Israel is now mentioned on Air France’s in-flight map displays. The company responsible for providing passengers with electronic maps on the flights announced that it had added Israel to its computerized flight path screens, after sparking outrage last week by omitting it.
The incident followed a complaint by a passenger on an Air France flight between Los Angeles and Tel Aviv via Paris who sent a photo to the Facebook page of the pro-Israel group Stand With Us showing the map naming Cyprus, Lebanon, the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan and three Egyptian cities but not Israel.
In a statement, Air France said it “deeply regrets” the technical problems that omitted Tel Aviv and Jerusalem saying that it was due to ‘’a map scale and display problem which is currently being resolved.”
The message was a reply to Twitter users and the Simon Wiesenthal Center who demanded an explanation for Israel’s absence from the map.
“We are asked whether Air France has succumbed to the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) campaign to delegitimize the Jewish State by literally wiping it off the map,” Shimon Samuels, director of international relations for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, wrote in a letter to Air France CEO Frederic Gagey.
by Joseph Byron