Holy Land: Israel 'cancels' West Bank from official maps

West Bank: Separation Wall in Bethlehem

Israel's Tourism ministry has 'cancelled' the West Bank from the maps, with Judea and Samaria appearing in its place: Daoud Kuttab, a Palestinian writer and Journalism Professor at Princeton University, reveals, in an article in the Israeli Haaretz newspaper.

Kuttab's article comes as Israeli-Palestinian negotiations restart under US aegis. Maps and symbols are very important, he said.
"For years it was Palestinians who were confronted with their own symbolic issues, whether in the PLO charter or the maps in Palestinian school books", Kuttab writes.

"The most recent maps published by the Israeli government unilaterally annex Palestine to Israel while ignoring the existence of many Palestinian communities". "It is hard to accept the Israeli argument that this is merely a symbolic issue. Symbols are important, and in preventing the realization of a Palestinian state, Israel has given them plenty of attention", adds the writer.

In April 2009, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ordered the Israeli Tourist Office in London to withdraw a ThinkIsrael.com advert implying that Qumran, the site where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, is in Israel, when in fact it is in the Occupied West Bank. See: www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=10479

Source: MISNA/ICN