Qantas to delete “Occupied Palestinian Territory” and “State of Palestine”
The Australian Jewish Association (AJA) contacted Qantas for urgent clarification, after being alerted by a concerned supporter, that multiple areas of the company’s website appear to take a stand on Middle East politics at odds with Australia’s long-held bi-partisan stance.
AJA was sent pictures showing that, upon booking, passengers are presented with the option to list their area code as “Occupied Palestinian Territoty” (sic).
Qantas does not use the label ‘occupied’ for any other disputed area in the world, including many regions where Australia does not recognise the ruling government.
In another section, when booking a hotel through Qantas, several cities and towns are listed as being in the ‘State of Palestine’, including, for example, the Israeli Dead Sea Kibbutz of Almog, which houses copies of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Australia does not, and has never recognised a ‘State of Palestine’.
According to Wikipedia, Almog is an Israeli settlement and a kibbutz near the northwestern shores of the Dead Sea in the Jordan Rift Valley in the West Bank.
AJA President Dr David Adler said: “We wrote to Alan Joyce, asking him for clarification. Our hope is, that this was done by a third party, or an activist junior employee, who wasn’t authorised to take this stance. The thought that Qantas management would endorse such a stand is worrying.”
Qantas was quick to deal with the problem issuing the media release below.
Dr Adler further stated, “This is offensive to Australia’s Jewish community, to Australia’s close ally, Israel, and to Christians and others everywhere. As restrictions ease, Australians just want to be able to book holidays and enjoy themselves. They certainly don’t want to be confronted with this blatant political activism.
For Qantas to be wading into international politics like this, taking a stance at odds with Australia on such a sensitive topic and re-drawing the map is absurd.”
David Adler told J-Wire: “We pointed out the problem to Qantas in the morning and the company addressed the situation immediately.”
AJA told J-Wire that Australia Post recently updated their system to remove the word ‘occupied’ when referring to the Palestinian controlled territories.
Well done AJA.
Jews must always be vigilant in fighting the semantic war that seeks to define the Jewish-Arab conflict in false and misleading terms.
Qantas was clearly conned into becoming one of the innocent victims of these semantic anti-Israel propagandists. Hopefully Qantas can expose the perpetrator in this case.