Fact Check: Has Google removed Palestine from Google Maps?
By Aiswarya Sriram Published on 18 July 2020 11:45 AM GMT
The claim that Google and Apple has removed Palestine from google maps is false, it was never a part of the map.
Hyderabad: A claim has been going viral that Apple and Google Maps erased Palestine from the map and when people search for Palestine in the maps, they just show Israel. Many were shocked as recently Israel President Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to annex the West Bank.
A tweet claims, "Google and Apple Maps have officially removed Palestine from the World Maps. Today Palestine was erased from the maps tomorrow Palestine will be erased from the world. PUT PALESTINE BACK ON THE MAP. (sic)"
The claim was also viral on Facebook
Even website India.com published it as news
Fact Check:
We searched with keywords 'Google Maps removes Palestine' we found that Forum of Palestinian Journalists had released a statement in 2016 stating, "Media forum condemns the crime carried out by Google by deleting the name of Palestine."
"A new crime added to the list of ongoing crimes against the Palestinian people, committed by the global search engine "Google" on the twenty-fifth of July of this year as he deliberately removed the name of Palestine and deleted it permanently from all Google maps, and replaced it by Google programmers In (Israel)" reads the article.
Further searching led us to an article in The Guardian published in 2016 in which a Google spokesperson is quoted, "There has never been a 'Palestine' label on Google Maps, however, we discovered a bug that removed the labels for 'West Bank' and 'Gaza Strip'. We're working quickly to bring these labels back to the area."
Several links are found stating that Google recognized Palestine on their country search page for some time, but later that was also removed, but not on the maps section.
Here are some more articles to refer:
Moreover, United States doesn't recognise Palestine as an independent state and following the policy of US, both Google and Apple had never listed Palestine in their maps. This petition says that "Whether intentionally or otherwise, Google is making itself complicit in the Israeli government's ethnic cleansing of Palestine."
Newsmeter has received communication from Zak Martin, stating that they are about to reach one million signatures target to make Google include Palestine in their maps.
Here is the petition in Change.org to put Palestine on Google Maps.
https://www.change.org/p/google-inc-google-put-palestine-on-your-maps
Hence, the claim that Palestine was removed from Google is FALSE, it was never added in the first place.
