A Partial Victory for Truth and Justice

Remember the bold-as-brass misleading travel ad about which I posted in January?  The one that claimed that Palestine extends from the river to the sea?  Reminder: http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2011/01/travellers-tall-tale-palestine-lies.html

Well, the adjudication has finally been done by the Advertising Standards Authority, and a partial victory for truth and justice is the outcome.

To quote Honest Reporting:

'The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority has finally issued its ruling following many complaints. While the ASA did not agree with all of the issues raised by us and a number of other organizations, it did, however, rule the advert to be misleading on the following grounds:

We considered, however, that the line “From the famous cities of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron, Jericho, Nablus, and Gaza … Palestine lies between …” suggested that the situation and recognition of those cities as being part of Palestine was universally accepted. Because that was not the case, we concluded that the ad was misleading.

The ASA concluded:

The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Travel Palestine to ensure their ads did not suggest that it was universally accepted that locations were part of Palestine when that was not the case.

So it seems that the ASA is consistent in its view that while Jerusalem may not be part of Palestine, it is also not part of Israel. Unsurprising considering that the ASA previously, in an appalling decision, forced the Israel Government Tourist Office to withdraw an ad that featured Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, effectively banning Israel from including the Western Wall in any tourism advertising.'

Read more here: http://honestreporting.com/travel-palestine-ad-watchdog-rules-against/