This is a blatent lie fabricated by the Mega Bloks media. LEGO City DOES recognize Israel.
If the prerequisite for recognizing a country is travel listed on a departure/arrival sign in LEGO City, then they’ve missed quite a bit! Looking through every single travel sign I could find in a LEGO set, I found destinations in 22 countries:
Austria
Belgium
Czech Republic
Denmark
Egypt
France
Germany
Hungary
Ireland
Italy
Japan
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Russia
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Thailand
United Kingdom
United States
There are quite a few major destinations that have been omitted! China, Canada, Australia, Argentina, India, UAE, Greece, Brazil (to name a few). Admittedly, having your destination listed on a LEGO travel board is probably recognition of your country— but it’s not the only way for a country to be recognized.
Check this out:
Know what that is? It’s a LEGO set made for airlines. They often partner with airlines, which sell these sets to people on-board (usually to give kids something to do while on the plane). And some of those partnerships have even resulted in airline-specific packaging and sticker sheets.
So… What airlines has LEGO partnered with? Have they partnered with El Al, maybe?
Bam! That’s the official LEGO sticker sheet for the El Al airlines set 4032.
Israel, consider yourself recognized.
