{"id":1392,"date":"2013-08-21T21:39:42","date_gmt":"2013-08-21T11:39:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.khanfactor.com\/blog\/?p=1392"},"modified":"2013-08-21T21:42:46","modified_gmt":"2013-08-21T11:42:46","slug":"erasing-palestine-from-the-map-by-robert-ross","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.khanfactor.com\/blog\/?p=1392","title":{"rendered":"Erasing Palestine From the Map by ROBERT ROSS"},"content":{"rendered":"

A foreign affairs blogger for The Washington Post recently posted \u201c40 Maps that explain the world<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 Some of the maps are important (\u201cEconomic inequality around the world\u201d), some are interesting (\u201cMeet the world\u2019s 26 remaining monarchies\u201d), but others grossly distort the reality they purportedly represent.\u00a0 Chief among this latter category is \u201cHow far Hamas\u2019s rockets can reach into Israel\u201d .<\/p>\n

\"WashPostMap\"<\/a><\/p>\n

All about Hamas\u2019s rockets<\/b><\/p>\n

There are two principal problems with this map.\u00a0 First, the map attempts to \u201cexplain\u201d the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by pointing exclusively to the capacity of Hamas\u2019s rockets to reach ever-extensive points within Israel.\u00a0 Four color-coded, concentric semi-circles spread out from the Gaza Strip, each showing the distance different rockets could travel, the furthest making it all the way to the Dead Sea.\u00a0 Max Fisher, the Post\u2019s chief foreign affairs blogger, writes in a caption to the map, \u201cThis helps drive home why Israel is so concerned about Hamas, the Gaza-based Islamist group, and in particular about its access to Iranian-made Fajr-5 rockets.\u00a0 Those are the ones that can reach into the light-yellow region.\u201d<\/p>\n

Erasing Palestine from the Map<\/b><\/p>\n

The second major problem with this map is that Palestine\u2014both historic and contemporary\u2014is erased from it.\u00a0 A white dotted line traces the border between the West Bank and Israel but the line is barely visible beneath the yellow-shaded ring.\u00a0 Moreover, \u201cWest Bank\u201d (not \u201coccupied West Bank,\u201d or \u201coccupied Palestinian territory,\u201d or \u201cPalestinian West Bank\u201d or \u201cPalestine,\u201d mind you) appears in font so small that it seems to designate some tiny city northeast of Jerusalem, not the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967.\u00a0 And while Israeli municipalities such as Arad, Ashdod, Holan, and Hrzliya, among others, are included, nowhere can one find the Palestinian cities of Ramallah, Nablus, Bethlehem, or Jericho, much less al-Bira, Jenin, or Qalqilia. Only Jerusalem and Hebron, West Bank cities that are significant to both Israelis and Palestinians, are featured. Even Jaffa, the coastal Palestinian city north of Tel Aviv, has been replaced by the Israeli-Hebrew version, \u201cYafo.\u201d<\/p>\n

So what does this map tell us about the Israel-Palestine conflict?\u00a0 It\u2019s not apparent what or where Palestine is, or that it even exists, but the map suggests that an ever-menacing, Iranian-supported Islamist group threatens more than half of Israel.\u00a0 And therefore, Israel is \u201cconcerned.\u201d\u00a0 Presumably, the reader might conclude, that \u201cconcern\u201d forces Israel to periodically defend itself, launching its own counter-attacks into the Gaza Strip.\u00a0 The West Bank, meanwhile, appears for all intents and purposes, part of Israel and in no way related to the Gaza Strip or the cartographically cleansed \u201cPalestine.\u201d\u00a0 So Israel\u2019s geography is simplified into a need to defend itself and Palestine is wiped off the map.<\/p>\n

Concealing more than it reveals<\/b><\/p>\n

The Washington Post\u2019s map (which is actually just a simple\u00a0google map<\/a>lifted from someone named \u201cGene<\/a>,\u201d whose cartographic resume also includes google maps of \u201cRichmond Bars\/Restaurants<\/a>\u201d and \u201cJane Austin\u2019s England<\/a>\u201d) doesn\u2019t reveal how and to what extent Israel has \u201cdefended\u201d itself against the perceived threat of Hamas\u2019s rockets.\u00a0 The threat is all that is deemed important; a map showing where and with what deadly ramifications Israel\u2019s responses have taken place, such asthis one<\/a>\u00a0produced by the Alliance for Justice in the Middle East at Harvard University and the MIT Center for Future Civic Media, didn\u2019t make the Post\u2019s list.<\/p>\n

Any attempt to cartographically represent the context within which Hamas\u2019s rockets and Israel\u2019s \u201cresponse\u201d may have been launched, such as\u00a0this UN map<\/a>, is also entirely missing from the Post\u2019s compilation.<\/p>\n

In addition to nearly erasing the Palestinian West Bank altogether, the Post\u2019s map reveals nothing about the multiple ways in which the territory is occupied by Israel.\u00a0 Maps of Israeli-only roads, checkpoints, the separation barrier, settlements, and the ethnically-based divisions of the West Bank (such as these from\u00a0Btselem<\/a>, the\u00a0Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions<\/a>, and\u00a0The Applied Institute for Research \u2013 Jerusalem<\/a>) don\u2019t, according to the Washington Post, help explain this part of the world as much as Gene\u2019s map of Hamas\u2019s rocket-firing potential.<\/p>\n

The Washington Post\u2019s map of choice sheds no light on the Palestinian villages within Israel that were ethnically cleansed and destroyed in 1948-1949.\u00a0 References to these maps from the\u00a0Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs (PASSIA)<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Visualizing Palestine<\/a>\u00a0could have at least begun to cartographically resurrect these erased landscapes.<\/p>\n

The Dangers of Distorted Cartography<\/b><\/p>\n

In sum, The Washington Post\u2019s map explains very little about this part of the world.\u00a0 But what the map does reveal is The Washington Post\u2019s myopic view of Israel and Palestine.\u00a0 The ongoing colonization of Palestine by Israel is reduced and reversed, in this map\u2019s representation, to a normal country that must fend off existential threats from its shadowy neighbors.\u00a0 The effects of this distorted cartography are dangerous\u2014erasing the\u00a0geographies<\/i>\u00a0of Palestine is yet another step in the ongoing occupation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine.<\/p>\n

Robert Ross<\/strong>\u00a0is an Assistant Professor of Global Cultural Studies at Point Park University, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His research and teaching focus upon the political-economic geographies of Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and the United States. He is also a member of the Pittsburgh Palestine Solidarity Committee and the Israel-Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (USA).<\/i><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A foreign affairs blogger for The Washington Post recently posted \u201c40 Maps that explain the world.\u201d\u00a0 Some of the maps are important (\u201cEconomic inequality around the world\u201d), some are interesting (\u201cMeet the world\u2019s 26 remaining monarchies\u201d), but others grossly distort … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_s2mail":"yes","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[11,31,24],"tags":[248,110,74],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"views":2256,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2ttSq-ms","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.khanfactor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1392"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.khanfactor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.khanfactor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.khanfactor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.khanfactor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1392"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.khanfactor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1394,"href":"https:\/\/www.khanfactor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1392\/revisions\/1394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.khanfactor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.khanfactor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.khanfactor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}