Harper-Collins prints atlas with no Israel.

[pancreasman]

It's not trivial if a scholarly book, published as reference material is not accurate. It doesn't matter whether it's Israel or the Balkans. Do it right.

[Psychic Missile]

I don't see how. The countries buying such atlases have already been removing Israel from the maps. What's really changed? They can pay for the service instead of paying a dude to get high on whiteout.

Just because a practice is established or popular (locally) doesn't mean that practice is not immoral.

[Teallaura]

Just because a practice is established or popular (locally) doesn't mean that practice is not immoral.

Stop that - you're not supposed to be agreeing with us, remember?

[Starlight]

It's actually not that different to how Google shows different borders for Crimea on Google Maps if you're in say Russia compared to USA.
http://opennews.kzhu.io/map-disputes/

Excellent example.

Maps can be objectively wrong if they depict landmasses that do not exist.

However countries and borders are political ideas, not matters of scientific fact. The majority of the worlds countries have one or more outstanding disagreements with other countries about who controls what territory. The US and Canada have ongoing border disputes largely resulting from the fact that treaties about where the border would be were agreed to prior to decent geographical surveys of the areas. Errors by early surveyors can mean that current borders aren't where they were supposed to be.

Many of those historical disputes and issues don't really have a "right" answer. The publishers of maps should not be required to take sides on such issues. It is quite reasonable for them to sell two maps each showing different borders.

Governments around the world also are in the habit of officially recognizing the existence of new governments. So, for example, if after a civil war, part of a country splits off and forms its own government, other countries must make a decision as to whether to recognize the newly formed government as authentic (and to do political negotiations, business, and trade, with it) or to reject it as invalid and continue to only recognize the previously existing government of the wider territory. Similar decisions have to be made when one country conquers another.

The response of Google Maps to the recent issue of Crimea is a good example: Two different groups are making competing claims about which country the territory of Crimea belongs to. So Google's response is to show two different maps of the region, and show to each person whichever map accords best with the view of the government of the person viewing the map.

A similar decision will have to be made with regard to ISIS. Should the maps show a new country formed in the region? Or should the maps continue to label the ISIS-controlled territories as Iraq and Syria even though those governments no longer have significant control over the territories that are officially 'theirs'?

Many Arab governments refuse to accept the validity of the government of Israel. Therefore according to them, maps should not include it. It seems reasonable for map-makers operating in those countries to sell maps in those areas that are in accordance with the prevailing political views. (Apparently it also saves on the use of white-out!)

At anyrate it seems orders of magnitude more reasonable and sane than Texas rewriting textbooks when facts aren't to their liking.

[Darth Executor]

Excellent example.

Maps can be objectively wrong if they depict landmasses that do not exist.

However countries and borders are political ideas, not matters of scientific fact. The majority of the worlds countries have one or more outstanding disagreements with other countries about who controls what territory. The US and Canada have ongoing border disputes largely resulting from the fact that treaties about where the border would be were agreed to prior to decent geographical surveys of the areas. Errors by early surveyors can mean that current borders aren't where they were supposed to be.

Many of those historical disputes and issues don't really have a "right" answer. The publishers of maps should not be required to take sides on such issues. It is quite reasonable for them to sell two maps each showing different borders.

Governments around the world also are in the habit of officially recognizing the existence of new governments. So, for example, if after a civil war, part of a country splits off and forms its own government, other countries must make a decision as to whether to recognize the newly formed government as authentic (and to do political negotiations, business, and trade, with it) or to reject it as invalid and continue to only recognize the previously existing government of the wider territory. Similar decisions have to be made when one country conquers another.

The response of Google Maps to the recent issue of Crimea is a good example: Two different groups are making competing claims about which country the territory of Crimea belongs to. So Google's response is to show two different maps of the region, and show to each person whichever map accords best with the view of the government of the person viewing the map.

A similar decision will have to be made with regard to ISIS. Should the maps show a new country formed in the region? Or should the maps continue to label the ISIS-controlled territories as Iraq and Syria even though those governments no longer have significant control over the territories that are officially 'theirs'?

Many Arab governments refuse to accept the validity of the government of Israel. Therefore according to them, maps should not include it. It seems reasonable for map-makers operating in those countries to sell maps in those areas that are in accordance with the prevailing political views. (Apparently it also saves on the use of white-out!)

At anyrate it seems orders of magnitude more reasonable and sane than Texas rewriting textbooks when facts aren't to their liking.

Just because a government refuses to acknowledge a state does not mean it does not objectively exist. The government of Israel is a real entity with pretty much complete hegemony on the area they claim to have under their control. This also applies to Crimea, which is now "independent", even if Ukraine cries otherwise because Russia guarantees their independence and Ukraine can't do anything about it.

[Starlight]

Just because a government refuses to acknowledge a state does not mean it does not objectively exist. The government of Israel is a real entity with pretty much complete hegemony on the area they claim to have under their control. This also applies to Crimea, which is now "independent", even if Ukraine cries otherwise because Russia guarantees their independence and Ukraine can't do anything about it.

I actually agree with you for once, and I personally think that the map-makers drawing borders where they are in practice, as opposed to paying any attention whatsoever to ongoing political disputes, is a good pragmatic approach.

Incidentally, that would have the effect of including ISIS on the map as a real country sooner rather than later. You might not like that consequence of your views.

