๐บ๐ธ ๐ต๐ธ The Los Angeles Times is running a paid Israeli government tourism campaign featuring a map that completely erases the occupied Palestinian Territories.
The sponsored content, labeled "Paid Program" and produced by the paper's branded content arm, LA Times Studios, is titled "Israel: Land of Creation," and paid for by the official tourism campaign of Israel's Ministry of Tourism. Its map shows a single, borderless Israel from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River, with no West Bank or Gaza, and appears to fold in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.
No U.S. law bars the ad, but the map contradicts international law. The UN Security Council declared Israel's 1981 annexation of the Golan "null and void," and the International Court of Justice found in 2024 that Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory is unlawful and that states must not recognize it. In the UK, in 2012, an ad regulator banned an Israeli tourism ad for misleadingly implying the West Bank, Gaza and Golan were Israeli.
Drop Site previously reported that the LA Times ran ads promoting tourism in the occupied Golan.