A World Map on a wall of Manchester Airport, that labelled Israel “PALESTINE”, with apparently no mention of Israel, has been removed, after UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) sent a letter of complaint.

An Israeli passenger had noticed the omission on the Map, and contacted UKLFI, who told Manchester Airport that:

• removing Israel from the World Map and replacing it with Palestine is factually incorrect as well as extremely insulting to all Israelis and Jews, and to many other people.
• The area of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank were delineated in the map and there was no reason to remove all reference to the State of Israel and replaced it with Palestine, other than to make a political and antisemitic point that Israel should not exist.
• Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination (failing to acknowledge that Israel exists at all, as in this case) can be antisemitic according to example 7 of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism.
• Furthermore, to remove Israel from the map and replace it with Palestine creates a hostile and intimidating atmosphere for any Jews or Israelis who pass through the airport and who see these maps, putting it in breach of Section 29 of the Equalities Act 2010.

Manchester Airport’s managing director, Chris Woodroofe,  responded quickly and thanked UKLFI for bringing this matter to their attention. He wrote: “This map appears to have been subject to ‘graffiti’.  We are arranging for its immediate and permanent removal.”

It appears that the label “ISRAEL” may have been blacked out, and the “PALESTINE” label inserted onto the map.

Caroline Turner, director of UKLFI commented: “While we are very grateful to Manchester Airport for its swift action, we are concerned that people are unable to walk past a map that mentions ‘ISRAEL’ without deleting its name. This shows an extremely worrying attitude to the world’s only Jewish State.”