U.S. Visa Service Site Erases Israel
A U.S. Visa Service Web site, used by foreign citizens to facilitate travel to the United States, apparently does not recognize Israel.
Elder of Ziyon, an American blogger who writes about the Arab-Israeli conflict and antisemitism, noted in a blog post on March 14, 2016, that the web site is not part of a government Internet domain. He reports that the service has been outsourced from the U.S. government to a private company, possibly Computer Sciences Corporation, which is listed at the bottom of the page. However, he noted:
“It really is the official U.S. visa site, though, and a number of U.S. embassy and consulate webpages point there.” The U.S. Embassy in Chile even states that it is “the only authorized website for the payment of visa fees [emphasis added].”
Yet, the page on the web site that offers prospective travelers the ability to choose which country they are from, omits the nation of Israel. The names of other countries appear next to their respective flags and languages spoken.
Not only does the country listing for Israel not appear, but the Israeli flag is similarly missing. By contrast, nations much younger than the Jewish State (re-established in 1948), such as the United Arab Emirates (established 1971) are listed by name next to their flag.
Instead of showing Israel, the Israeli cities of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv are listed.
No other countries on the site feature city names, including the only other nation not to have its flag shown: Cyprus. Elder of Ziyon notes:
“But if Israel would be mentioned, then Palestinian Arabs would be far more upset than Israelis would be for pretending Israel doesn’t exist. So this site used by the US embassies and consulates worldwide decided it is better to offend Israelis by pretending it doesn’t exist than to offend Palestinians by saying Israel does exist.”
The U.S. Visa Web site is not the only outlet or entity to make the Jewish state disappear. As CAMERA has noted, schools in Sweden (“School in Sweden Teaches Pupils Israel Doesn’t Exist,” Feb. 1, 2016), HarperCollins, a publisher of atlases (“HarperCollins Erases Israel, Then Corrects,” Jan. 5, 2015) and Intercontinental Hotels (“Intercontinental Erases Israel,” March 9, 2006), among others, each have removed any mention or reference to Israel, at one time or another.
More recently, in a graph claiming to detail every major refugee crisis in the last 75 years, The Washington Post omitted any mention of the more than 800,000 Jewish refugees from Middle Eastern and Arabic lands—twice refusing to correct without explanation (“The Post erases nearly 1 million Jews from history,” Washington Jewish Week, Feb. 3, 2016).
Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas has made murdered Jews disappear: In his Soviet-sponsored doctoral dissertation Abbas claimed that less than a million Jews had been killed in the Holocaust—instead of the more than six million murdered by Nazi Germany and its collaborators.
The U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, which oversees the U.S. Visa Service, claims that it “contributes significantly” to the U.S. government’s “goal of promoting international exchange and understanding.” Exactly how does erasing the world’s sole Jewish state and the Middle East’s lone democracy do that?
More from SNAPSHOTS
Reuters Falsely Links Jerusalem Embassy, Two-State Solution
January 9, 2019
The Jerusalem office park which houses Guatemala's embassy Multiple recent Reuters articles incorrectly report that moving the Brazilian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is a dramatic move away from the two-state solution. For instance, [...]
American Lutheran In Jerusalem Affirms that IDF Soldiers Are “Stormtroopers,” Backtracks
December 19, 2018
Rev. Carrie Ballenger Smith is a pastor at the Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem. She ministers to the English-speaking congregation that meets at the Lutheran church, which is located in the Old City of [...]
The Washington Post Ignores Antisemitic Attack in Los Angeles
November 29, 2018
The Washington Post has warned about a “rising tide of antisemitism.” But as CAMERA has highlighted, The Post’s coverage of antisemitism has frequently been selective and is often politicized. More recently, the newspaper even ignored [...]
Think Tank: Iran Was Closer to Building a Bomb Than Previously Thought
November 23, 2018
A Nov. 20, 2018 report by a Washington D.C.-based think tank, the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) argues that Iran’s illegal nuclear weapons program was “more advanced than Western intelligence agencies and the [...]
AFP Headline Casts Palestinian Assailant as Victim
November 21, 2018
Agence France Presse yesterday published a throwback headline, bringing us back to the period almost two years ago in which media outlets serially produced headlines which depicted Palestinian attackers as the victims. The wire agency's [...]
More Hypocrisy and Anti-Semitism From Linda Sarsour
November 19, 2018
In an earlier CAMERA exposé, we pointed out the self-serving allegiances and disgraceful hypocrisy of Linda Sarsour (of Women's March fame). We demonstrated how she poses as a universal activist who embraces all marginalized people [...]
Small Steps: Improved NY Times Language on Target of Hamas Rockets
November 15, 2018
Earlier this week, we pointed out how a New York Times article about fighting between Israel and Hamas neglected to inform readers that Palestinian rockets were fired indiscriminately toward civilians in Israeli towns and cities. [...]