How to Manipulate Maps

Israel bashers often present a series of maps similar to the ones featured here that attempt to show the “loss of Palestinian land.”  Judged individually, each one is basically accurate.  But, in combination, the maps rely on shifting definitions, broad generalizations, and a lack of context to smear Israel.  They serve as examples of the willingness of opponents of Israel to promote falsehood to serve an agenda.

First Map

“Jewish land” = land purchased, owned, and inhabited by Jews.

“Palestinian land” = all land in the British Mandate except Jewish land as defined above.  The vast majority of this land is government public property controlled by the British.  Almost the entire southern half of the map is the Negev desert, where almost no one lived or owned property.  There are areas on this map, near Hebron for instance, owned by Jews who fled after the 1929 anti-Jewish riots.  There are other smaller plots of land where Jews lived. Those areas are marked here as “Palestinian land.”  Also included in the “Palestinian land” areas is land owned by the Druze Arabs.  Many Druze fought for Israeli independence in 1948.  Today, the Druze in Israel are full citizens who have elected to serve in the Israeli Defense forces on a compulsory basis.

Other Issues: The land is labeled “Palestine,” but it was formally recognized as the British Mandate of Palestine, a British protectorate carved out of the Ottoman Empire after WWI that had nothing to do with ethnic or other pre-existing boundaries.  During Ottoman times, there was no such area recognized simply as “Palestine.”

In 1946, Arabs in the British Mandate mostly regarded themselves simply as Arabs or as Syrians.  The word “Palestine” was identified more closely with the Jewish population of the British Mandate.

Conclusion: This map is created with a maximalist perspective of what was Arab or “Palestinian” and a minimalist perspective of what was Jewish. Words are used in the map to extend today’s concepts of “Palestinian” into a historical context where such concepts did not exist.  While using today’s terminology helps a modern reader understand the map, it also creates the impression of a historical continuity that misrepresents the reality of 1946.

Second Map

“Jewish land” = all the land allocated by the UN to a Jewish majority state.  Much of it was, and continues to be, owned and inhabited by Arabs, Bedouin, and Druze.

“Palestinian land” = all the land allocated by the UN to an Arab majority state and the land allocated to an international area to be administered by the UN in and around Jerusalem.  Some of this area was owned and inhabited by Jews.  Several areas previously marked as “Jewish land” have disappeared, particularly between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and north of Haifa.

Other Issues: It is important to note that the Palestinians were led at this time by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.  The Mufti had been an ally of Hitler, pushed for the implementation of the Final Solution in the British Mandate, and sought to extend the Holocaust to Palestine.  No Jews would be able to remain in the areas marked as “Palestinian land.”  Many Arabs have been able to live in the areas marked as “Jewish land.”

The UN partition plan was never implemented.  The UN passed the plan.  The Jewish organizations accepted it, albeit reluctantly.  The Arab states and representatives rejected it and waged war on the Jews.

Conclusion: This map is less maximalist in that its principal omission is in regards to the status of Jerusalem.  Its bias appears most prominently in the context of why this map never represented reality.  The Arabs rejected this map, preferring instead to leave the division, or more likely total usurpation, of the land to the result of a war with the Jews.

Third Map

“Israeli land” = land owned by Jews, Arabs and Druze, but under the control of the state of Israel.  Admittedly, it includes fewer Arabs than before the war.  Israel did not permit Arabs to return to Israel out of fear of further ongoing hostilities.

“Palestinian land” = land annexed by Jordan, marked as “West Bank,” and land occupied by Egypt, marked as “Gaza.”  The Arab states never created a Palestinian state in these areas.  The Jews who tried to remain in these areas were expelled after the war.  The Jordanians blew up the largest synagogue in Jerusalem, the Hurva, which had stood for centuries in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City.

Other Issues: There is no context regarding how we got to this map.  Jews accepted the UN partition and the Arabs rejected it.  War ensued and Israel won additional territory.

The map makes the Palestinian Arab areas appear to be autonomous.  They are shaded differently than Jordan and Egypt.  However, Gaza remained an occupied territory of Egypt and the West Bank was annexed by Jordan.  In both Palestinian Arab areas, and other Arab countries, Arab refugees were segregated in permanent refugee camps.  Those camps exist today, nominally administered by a UN entity separate from the main UN refugee organization.  Nothing is on the map to denote these segregated areas.

Conclusion: This map accurately indicates the borders of Israel after 1948, but has shifted the definitions in such a way that overstate the “loss” of “Palestinian land.”  Many Israeli Arabs retained control of their land after 1948 and, under this map, their land is considered “lost.”

Fourth Map

“Israeli land” = land controlled by Israel that is not “Palestinian land” as defined below.

“Palestinian land” = land administered by the Palestinian Authority and patrolled by Palestinian Authority police forces.  All Jewish settlement, even on land purchased by Jews, is strictly prohibited in these areas.

Other Issues: The most significant defect in this map is that it leaves a 30-plus-year gap from the prior map.  In 1967, Israel captured the areas labeled “Palestinian land” in the previous map.  Prior to 1993, there was no Palestinian Authority or territory administered by Palestinian organizations.  There should be a map prior to this one that, using these definitions, would have no area marked as “Palestinian land.”  The areas marked as “Palestinian land” here are not land that Israel failed to capture or control.  It is land where Israel began to transfer authority to the Palestinian Arabs in the hope of creating an independent Palestinian Arab state.  Some versions of this map are for 2005 instead of 2000.  In that case, the whole of Gaza is marked as “Palestinian land,” thereby additionally failing to recognize full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

The second most significant defect in the map is that it completely ignores the fact that Israel captured the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt in 1967 and later completely withdrew all Jewish settlement from it in exchange for peace with Egypt.

