Foreign Ministry irked as Jordan paper refuses ad because of Israeli flag

By HERB KEINON
The refusal of a Jordanian newspaper to publish an advertisement supporting the Arab peace initiative because it displayed the Israeli flag shows there is "long way to go before we reach peace," Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said Wednesday. AFP reported that the Jordanian newspaper Al-Arab Al-Yawm refused to publish the advertisement taken out by the Palestinian Authority, and which appeared in the Israeli press last week. An editor at the paper was quoted as saying that the advertisement was rejected both because of the flange and because it promoted the idea that Israel accepted the peace initiative, "although Israeli officials have rejected the initiative." "This shows the gap in terms of freedom of opinion and expression between Israel and its neighbors," Palmor said. "While it was possible for a foreign government to place a political advertisement in Israeli papers it seems impossible for the same government to place a call for Israeli Arab peace in a Jordanian paper, because of the Israeli flag. Some people have a long way to go before we reach peace."