Only nine days ago I wrote about how the publisher HarperCollins issued an atlas of the Middle East that included a map that didn’t show Israel. Just to refresh your memory, here was that map:
Collins Bartholomew, a subsidiary of HarperCollins that specializes in maps, told the Tablet that it would have been “unacceptable” to include Israel in atlases intended for the Middle East. They had deleted Israel to satisfy “local preferences.”
After a public outcry, HarperCollins took the book off sale and pulped the copies. But the damage had been done, and the publisher’s name sullied. Even critics of Israel, it seems, couldn’t countenance seeing a country simply effaced from existence.
Well, it’s happened again, and with a new map. According to CiF Watch, the British publication The Economist, a respected magazine, has published a story on the Middle East called “Soaring Ambition” (you can see the original here), that shows the map below:
This is not the same map as the HarperCollins one, so it’s wasn’t simply copied from their atlas. Why did they leave out Israel? I hate to think it’s because they’re catering to the feelings of the “locals” (that was HarperCollins’s explanation).
I left a comment (see below), and if you want you can do so, too: registration is free, so just go here and comment, which will automatically take you to an easy registration site.
Here’s what I said and a reply:
h/t: Malgorzata
Local preference!? Too bad it does not go the other way: don’t like the truth, put down your smart phones, get on your burros, and don’t use science to clean your water.
1 million points!
It appears to be there, but bordered only with dashed lines and not labelled.
So it is! You have to look really hard to see that. I thought The Economist was quite liberal (they even published a proposed solution to the Palestine/Israel problem a year ago), so it is surprising they left a name off the map. Perhaps they will say it was too small to fit on?
Liberal? I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen The Economist back a liberal presidential candidate. They were really pushing for McCain in 08.
No they didn’t.
http://www.economist.com/node/12516666
Huh, must have gotten them confused with someone else. I was sure that I’d read an op-ed from them that was slamming Obama’s proposals for being “populist” and saying we should vote for McCain.
I think you are confused because they said they would vote for McCain if he had stuck to his more liberal policies rather than pandering to the extreme right.
Could be, or maybe I’m thinking about stuff from the primaries.
Guess it doesn’t really matter either way.
Oh, no. Not again.
b&
Looks to me like they put in the borders, they just didn’t label it (like they did all the other countries).
“It is the equal of a Charlie Hebdo cartoon on Mohammed.”
If it is, that’s why you should publish it, not why you shouldn’t.
You forget, though, that they are of the pusillanimous persuasion.
“Censors for the sake of peace, left Israel out of the Mideast Map.” – Connect The Dots
“I have returned from Germany with peace for our time.” – Neville Chamberlain
And at the end Chamberlain did declare WAR.
I guess Israel’s only solution to this map problem is to wipe all the offended countries off it. :p
They have the nuclear warheads to do just that. And the US would back them too.
Or they might stay out of it. Why get involved if you don’t have to, esp when it could make things worse. Yeah, I kmow what you’re thinking. That the U.S. can’t help itself but I think if the U.S. doesn’t have a hawkish president, the response is more measured.
I don’t see what “local preference” has to do with it this time – ‘The Economist’ is published in London. Besides, “local preference” is never a valid excuse to ignore facts, just like being offended is never an excuse for murder. (Not that anything is an excuse for murder!)
Israel is a country. If we’ve got to a point where even putting it on a map is considered controversial by some, we’re in serious trouble as a society. People said “never again” after WWII, but it seems after seventy years some are already bowing to the forces of anti-Semitism once again. Someone said something like, “If there’s one thing that history’s taught us, it’s that we don’t learn from history. Very apt here imo.
After so many have rallied in support of the principle of Freedom of Speech in the last few days, to have this happen is particularly ironic.
Al Jazeera seems to have lots of maps that label Israel, but then I am getting the America site and wouldn’t know how to find a Middle East “local,”
It would be interesting to know just how common this practice really is, and how deep the controversy runs. Even given the events of the past week, it still seems quite improbable to me that labeling a country is such a no-no.
