- B'nai Brith Canada slams British Advertising Standards
Authority decision to ban Israeli use of Western Wall imagery in tourist
ads
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- TORONTO, April 19, 2010
B'nai Brith Canada has expressed its outrage over a decision by the British
Advertising Standards Authority (BASA) to ban an Israeli Government Tourist
Office ad promoting Israel which included clips of the Western Wall. BASA's
decision was reportedly based on the grounds that it considered the Western
Wall "occupied" territory, as it is situated in the Eastern part
of Jerusalem. In a letter to the British High Commissioner in Ottawa,
B'nai Brith called BASA's decision an "egregious insult" to the
Jewish community and called for it to be rescinded.
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- "BASA's decision to ban the Israeli Government Tourist
Office's use of Western Wall imagery in its advertisement is an egregious
insult to the Jewish community, and we have called for it to be rescinded,"
said Frank Dimant, B'nai Brith Canada's Executive Vice President.
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- "Jerusalem has been, and always will be, the historical,
national, and religious capital of the Jewish State.
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- "With this most current British decision to ban
use of imagery of the Kotel, Judaism's holiest site, we cannot help but
be reminded of the decisions of the British Mandate authorities who banned
the blowing of the shofar at the Kotel on Yom Kippur while the area was
under their rule and inexcusably denied refuge in the Holy Land to Jews
fleeing the Nazi killing machine. As we get ready to celebrate Yom HaAtzmaut,
the anniversary of the miracle of Israel's independence, we would have
hoped that Britain would have learned from its past mistakes, but this
most recent anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish decision by BASA seems to affirm
that it has not."
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- B'nai Brith Canada has been active in Canada since 1875
as the Jewish community's foremost human rights agency
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