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Saturday, April 19, 2014

Update on the blood libel/Visa story (updated)

As of this moment, Egyptian women's magazine El Kebar still has the article saying that Jews kill Gentiles to add their blood as an ingredient for Passover matzoh online.

And it still has the same Visa pop-up ad, 48 hours after first being informed about it.

So, whether they like it or not, Visa is still associated with perhaps the most offensive and libelous article against Jews imaginable.

The Visa representative told me that he would keep me informed of what was going on, but I have not heard anything since Friday.

Meanwhile, I looked a bit at Egypt Post, which is likely to be the Visa partner that actually placed the ad.

It turns out that Egypt Post is not a newspaper as I had assumed, but in fact it is Egypt's postal service. They do offer Egypt Post-labeled Visa cards. It is a governmental organization. 

Which means that at the very least, the Egyptian government is literally sponsoring the most vile antisemitism imaginable, in Visa's name.

The chairman of Egypt Post is Dr. Ashraf Gamal El Din. He has degrees from British and Canadian universities, so he must know English.  Here is his Facebook page, in case you want to ask him about whether he supports the hate and bigotry that was in that article.

UPDATE: Visa's spokesperson contacted me to say that they are working hard over the holiday weekend to identify and contact the right people to take the ad down, and he again emphasized that the article was intolerant and intolerable. On the other hand, he expressed frustration because (as I wrote Friday) Visa's hands are tied because they do not have a direct relationship with El Kebar and they have to go through proper channels, and within the context of their existing contracts, to try to take care of this, and it takes time.