French children’s magazine withdrawn for writing Israel’s not a ‘real country’

A French children’s magazine has been withdrawn from newsstands after it admitted a “mistake” in writing that Israel wasn’t a “real country”.

The news editor for Youpi, a magazine for children from five to eight, said the January issue was being removed from kiosk sales in France and Belgium after writing that Israel was among a few states in the world that aren’t “real countries”.

Bertrand Fichou said he humbly apologises for the mistake, adding: “I’ll blame myself for it all my life.”.

Aliza Bin Noun, the Israeli Ambassador to France tweeted a picture of the magazine’s cartoon, which said Israel wasn’t a real country. She said she was  “shocked by this lie taught to children. Such rhetoric can only lead to anti-Zionism, inseparable from antisemitism as has been pointed out by the french President Emmanuel Macron”