In 1967, the Arab nations launched a war against Israel, and Israel won, capturing the Sinai, Gaza, the West Bank and the Golan Heights.  Israel controls the Golan Heights today.  The mapmaker has conveniently left out the Golan, which has never had a Palestinian Arab population.

Over time, the Dead Sea, the landlocked body of water on the map, had lost significant area due to evaporation and the southern section is now physically separate from the northern section. The failure to reflect this fact is simply sloppy mapmaking.

Conclusion: This map completes the distortion begun in the earlier maps.  It has taken us from maximalist Palestinian Arab claims to the land to a minimalist view of what Palestinian Arab land might be now.  In the process, it has erased the history of Israel returning land for peace.  It has manipulated Israeli efforts towards peace, the creation of Palestinian Arab administered areas, to appear as Israeli efforts to take Palestinian Arab lands.

Mousavi calls out Ahmadinejad over Israel.

Jews and Israelis have long known that the Palestinian Arab issue has been used by dictators to control their populations and unite against an imaginary evil.  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other autocrats in the vilayet-i-faqih regime have most heavily utilized this tactic when they have sought to court the Arab street in particular and appeal to Islamists in general.

What has changed, however, is that Mir Hossein Mousavi has begun to expose Ahmadinejad’s manipulation for what it is:

This year, the day was also marked by bitter criticism of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s administration by his opponents. Dissident leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, issued a statement saying the government was using Israel as an excuse to crush its critics.

“The orchestrated violence against the opposition shows that the occupation of Jerusalem and Israel is just an excuse. They consider their real enemy people who are fighting to free our country from oppression,” said Mr. Mousavi’s statement.

via WSJ -Day of Anti-Israel Protest Reveals Iran’s Internal Rift

Language like this is promising.  It demonstrates that Persians, even those who aspire to positions of power, are increasingly willing to see and expose the tactics that entrench a fascistic regime, provoke conflict, ultimately, endanger Persian lives on multiple levels.

Many of the ordinary Persians I know have realized this for a long time.  But, to have a major opposition leader say it demonstrates that the bulk of the people of Iran are ripe for hearing the truth.  It means that the opposition does not need to jump on the bandwagon of bashing Israel, hating Jews, and denying the Holocaust to challenge the leaders of Iran.  That is good for peace and good for the future of a liberal and democratic Iran.

cross-posted at The View From Damavand

Israel is the paragon of religious liberty.

The Al Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount (courtesy MathKnight, Hebrew Wikipedia & WikiCommons)

In Jerusalem at the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, more than a hundred thousand Muslim worshipers convened and listened to a Friday sermon that attacked not only the State of Israel, but also the very prospect of  peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority:

Tens of thousands of Muslims poured into the heavily guarded Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem for the last Friday prayers of Ramadan as Palestinians protested against newly re-launched peace talks.

Israeli police put the number of worshippers at 160,000 to 170,000, while Muslim authorities said it exceeded 200,000.

In his Friday sermon Sheikh Yusef Abu Sneineh criticized the re-launch on Thursday of Middle East peace talks in Washington, saying “these negotiations are a joke.”

He went on to accuse Israel of seeking normalization with the Arab and Muslim world while “continuing its colonization” of the occupied West Bank through the building of Jewish settlements.

via The Daily Star – Tens of thousands pray at Al-Aqsa as Hamas calls for more armed ‘resistance’.

When one considers that Saudi Arabia heavily regulates the practice of Islam and that Egypt has a long history of regulating sermons, it makes this kind of liberty, in a place far more threatened by Islamist extremism, all the more impressive.  Even liberal Europe fails to display the degree of religious tolerance that exists in Israel.

And yet, if you listen to the European media or the Arab media, only Israel is the world’s oppressor.  Perhaps rather than condemning Israel, they should seek to emulate Israel.

Better off Gazan … the humanitarian non-crisis.

Yemini Ben-Dror brings us some impressive observations over at Maariv (Hebrew).  The Gaza Strip has a higher life expectancy and a lower infant mortality than Iran, Turkey, and many Arab countries.  Moreover, in part because of high fertility and a young population, it has one of the lowest death rates in the world.  Indeed, the Gaza Strip has a booming population growth that outpaces almost every other country.

These facts would not be possible if Israel were cutting off needed food and medicine.  The simple reality is that Gazans are better off than most of their Arab and Muslim neighbors.  There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza.  Israel’s blockade is in place for security reasons and these facts conclusively prove that allegations to the contrary are completely unsupported by data.

Israel’s Supreme Court protects Israeli Democracy

People everywhere do bad things.  Jews and Israelis are not immune from the ordinary misconduct that plagues  all peoples.  What a civil and democratic society, however, will do to remedy this problem is provide multiple layers of protection against such misconduct.

Israel’s military and prosecutorial establishments already do much to investigate and prosecute official misconduct by Israel’s military forces.  However, Israel, probably more than any other nation in the world, allows for searching judicial review when the administrative safeguards fail.

In this recent case, a soldier fired a rubber bullet at a bound prisoner.  There is no excuse for such conduct and any person doing such a thing, as well as those who enable it, must be punished.

The soldier was already being charged for his actions.  However, Israel’s judiciary found such charges to be insufficient and demanded that he be charged more seriously.  This, even though the victim was a Palestinian Arab and the conduct took place in a military setting.

From the JTA:

Israel’s Supreme Court ordered the military prosecutor to file more serious charges against an officer and a soldier who shot a bound Palestinian.

The court’s ruling Wednesday came in response to a petition filed by the Palestinian victim and four human rights organizations, which said that the charge of improper conduct was not commensurate with “the gravity of the acts.”

via Israel’s Supreme Court orders harsher sentence | JTA – Jewish & Israel News.