Late last month, Google did the unthinkable. It reportedly wiped Palestine off the face of the Earth.
Palestine was reportedly erased from Google Maps, after which followed a Twitterstorm. The outcry was so great that 250,000 people signed a petition but the petitioners apparently got it wrong. Google Maps didn’t delete Palestine as claimed. In fact, it hasn’t changed its labeling of the region at all. A search for “Palestine” in Google Maps today would get the same result as before the Twitter uproar. What apparently happened is that a glitch in the system removed the labels for Gaza and the West Bank.
So, is Google working actively in Israel’s favor, or were people too quick to jump on the hashtag #PalestineIsHere without realizing what they were tweeting about? The answer is yes and no.
Palestine was never on Google Maps, at least not as a country. A search for Palestine on Google Maps shows a demarcated area where it should be but does not mention it by name. It has always been treated as a “disputed territory”, along with Kashmir and Crimea, and marked with a dotted border, the symbol Google uses to show disputed territory.
Google does label Palestinian cities as Palestinian, and the Wikipedia-sourced Knowledge Box that pops up describes Palestine as a “de jure sovereign state”. That language has been in effect since 2013, when Google — following the lead of the United Nations – changed its designation to “Palestine” from “Palestinian territories”. The label of Israel is applied to regions outside the Palestinian areas.
Still, even if the current outrage is misplaced, the country of Palestine does not appear on Google Maps while Israel, established on Palestinian land, is clearly designated. And Jerusalem, which is claimed by both Israel and Palestine, is listed as Israel’s capital alone.
This is an important issue, as Google Maps are now regarded as definitive by people around the world, including journalists, students and others carrying out research into the Israel-Palestine problem.
The majority of UN member states recognize Palestine as an independent state, and it is an official non-member observer state at the UN where its flag flies. The omission of Palestine from Google Maps is a grievous insult to the people of Palestine and undermines the efforts of the millions of its people and their supporters who are involved in the campaign to secure Palestinian independence and freedom from Israeli occupation and oppression. Whether intentionally or otherwise, Google is making itself complicit in the Israeli government’s disenfranchising of Palestine.
Google’s actions take place in a context of increasing reactionary discourse and scapegoating of Arabs and Muslims. Politicians—best exemplified by Donald Trump—are stoking racism and directing popular discontent toward Arabs, Muslims and immigrants.
Users view Google Maps more than a billion times each week. It’s one of the world’s largest sources of geographic data and the first place many turn to locate something. Mapping technologies like Google also end up shaping our understanding of the world. For users, it’s important to remember that sites like Google, which are supposed to be removed, detached and authoritative, could bring their own interpretations to politically charged issues despite their stated intent to provide as much discoverable information as possible so that users can make their own judgments about geopolitical disputes. Users must thus try to think about maps of Google critically and to register their displeasure when they perceive what looks like a political statement.
Google should not distort history or manipulate geography or tamper with the Palestinian people’s right to their homeland,
On the whole, reports of Google deleting Palestine from Google Maps are false. Google never identified Palestine at all. That’s not a defense of Google’s failure to identify Palestine but an attempt to illustrate Google’s historical failure to identify Palestine.
