Israel admits Tube advert map 'mistake'

Israel's tourist ministry has admitted to a "mistake" over adverts on the London Underground after complaints that they "wipe Palestine off the map".

The ads include a map which campaigners say shows the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip - as well as Syria's Golan Heights - as integral parts of Israel.

The ministry said that in general, maps should not be used on billboards.

But it denied a Transport for London statement that it had asked for the offending posters to be removed.

Transport for London said it has received about 600 complaints about the poster, while the Advertising Standards Authority said it had had 300.

Hugh Lanning of the London-based Palestine Solidarity Campaign said the adverts were a "disingenuous attempt to remove the Palestinians from the public mind, and create a false impression about what constitutes Israel".

The posters were "selling a lie" by suggesting tourists could visit Gaza when the Hamas-run strip is subject to a strict Israeli blockade under which even some doctors and humanitarian workers have been denied entry, PSC said.

The map shows Israel, the West Bank, Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights in the same striking yellow colour; the faintest of white lines mark out the Palestinian territories - though not the Syrian one which Israel annexed in 1981.

Insufficient vetting

Israel occupied the three Arab territories, including East Jerusalem, during the 1967 war. It has since cemented its hold by settling hundreds of thousands of its citizens there.

Oren Drori, Head of Marketing Administration for the Israeli Ministry of Tourism, described the adverts as a "professional mistake" with no geopolitical intentions.

He said he did not think maps should be used on billboards to advertise tourism in any country and the adverts had not been sufficiently vetted.

"We are not tearing anything down," he said. But the ministry had decided to "fast-forward" to the next set of posters scheduled in the campaign, after learning that there was "a bit of a harsh response" to the map advert, he said.

No more map adverts would be posted, he said, and existing ones would be removed as they reached the end of their scheduled display times over the next two weeks, he said.

The Syrian Embassy in London, which had lodged its own protest, described the advert as "offensive".

US President Barack Obama is trying to kick-start talks to reach an negotiated agreement creating a state of Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza, although Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not signed up to the idea.

The fate of the Golan Heights is key to any peace negotiations between Israel and Syria.

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Informed Comment: Lieberman and Wiping Countries off the face of the map

The The Electronic Intifada lists "Some of Avigdor Lieberman's infamous statements":

' # In 1998, Lieberman called for the flooding of Egypt by bombing the Aswan Dam in retaliation for Egyptian support for Yasser Arafat.

# In 2001, as Minister of National Infrastructure, Lieberman proposed that the West Bank be divided into four cantons, with no central Palestinian government and no possibility for Palestinians to travel between the cantons.

# In 2002, the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth quoted Lieberman in a Cabinet meeting saying that the Palestinians should be given an ultimatum that "At 8am we'll bomb all the commercial centers ... at noon we'll bomb their gas stations ... at two we'll bomb their banks ..."

# In 2003, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported that Lieberman called for thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel to be drowned in the Dead Sea and offered to provide the buses to take them there.

# In May 2004, Lieberman proposed a plan that called for the transfer of Israeli territory with Palestinian populations to the Palestinian Authority. Likewise, Israel would annex the major Jewish settlement blocs on the Palestinian West Bank. If applied, his plan would strip roughly one-third of Israel's Palestinian citizens of their citizenship. A "loyalty test" would be applied to those who desired to remain in Israel. This plan to trade territory with the Palestinian Authority is a revision of Lieberman's earlier calls for the forcible transfer of Palestinian citizens of Israel from their land. Lieberman stated in April 2002 that there was "nothing undemocratic about transfer."

# Also in May 2004, he said that 90 percent of Israel's 1.2 million Palestinian citizens would "have to find a new Arab entity" in which to live beyond Israel's borders. "They have no place here. They can take their bundles and get lost," he said.

# In May 2006, Lieberman called for the killing of Arab members of Knesset who meet with members of the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority.'