Findings recorded on 29 September 2026 · Tel Aviv Apartment
ChatGPT’s advertising tool: “Jerusalem, Palestine, State of”
Type the name of Israel’s capital into OpenAI’s new advertising tool, and the first place it offers is “Jerusalem, Palestine, State of”. Next come Ohio, in the United States, and then Arkansas. Jerusalem, Israel never appears, unless the advertiser already knows how to spell its Hebrew name in Latin letters: “Yerushalayim”.
That is the outcome of a test carried out on 29 September 2026, in OpenAI’s Ads Manager, which is still in beta. The testers have no connection with OpenAI. What follows describes only what the screen displayed that day: no AI marketing for the people of Jerusalem.
What the tool returns
Entering “Jerusalem” in the location field of a new campaign produces “Jerusalem, Palestine, State of”, listed as a region. Two American postcodes follow, for towns named Jerusalem in Ohio and Arkansas. No suggestion points to Jerusalem in Israel.
The result is the same on a phone and on a computer.
Typing just “jerusa” already puts the Palestinian entry first. Adding the French accent, “jérusalem”, changes nothing on the computer.
Adding “israel” does not help: “jerusalem israel” returns “No locations found”. The Hebrew name of the city fares no better.
The only route the testers found is the transliteration “Yerushalayim”, which returns “Yerushalayim, Israel”, a region that can be selected. The same entry also appears among the regions listed under Israel.
This is not a general failure affecting Israeli cities
Haifa and Tel Aviv appear in Israel under their usual names. “haif” offers “Haifa, Israel”; “tel aviv” offers “Tel-Aviv, Israel”. Of the Israeli cities tested, the capital is the one that cannot be found under its own name in Israel.
Arabic names do not close the gap. “Al Quds”, “Al-Quds”, “Quds”, the Arabic spelling, “east jerusalem” and “jerusalem palestine” all return “No locations found”. The common name leads to Palestine; the other names lead nowhere.
Postcodes do not fix it
The testers also checked whether Jerusalem’s postcodes worked. The Israeli postcodes for Jerusalem that they tried, for example 9100000, return no location: “No locations found”.
What this means for Israeli business in Jerusalem
This is not an abstract quarrel over a name. Local advertising exists so that a business can reach the people who live near it. Israeli economic life in Jerusalem includes not only the Knesset, the President’s residence and the Supreme Court, but also neighbourhood shops, traders, start-ups and independent professionals.
Under the common name “Jerusalem”, that activity cannot be targeted in this tool, because the name resolves to Palestine. The advertiser is left with two options. Either they know the Hebrew name in Latin letters, which many will not, or they select the whole of Israel. The tool states that a campaign is shown only in the chosen locations, so the advertisement then runs far beyond the advertiser’s own city. A clinic in Jerusalem faces a choice that a clinic in Haifa or Tel Aviv does not.
In practice, these businesses are denied localised advertising under the name of their own city. No figure is offered here for the extent of that effect. The finding is precise: what the tool displayed on one day, in a beta version.
The effect is visible on the screen. The tool does not treat Israeli city names in the same way: two of them appear under their usual names, while the capital appears under Palestine.
What we ask
Jerusalem is the capital of the State of Israel and the seat of the Knesset, the Supreme Court and the presidency. It is the city the Jewish people have never ceased to remember. A marketing tool that advertisers use to turn clicks into sales, visits and contracts should not make that name lead to Palestine.
OpenAI should fix this: associate “Jerusalem” with Israel in Ads Manager, and respond publicly. The tool is in beta, and betas exist to be corrected.
Until then, an Israeli shopkeeper, a start-up founder or a doctor in Jerusalem who opens the tool and types the name of their own city will be sent to Palestine, then to Ohio and Arkansas, to promote their business. That is what the screen showed on 29 September 2026.
Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, and the city that the Jewish people have never ceased to remember and where they have lived continuously since the First Temple.
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