Thomas Cook and Sons, the British-based world travel organization, has promised to withdraw a pamphlet distributed by its American division since the Persian Gulf War in January that describes Israel as a dangerous place under Scud missile attack and prone to pestilential diseases.
The pamphlet, still available on request, was brought to the attention of Israel’s Tourism Ministry by someone in Dallas said to have been “enraged” by it.
It is packed with misinformation about Israel, the ministry said. A Cook spokesman in London “couldn’t apologize enough.” Neither could he explain why the leaflet contained so many inaccuracies or why it had not been revised or withdrawn long ago, the Jerusalem Post reported last week.
Israel’s tourism industry was ravaged by the Gulf war, as was that of the entire region. But Cook’s pamphlet, distributed only in the United States, seems to go out of its way to depict Israel as an undesirable place to visit.
It says that “those traveling to Israel should be forewarned regarding not only the Scuds but the lack of water and electricity, due to bombings. With sanitation factors absent, disease is soon to follow on a grand scale. Israel already has a history of typhoid, polio and rabies.”
The Tourism Ministry pointed out that neither water nor electric supplies were disrupted by the war and there was no increase in the incidence of disease.
Israel’s history of typhoid, rabies and polio is similar to that of all Western countries, the ministry asserted.
The pamphlet erroneously told U.S. travelers they would require a visa to visa Israel, gave incorrect information about the climate, the time differential and electric current and gave the impression that it is impossible to find a restaurant or cafe open on the Sabbath the last is true only for Jerusalem.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
