“Israel” is noticably missing from the names of countries listed on the CSC website. Photo: Elder of Ziyon.

The service contractor for the official US visa website is promoting what might constitute “genocidal antisemitism,” by not referring to Israel by name among a list of countries on its site, a major Jewish human rights organization said on Friday.

Dr. Shimon Samuels, director of international relations at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, sent a letter to Mike Lawrie, president and CEO of CSC Visa Information Service, pointing out that Israel and its flag are missing from a global list of sovereign countries on its website. The page offers foreign travelers who require a visa to enter the United States to select their country of origin. Each country has an image of its flag next to its name. The flag of Israel is notably missing, as is the name “Israel.” Instead, only the cities Jerusalem and Tel Aviv appear.

“Together with the listed Middle-East states and flags (United Arab Emirates and Iran) there is a bizarre choice proposed of ‘Jerusalem’ and ‘Tel Aviv’, presented as two stateless municipalities or perhaps city-states,” Samuels told Lawrie. “The State Department seems to be sending complainants to you to address this aberration: wiping the Jewish State off the map and expunging its flag could arguably be called genocidal antisemitism.”

Samuels urged the CSC president and chairman to investigate among its “92,000 employees worldwide” to see who committed “this abomination.” He also called on Lawrie to “publicly condemn this act, to take immediate disciplinary measures and to apologize to Israel and its Jewish and gentile friends by immediately rectifying this situation.”

“In the context of the contemporary Middle-East and the daily violence against Israeli citizens, their steadfast ally – the United States – cannot be seen as singling out its only true friend in the region, whether on the level of government or a private business contractor,” Samuels concluded.