The Israel Government Tourist Office (IGTO [2]) lost an appeal Aug. 4 of a British ban on a vacation advertisement that described the Western Wall as part of Israel. The IGTO appealed after the UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA [3]) upheld a complaint in April that the Kotel is actually in the Occupied Territories. An image on the advert for vacations in Israel showed a picture of the wall with the gold Dome of the Rock in the background, captioned "Jerusalem." A spokesman from the ASA said: "After careful consideration, including of a report from the Independent Reviewer, the ASA Council has decided not to overturn its original upheld decision. The original adjudication will remain unchanged." (Jewish Chronicle [4], London, Aug. 5; IRNA [5], Aug. 4)
Roads leading to Jerusalem's Old City were heavily congested and checkpoints overcrowded Aug. 13 as tens of thousands of Palestinians attempted to reach the al-Aqsa Mosque to perform prayers on the first Friday of Ramadan. Israeli forces deployed at checkpoints around the city and prevented large numbers of young Palestinians from entering the Old City, and military patrols chased hundreds of others trying to bypass the checkpoints. Young men and women were prohibited from entering the holy city for prayer, while those aged 30-45 could apply for a special permit to enter the city. (Ma'an News Agency [6], Aug. 13)
Meanwhile, another conflict surrounding the hotly contested holy site has pitted Jew against Jew. On July 13, feminist activist Anat Hoffman, founder of the Women of the Wall [7] movement, was arrested for carrying a Torah scroll at the Western Wall—which Israeli courts have prohibited women from doing. Progressive Orthodox rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld, along with dozens of protesters, demonstrated at the Israeli embassy in Washington following the arrest. (Haaretz [8], July 29)
See our last posts on Israel/Palestine [9] and the struggle for Jerusalem [10].
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