Yes. I’d also like to know more about how this is viewed in the region. Maybe having Israel on the map is actually not controversial there.
On the plus side, Iran would have trouble aiming their missiles in a future conflict.
So far Iran hasn’t been in a war they started for over 200 years. Remember it was Iraq that attacked Iran after that half century of UK/US bit of realpolitik died in 1979. The hated dictator Reza Pahlavi.
Yes, it’s stupid. Let’s adjust our facts so as to be more acceptable to people who are fact phobic.
Good thing they don’t sell mirrors!!
I put this comment under Jerry’s on the site.
Here you have a clue as to why I cancelled my subscription to the Economist 2 or 3 years ago. It is not reliable on the Middle East, and that makes you wonder about its coverage of other areas. What do you do when some people are offended by reality? Do you cater to their delusions? I don’t know whether that might work in a psychiatric hospital, but it’s disastrous in international relations and indefensible in journalism.
About 8 years ago they did a piece on the area where I live. The description of the physical geography was stunning: I’m quite certain that they didn’t actually send any reporters to the area because it was so inaccurate I can’t believe that whoever wrote the article had actually been here and actually looked around.
I’m not talking about stuff that could be down to opinions, like the condition of houses and whatnot, I’m talking about the physical geography and vegetation.
They’d probably ended up in Israel accidentally and couldn’t tell.
Well played.
This “local preference” business more accurately reflects the stated nuclear intentions of Iran than it does the reality of the region. I guess that the Arab states don’t remember, and need to be reminded, how many times Israel has kicked their collective asses…
Sadly, I don’t think organizations like The Economist are doing anything as noble as trying to forestall a nuclear threat. They are far more venal. The only calculation that probably went through their heads was ‘can we sell more magazines if we lie about this geopolitical fact’.
I don’t see any such thing. and it is Israel that has the nukes and everyone there knows it.
Since 2003 there has been no evidence that Iran has been working on anything but nuclear power. Not that Israel and USA has been flagrant in their hysterics to go to war with Iran. That has not abated under any president.
I despise the present govt of Iran and you can thank the UK and US for overthrowing the democratically elected govt under Mossedec in 1953 for that.
In recent years – without anything particularly changing in Iran – conditions there have seemed (from this distance) increasingly stable and benign. Mostly it’s the contrast with the escalating insanity of most of its neighbours. I don’t know if any poltical change is to be expected to follow from the 70s-80s baby-boom and (relatively sudden) demographic transition there, which produced a striking bulge in the pyramid of folks now in their 20s and early 30s (anybody worried by demographic transitions is a loon who believes in a literally infinite carrying capacity, of whom there are many), but it makes things interesting in a not-bad way.
It looks to me as though The Economist has grabbed and re-used a map created for some other purpose, likely without thinking too hard about it.
That’s because the distinction between the dark-green countries and the light-green countries is not relevant to the article and is not explained. Thus the labelling might have been in-line with that original purpose, whatever it was. Note that Cyprus, Greece and others are also not labelled.
So they are hopelessly incompetent and not venal? Is that better?
“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”–Hanlon’s Razor
I’d add “or laziness.” at the end myself.
Stupidity at The Economist? Things must have really changed if that’s a parsimonious explanation now.
That was my first thought as well.
The correct outline is there, but it isn’t labeled. Neither, it must be noticed, is Gaza or the West Bank. I personally see no problem with this.
I was going to make the same comment. The borders should actually be more controversial than the label, I would think.
I know Israel is small as a country, but to label the others and not Israel I think was a massive mistake. And their mealymouthed reasons are dripping with piss from their seeming fear. Disgusting.
The Palestinians would consider the whole unlabeled area “Palestine”. Palestinian maps routinely show the area of Israel, but it is all called “Palestine” and the word “Israel” does not appear. So yes, the label is very important.
If they had any sincerity or courage, they would go all-in and annex Transjordan as well. I’m so old I can remember when Israel and Jordan were the “Two-State Solution” … !
