You may have seen this heading accompanied by a Palestine poster supposedly made in 1898 by France promoting tourism in Palestine. The poster that is being referenced to is captured below.
The poster has been shared multiple times on various platforms like here, here, here, here, and here on X (formerly known as Twitter), Here and here on Facebook, here on Reddit and also here on Threads, the text based platform from Instagram.
The poster appears to be used as “evidence” for the contiguous existence of the State of Palestine. The post has been mainly shared by people or influencers who seem to hold Pro-Palestinian views or those who produce Pro-Palestinian content.
What we know.
The poster in question is indeed real and it exists. It has been documented here, by Shapell Manuscript Foundation which is a non-profit independent educational organization dedicated to the research and the collection of historical documents and original manuscripts from United States and “Holy Land” focusing on the 19th and 20th century.
In their website, they have captioned the poster as follows:
A scarce travel poster for the French railway, Chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée, or PLM, to Palestine, by the noted poster artist Hugo D’Alesi. It depicts the road leading to the Jerusalem gate, a figure walking, and a figure on a donkey. An inset, “Bethleem” features a view towards gate, a man leading camel, and a man on a donkey leading second donkey.
The original image appears to have been auctioned for $6,250 by an organization called Kedem. Kedem says it “specializes in the sale of rare Jewish collectibles: classical Hebrew books (“Sifre Kodesh”), rabbinical manuscripts and other items related to Jewish and Israeli history and culture.”
The poster itself was painted by a French painter of Austrian origin called Hugo d’Alesi. He produced a lot of similar tourist posters for railway companies towards the end of the 19th century.
The railway company that he painted that poster for was called PLM and operated between Paris, Lyon and Mediterranean hence the PLM acronym.
Verdict
The poster is real but lacks context. It does not refer to the contiguous State of Palestine but refers to Palestine the region.
