Pro-Israel SkyTrain Ads Respond To 'Disappearing Palestine' Campaign

Following a controversial ad campaign run by the Palestine Awareness Coalition on Vancouver's transit system earlier this year, the pro-Israeli group Stand With Us (SWU) has announced its plan to counter "misinformation" with its own campaign.

According to a news release posted to its website, Stand With Us will display two different posters in 10 SkyTrain stations and on city buses for a month beginning Oct. 14.

"One [poster] depicts Jewish loss of land from Biblical times to the present by juxtaposing a map of the ancient Jewish kingdom circa 1000 BCE, a map of the land designated as the Jewish homeland by the League of Nations in 1920, and a map of the much smaller Israel of today, " the release states.

Children stand in front of the Canadian and Israeli flags in the second ad in order to illustrate, "the shared values and freedom both countries enjoy".

The "Disappearing Palestine" poster showed the territory of Palestine shrinking into the state of Israel, something the SWU claims distorts the facts.

"In reality, it is the Jewish state that has steadily gotten smaller," states Roz Rothstein, CEO of Stand With Us. "It reached its largest extent during the reigns of Kings David and Solomon when it stretched into Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. But over the decades, Israel shrank to its present size and is only 9 miles wide at its narrowest point and 290 miles long."

In August, when the "Disappearing Palestine" ads were about to launch, Marty Roth, a Jewish Canadian, and a member of the Palestine Awareness Campaign, told canada.com the campaign would be “controversial with a number of traditional Jewish organizations that have tried to suppress the ads. But TransLink has refused to agree with them, because these are educational ads that are well within national advertising guidelines and the Canadian Charter.”

TransLink said that the August campaign complied with Canadian advertising standards and did not violate any human rights, and that it does not endorse nor advocate any positions put forward by outside advertisers.

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