“Palestine” was annexed by Jordan in 1948 but somehow that didn’t count as an occupation. Go figure.
If a territory falls and the West doesn’t care, the East doesn’t care and – most of all – the Arab oligarchies don’t care, is it still an “occupation”? The one opinion I can promise you doesn’t matter is that of the masses.
Job done. Only took a minute.
It’s kind of like 1984 again. The book folks not the year.
Aw, I was going to get up and dance to Girls Just Want to Have Fun.
Against all odds, I found that funny 😉
That’s a coincidence, I was having early-1980s flashbacks and nostalgia yesterday. I’m all better now.
“like poking a hive of angry bees.” Doesn’t that imply that Muslims and Arabs aren’t human beings with responsibility for their actions and a capacity for self-reflection, they’re more akin to mindless animals driven by instinct? That’s pretty insulting.
I’ve had this same thought, vis a vis the implication that Charlie Hebdo should have expected the response it got. And if there is an implied insult, the map publishers are very much making the same condescending implication.
For some reason this reminds me of a west wing episode were Charlie gets an old map for the president.
I don’t think The Economist is tolerating the multiculturalism of the Middle East properly. I would hate to think what they may be bringing onto themselves.
Maybe we should publish a map without Russia and bring peace to Ukraine?
I’m still in a state over the guy who will be receiving regular, severe beatings for publishing an opinion. If these are among the local sensibilities, then none of the local sensibilities deserve deference or respect.
Yes good point. What does The Economist think will be the response? If they stop showing Israel on the map, do they think the Saudis will suddenly act better? Release prisoners of conscience?
I think we should let the economist editors clear up the mess before we speculate on whether there was an intention to leave Israel out. An innocent, unintentional but insensitive mistake may have been made.
The original article seems to have been taken down.
Maybe they’re updating their map after PCC-inspired protest?
“Censors for the sake of peace”: now that’s a truly scary phrase…..
Et tu, The Economist?
Mr. ConnectTheDots seems to be someone who slept thru Neville Chamberlain’s lecture.
Why are you all getting so exercised about the fact that Israel is not labelled (in a map associated with a story that has nothing to do with Israel), and ignoring the fact that Greece and Bulgaria (among others) are similarly unlabelled?
You guys have a thoroughly unhealthy quasi-paranoid obsession with Israel. Get over it.
No one is trying to erase Greece or Bulgaria from maps or destroy them as countries or kill all their inhabitants, whereas Arab leaders and clerics in the countries around Israel constantly urge just this scenario against Israel. The Economist’s map shows the Middle East, and Greece and Bulgaria are peripheral countries, but Israel is not. Omitting Israel from a map of the region is not an innocent oversight.
There’s also no Greece, Armenia or FYROM here, so I suppose that, since Israel isn’t relevant to the story at hand, it was just another country too small on the map to be worth the trouble of labelling it. This seems an altogether less egrigious example than the HarperCollins atlas. Remember, btw., that HarperCollins is owned by Rupert “jihadist cancer” Murdoch, whose true religion is money and who will butter up anyone in its pursuit.
Sorry, “egregious”.
Well, it is not uncommon in the middle east to modify reality to accommodate “local preference”.
Here is a recent example where women have been photo shopped out of a picture in order to accommodate the readers of the Israeli newspaper “The Announcer”
Prominent world leaders like the German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Federica Mogherini, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs have been chopped out.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/ultra-orthodox-jewish-newspaper-edits-female-world-leaders-out-of-charlie-hebdo-march/
Saw that earlier, glad you posted it.
“Local preference” is a bizarre argument considering that Israel is surrounded by countries that have no free press or government. How do they know how those citizens feel about Israel?
Thanks Jerry for this disgusting information. If you put something like this, coming on the heels of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, in a future history speculative novel it would seem rather obvious and overdone “… and then the author has the Economist, *of all things!* kowtow to Middle Eastern dictators by *censoring a map!* The entire novel is ridiculous and unbelievable…”