Category Archives: Media

Gary Mason, Globe and Mail, August 31, 2013

When a pro-Palestinian organization launched a provocative ad campaign earlier this week, it didn’t take long for Jewish organizations across the country to register their outrage. But in a classic case of shoot the messenger, most of their anger was directed at TransLink – the authority that allowed images of shrinking Palestinian territory to be plastered on buses and the walls of transit stations. Continue reading →

Jonathan Kay, August 30, 2013, National Post

“Disappearing Palestine,” a new ad campaign running on Vancouver busses, suggests the history of the Palestinian people can be summarized in four words: going, going, going, gone.

The ads present four maps, corresponding to the Palestinian footprint in the Levant (a) in 1946, (b) under the 1947 UN Partition Plan, (c) from 1949-1967, and (d) in the modern day. The effect is to present Palestinians as a large ink blot gradually shrinking into nothingness. The text at the bottom declares “Five million Palestinians are classified as refugees by the UN.” It also indicates the name of the group that paid $15,000 for the ads’ four-week run, the “Palestinian Awareness Coalition.” Continue reading →

Robyn Urback, National Post, Full Comment, August 29, 2013

Jewish groups in Vancouver are demanding the city’s transit authority take down a series of controversial ads that show Palestinian borders disappearing into the State of Israel. The ads, sponsored by the Palestine Awareness Coalition, have been appearing on TransLink buses and in Vancouver’s SkyTrain station under the heading “Disappearing Palestine.” The posters use four maps over six decades to show how Palestine has been shrinking into the State of Israel. Continue reading →

Brian Hutchinson, National Post Full Comment, August 29, 2013

Public transit advertisements depicting an expanding Israeli territory are causing a fuss in Metro Vancouver, with some Jewish groups demanding the removal of posters from 15 city buses and a train station, and with pro-Palestinian organizations vowing to expand their “settlement and occupation” awareness campaign across Canada.

“We think it’s particularly important that people in Vancouver and other Canadian cities learn about what’s happening in Palestine now and what’s happened historically,” a spokeswoman for the Palestinian Awareness Coalition, the group responsible for the ad campaign, told the Canadian Press this week. Continue reading →

VANCOUVER SUN Aug. 28, 2013 — A controversial ad campaign on Vancouver’s transit system showing the territory of Palestine shrinking into the state of Israel will run in other Canadian cities this fall, says the coalition behind the images.

“We do know that in other Canadian cities, for example in Toronto and in Calgary, there will be ads” running sometime this fall sponsored by advocates in those cities, said Charlotte Kates, a spokeswoman for seven Vancouver-based groups calling themselves the Palestine Awareness Coalition. Continue reading →

The Globe and Mail: August 28, 2013

TransLink says a series of ads that depict the territory of Palestine shrinking into the state of Israel will not be pulled from a transit station or buses in the Vancouver area. Continue reading →