[Darth Executor]

I actually agree with you for once, and I personally think that the map-makers drawing borders where they are in practice, as opposed to paying any attention whatsoever to ongoing political disputes, is a good pragmatic approach.

Incidentally, that would have the effect of including ISIS on the map as a real country sooner rather than later. You might not like that consequence of your views.

Why wouldn't I like that? I don't like Russia controlling Crimea anymore than I like ISIS controlling parts of Syria and Iraq. But borders are borders no matter how I feel about them.

[Cow Poke]

Of course I believe Israel exists. Does leaving it off a map somehow make it suddenly vanish?

If it was the Arab League printing the atlas, it could be understandable. But a major publisher who expects to maintain some credibility?

Would you feel the same way if Encyclopedia Britannica* printed an edition of encyclopedias that totally omitted any reference to Israel?




*are they still printing encyclopedias?

[KingsGambit]

This is especially sensitive because of some of the genocidal rhetoric that has been bandied about opposing Israel. In a small way, playing along with those who want Israel off the map legitimizes this.

[Joel]

It is an interesting question what makes political borders 'true' or 'false' (or neither?).
I think I mostly agree with Darth.

The OP article suggests that it's determined by the United Nations. But the UN tends to be a joke, and not much worth listening to. We can treat their claims as more or less arbitrary.
Then I saw the suggestion that it's determined by what individual governments "recognize." But again such "recognition" may be equally arbitrary and usually determined by political agendas. And as Starlight points out, that implies that it's a subjective matter--subjective to each government. And then ultimately subjective to every individual's own mind.

Which raises the question of whether there is any objective reality to borders?
It seems that there are two possibilities:

1) A border just shows the bounds of a territory where a given power happens to dominate (have hegemony), at any given point in time. Such lines may change rapidly and dramatically over time (as they have through history). Also when objectively considered, such lines are likely to be fuzzy, in which case they may be more accurately illustrated as a gradient shading, rather than a line. We should note that this explanation of borders says nothing about whether any such borders (or the powers that determine them) are good/bad, better/worse, (un)just, (il)legitimate, or any such thing. It's just a statement of fact about who is successfully exercising power/control over whom, at a given time. Also such (objective) borders may very well differ from what the various powers claim to be the case.

2) It can refer to an agreement made between the two powers on either sides of the line. It is just where the two powers have, for the time being, agreed to divide up their turf.

Or some combination of the two (as Starlight suggests in the case of there being some disagreement between U.S. and Canada).


So if we apply this to Israel? I don't think there is much agreement from the surrounding powers. They have on several occasions launched coordinated, full-scale invasions of that geographical area attempting to drive the power called Israel into the sea. So we have to fall back to (1). I don't it can be reasonably disputed that the Israel government has and maintains domination within that geographical area. This is most dramatically seen in the cases of those full-scale invasions, where the Israel government has ended up not only retaining control of that area but often also gaining control of additional land (including, once, the entire Sinai peninsula).

[KingsGambit]

I am mostly sympathetic to joel's proposal of recognizing borders in terms of objective military control, but this makes cartography difficult to navigate with territories in flux due to wars, lack of central control, or whatever. In such cases, I am fine with maps reflecting previously understood boundaries until the smoke clears and maps can later be revised. (But what do we do with, say, Kashmir? There's no easy answer to this under any paradigm.)

The Wikipedia article "Cartographic propaganda" shows how maps can be used for propaganda purposes in various manners. In Nazi Germany, maps were made both minimizing the size of Germany as opposed to the British Empire (to make the British appear as the aggressors), and exaggerating its size considerably. Clearly, an individual nation's political claims are not enough to rely on.

(Going by this, it seems difficult to deny that the Israeli government controls some land.)

[Cow Poke]

So if we apply this to Israel? I don't think there is much agreement from the surrounding powers. They have on several occasions launched coordinated, full-scale invasions of that geographical area attempting to drive the power called Israel into the sea.

But they seem to know where to amass their troops without causing international incidents, and at what point Israel would consider it an act of war, so --- Israel's enemies do, indeed, know where the borders are, and recognized them, much to their disliking.l

So we have to fall back to (1). I don't it can be reasonably disputed that the Israel government has and maintains domination within that geographical area. This is most dramatically seen in the cases of those full-scale invasions, where the Israel government has ended up not only retaining control of that area but often also gaining control of additional land (including, once, the entire Sinai peninsula).

Yeah, that.

[Joel]

I am mostly sympathetic to joel's proposal of recognizing borders in terms of objective military control, but this makes cartography difficult to navigate with territories in flux due to wars, lack of central control, or whatever.

I think the difficulty to due to flux is unavoidable.

Check out this animation of the map of Europe changing over 1000 years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1sjHGODFHg
For most of the history it appears to change every year (often dramatically).

[Teallaura]

This is especially sensitive because of some of the genocidal rhetoric that has been bandied about opposing Israel. In a small way, playing along with those who want Israel off the map legitimizes this.

Yeah, that!

[KingsGambit]

I used to be on a political forum where one poster not only denied the validity of the concept of borders; he denied that borders or countries actually existed in the first place. As one of his fellow an-caps told him; "I agree with your sentiment, but there are borders. You're going to get shot if you try to cross."