A map with no Israel....

Wishful thinking???

A prestigious British university apologized on Thursday for using a map of the Middle East without Israel in an article in one of its publications.

The alumni magazine of the London School of Economics, LSE Connect, published a story about the school’s new Middle East research center with a map of the Middle East that had Beirut and the Gaza Strip but no Israel.

In the article, it said that the creation of the center was made possible because of the support of two organizations from the United Arab Emirates. The Emirates Foundation for Philanthropy and the Aman Trust contributed £9.2 million.

“I am outraged that a leading London university institution can falsify reality in this way; is it really necessary to resort to this kind of chicanery in order to placate your Arab donors? Has LSE no academic integrity left? I am ashamed to call myself a graduate,” a former LSE student said in a letter to the publication’s editor.

In a statement, LSE apologized for the error, saying it was a production oversight and that it did not come from the Middle East Center.

“To illustrate a news story in our magazine LSE Connect about the new Middle East Center at LSE, we used a small stock image of a map of the region without realizing that while Israel was colored in on the map, it was not identified in text. This oversight was unfortunately not picked up during the production process. We apologize for any offense caused by its publication and we have updated the online version of LSE Connect to remove the map. We will publish an apology for this error in the next print edition of the magazine,” LSE said.