Straight Talk

Pro-Israel group plans Vancouver SkyTrain ads to counter “disappearing Palestine” campaign

by Travis Lupick on October 11th, 2013 at 2:20 PM
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      An international organization called StandWithUs plans to run pro-Israel advertisements in Vancouver SkyTrain stations.

      A post on the group’s website states that the campaign aims to “counter the misinformation of anti-Israel posters currently at these sites and on buses in Vancouver”.

      On August 27, a group called the Palestine Awareness Coalition began running ads in TransLink stations and on buses. Those posters detail the “Israel’s steady absorption of Palestinian territory from 1946 to the present day”, according to the group’s website.

      StandWithUs describes its ad as depicting “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”.

      “In reality, it is the Jewish state that has steadily gotten smaller,” the organization’s website states.

      The ads are scheduled to run from October 14 to November 14, 2013.

      "Disappearing Palestine" advertisements ran in SkyTrain stations and on TransLink buses beginning August 27, 2013.
      Marcel Chaves

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      Travis Lupick

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      In one capacity or another, Travis Lupick has been associated with the newspaper since he was 15 years old. Having joined the Straight's editorial department in 2006, Travis quickly gained a reputation as the office's resident workaholic and hopeless caffeine junkie.

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      Comments

      33 Comments

      justin

      Oct 11, 2013 at 4:55pm

      LOOOL 1000BCE

      well if we're going that far back, I can't wait for us Italians to put up our Roman Empire 'Loss Of Land'....GIVE US BACK EUROPE!

      CYMRU

      Oct 11, 2013 at 5:19pm

      Surely it should be illegal for them to just outright lie about history? When was that part of the map ever Jewish? It's interesting to see how desperate they are to the extent that they need to fabricate history and create such laughable maps. Any historian would laugh at how desperate they are.

      SPY vs SPY

      Oct 11, 2013 at 6:59pm

      My ancestors were Moors. I want Southern Spain and France back - NOW!!!

      And would someone PLEASE make all the Spaniards and French leave MY GOD GIVEN HOMELAND - I decree they have no right to be there.

      And if they resist leaving - they are TERRORISTS!!!!!!

      John J.

      Oct 11, 2013 at 7:50pm

      Uh huh, the bible is a land deed, redeemable in perpetuity. It is telling that the pro-Israel position rests on dubious, 3,000 year old information.

      Stand with you? No thanks. I prefer not to be the object of ridicule.

      Alan Layton

      Oct 11, 2013 at 10:07pm

      I have never heard a single person mention those ads. People in Vancouver don't care about that part of the world. Our problems are regional. The whole concept of Canada and the US is that you're escaping the ancient conflicts of the old world and making a fresh start. I wouldn't sweat those ads because I have little impact here.

      Michele Baillie

      Oct 12, 2013 at 2:46am

      Speak up with your point of view.

      paul

      Oct 12, 2013 at 7:16am

      we're actually comparing land issues from 3000 years ago! The entire global geopolitical landscape was different in 1000 BCE.

      RUK

      Oct 12, 2013 at 11:39am

      The one thing I like about this dispute is that it is being made through competing Skytrain ads. That seems peaceful and reasonable to me. It's not like running off to the press or the government demanding that one side be forbidden from talking.

      I have to say, the Biblical homeland graphic is a strange argument. By the logic that past possession grants current rights, Asia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East still belong to the Mongols.

      Juan Carlos

      Oct 12, 2013 at 12:23pm

      It's interesting to see this little Arab/Israeli squabble playing out on a platform where the vast majority of people it's reaching couldn't care less. I guess the Israel side spoke out, if only to counter the original Palestinian ads.

      I find it interesting that neither argument goes outside the boundaries of Israel, to the Arab lands that outsize Israel by a factor of 1,000. Nor did the Palestinian ads address the Jewish land (in present day Lebanon and Syria and Jordan) that was abandoned and handed back to the Arabs -- in exchange for the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.

      If both sides are going to try to educate us all (again, who barely care), let's see all the facts.

      johnadamturnbull@gmail.com

      Oct 12, 2013 at 12:24pm

      The Disappearing Palestine map shows borders that both Israelis and Palestinians agree are true, and then ask why is Israel still producing refugees that the rest of us have to look after.

      The Loss of Jewish Land maps, aside from being bizarrely a-historical, fail to address the question how this "Jewish State of Israel" would afford even the most basic human rights to several millions of non-Jews.