Tag Archives: translink ads

Councillor, Jewish organizations hope to block controversial campaign about Middle East

By Ben Spurr, Now Toronto, Sept. 3, 2013

New maps could soon appear on TTC vehicles, and they won’t depict the subway line.

A pro-Palestinian group has approached the transit commission about buying space to put up ads similar to ones that incited controversy last week when they appeared on Vancouver’s TransLink system. Continue reading →

Vancouver Sun Letters to the Editor

Re: TransLink won’t pull ads launched by Palestine coalition, Aug. 29

TransLink was misguided in its approval of the Disappearing Palestine ads. First and foremost, is the timing. The Jewish New Year occurs in the first week of September this year, and then there is Yom Kippur, which is their most sacred day of the year.

The choice to buy ad space this time of the year strongly suggests intent by the Palestine Awareness Coalition to be provocative and insults those of the Jewish faith, as well as the legitimacy of the existence of the state of Israel. The ads should not have been permitted to proceed on this basis.

Second, is the issue of the content. Yes, the borders of Israel have altered since the UN plan of division in 1947. This is the result of a succession of wars. Wars change national boundaries and ownership of land, as seen in the redrawn map of Europe after the Second World War. Continue reading →

the (unofficial) bc libarary association intellectual freedom committee blog

On TransLink buses (and one station) this week you might see an ad featuring four maps with progressively dwindling amounts of green on them. There are no exhortations. There isn’t a lot of context. But these are undoubtedly an intellectual freedom issue we should be aware of, because these ads are being challenged as the equivalent of homophobic sexist messages singling people out to feel unsafe.

Of course these maps are of Israel/Palestine.

The maps, created by the Palestine Awareness Coalition show the territory that Palestinians control and how it has shrunk over the 20th century, with a headline that reads “Disappearing Palestine.”

Continue reading →

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 →