do that to a susceptible psyche.
Grow up. Stop being such a tool. It's fun throwing the verbal Molotov cocktails, but, in the end, you'll have to admit you're just carrying water for a propaganda machine.

[MMIIXX]

04:21 AM on 04/19/2010

Nice reply...he pitches and you bat it right out of the park ...outstanding.

[dabblesome]

04:39 AM on 04/19/2010

The reason you don't have credibility is that you are one sided. You pounce on anything you deem islamophobic but ignore all the anti-semitic comments that are flung around. Your brand of leftist anti-imperialist identity politics is running out of gas. People see it for the fraud it is. Have a nice day.

[Garioch]

12:00 PM on 04/19/2010

I'm a real Brit and not a bigot. I doubt and hope that you're nothing to do with my nation and your poison, ignorance and bigotry reside elsewhere.

[dabblesome]

04:40 PM on 04/19/2010

I know quite a few Brits who would disagree with you (and you know I speak true).

[dabblesome]

12:57 AM on 04/19/2010

It would appear that the British tourism agency has got an Islamist problem. Don't they do background checks over there?

[donanobispace]

03:04 AM on 04/19/2010

You don't have to be an "Islamist" to oppose BS.

[Macready]

05:32 AM on 04/19/2010

fanned dnanobispace . . .well said

[GandenT]

12:00 PM on 04/19/2010

Fanned.

[dabblesome]

12:09 AM on 04/19/2010

The Palestinians are the only people aside from the September 11 terrorists to have hijacked four planes in one day (Dawson Field hijacking).
Is there a link? I would argue that at the very least an enquiry should be held.

[BestGuest]

05:22 AM on 04/19/2010

Inquiry is needed for sure... The explosions in the lower floors and the collapse of building 7 must be investigated and along with why there were 5 Israelis (alleged Mossad agents) dancing in jubilation while the attacks were happening.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRfhUezbKLw

[dabblesome]

05:46 AM on 04/19/2010

They were Israeli Arabs

[dabblesome]

12:05 AM on 04/19/2010

Perhaps the next Palestinian tourism ad will feature a tour of the Fort Hood gunman's village?

[hemara]

12:27 AM on 04/19/2010

Hmm Hasan's "village" was Arlington, Virginia.

Real shame the Brits won't permit Israel to pretend East Jerusalem is in Israel. They could run a campaign in London's West End on the musical delights to be had among the settlers:

"Sheikh Jarrah Jews praise Baruch Goldstein on Purim"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psVxOnXbyYQ

"On February 25, 1994, that year's Purim day, Goldstein entered a room in the Cave of the Patriarchs serving as a mosque, wearing "his army uniform with the insignia of rank, creating the image of a reserve officer on active duty" (Shamgar report). He then opened fire, killing 29 people and wounding more than 125."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Goldstein#Cave_of_the_Patriarchs_massacre

Note carefully, Goldstein's village was Brooklyn, NY.

[dabblesome]

12:29 AM on 04/19/2010

Hasan was not an American. He was a Palestinian sleeper agent. Nice try though.

[curtisraymond]

01:27 AM on 04/19/2010

That's not even funny.