Erasing Israel From the Map

The Iranian clerical regime has repeatedly vowed to erase Israel from the map, but American publisher HarperCollins actually did it.

The company released an atlas of the Middle East for English-speaking students in the Persian Gulf region, and Israel isn’t on it. The West Bank and Gaza are on it, which is entirely appropriate since they exist and are not part of Israel, but Israel itself is just…absent.

The Tablet newspaper in Britain originally reported the story, and HarperCollins has since recalled the atlases and promises they will be pulped. Executives at the company headquarters are embarrassed and say they sincerely apologize.

Lower level employees, however, thought they did the right thing.

Collins Bartholomew told The Tablet that putting Israel on the map would have been “unacceptable” in the Middle East and that “local preferences” had to be respected.

He isn’t imaging those local preferences. I’ve seen plenty of Arab maps that don’t include Israel. Sometimes it’s labeled as Palestine. Sometimes it’s a blank space. Sometimes it’s there and labeled correctly. It depends on the map and, to an extent, which country produced it. Some Arab nations are less hung up on this than others.

Companies that want to sell products to customers really do need to think about what would and would not be acceptable or they won’t turn a profit. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just basic business. 

But the map HarperCollins produced is a lie. Right there on its atlas cover are the words, “Learn with maps” in English. But kids can’t learn real geography from fake maps. Setting aside the politics of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the product fails to live up to its own description.

Let’s get back to politics, though. People who hate a country so intensely that they can’t bear to see its existence on maps have a serious problem. I detest North Korea and wish it didn’t exist. So much better if it were joined to democratic South Korea like East Germany merged with the west after the fall of the Berlin Wall. But for God’s sake, I don’t require the maps in my house to show North Korea as blank. If I did, I’d have a problem and I’d need some help.

There isn’t much Westerners can do to change reactionary attitudes on the other side of the planet, and publishers aren’t generally in the political-emotional therapy business, but pandering to a denial of reality only perpetuates it.

If Middle Easterner customers will only buy a map if it lies, they can make their own damn maps. And if HarperCollins, or any other publishing company, actually wants kids over there to “Learn with maps” as it says, then the local delusional bubble needs to be punctured.