Google changes Palestinian location from 'Territories' to 'Palestine' | Hacker News Reader

Google changes Palestinian location from 'Territories' to 'Palestine'

bbc.co.uk

136 pointswill_brown68 comments

This issue came up a few times before in discussion on Hacker News. A little known fact is that "facts on the ground," even entries in reference books or labeling on maps, can be taken in international law to indicate acquiescence to territorial claims by other countries (or to indicate assertion of hostile claims by the country in which the reference books or maps are published). This is why some countries with extensive programs of censorship censor maps, dictionaries, encyclopedias, websites, and whatever else is in reach of the government censorship program to make sure that private publications fall in line with the government's official position on territorial claims. (I have in my home office English-language and Chinese-language reference books published in Taiwan during the period of the military dictatorship there, which censor references to the existence of the independent country of Mongolia and assert province names for the mainland region of China that have been obsolete since 1949. Taiwan has since considerably loosened up on this kind of censorship after democratizing, but territorial claims vis a vis China are still a very sensitive issue.)

In countries without official programs of widespread censorship, government-published maps of other countries will still say things like "Boundary representations are not authoritative" and private publishers of maps in free countries will have notes near disputed boundary lines like "actual line of control; boundary in dispute" and so on. This is a pretty big deal in international law, so it is a somewhat big deal that Google, a business corporation organized under United States law, has changed its indication of the status of Palestine, even if only for the Google domain registered for the .ps top-level domain. The United States government may feel the need to make a formal statement to the effect that this action is the action of a private business corporation and does not represent an official view of the United States government.

Under International Law it is the Montevideo Convention, under which the four criteria for statehood are defined:

The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montevideo_Convention)

However, I like your phrase "facts on the ground" and think that is more on the practical side of what I might label "standing in the International Community" which is the most realistic aspect of designation of statehood.

Reality is not as straightforward as the Convention, which is pretty loose anyway (who defines that territory, government and capacity?). There are in fact two very different schools of thought on what creates statehood:

http://www.lawteacher.net/constitutional-law/essays/declarat...

Grant argues that current projects for the elaboration of >"Montevideo Plus" criteria for statehood are -- while legitimately attempting to infuse statehood with considerations that better reflect changing normative standards

Basically it is the convention plus the state be democratic - but this has already proven to be a failure in international law as a result of Afganistan democratically electing the Taliban and Palestine electing Hamas. So to my original reply I stand firm that the convention applies but more practically it is "standing in the international community" that is the norm of current international law (as of yet to be codified) and you can be sure it is not democracy as your referenced article suggests.

> proven to be a failure in international law as a result of Afganistan democratically electing the Taliban and Palestine electing Hamas

I'm not trying to condone either government, but why is this a failure? If (I'm assuming this for the argument's sake) they were really elected democratically who are we in other countries to say that's wrong? Wouldn't that be the same as giving merit to a (hypothetical) North Korea declarations that the US has no legitimate statehood for whatever reason?

Why we value democracy? What is it in this process that we think it is good when it's there and is bas when it isn't? Why we think democracy is better than monarchy, for example?

If you think about it, one answer could be - because democracy tends to possess some features we find valuable and necessary, such as respect for the rights and freedoms of people that we consider basic and unalienable, personal security from arbitrary prosecution by the government, orderly transition of power, general participation of the population in the political process, not inhibited by government restrictions, etc.

Now if you look at what happens in Gaza with Hamas, you will find very little of that. Personal rights are not respected, government is a bunch of armed thugs ruling with iron fist and violently suppressing any dissent and any competing movement (it helps little that those are another bunch of armed thugs), and in general almost no benefit of democracy except the ability to vote for whoever is already in power is available to the citizens. If this is not a failure, what is?

However, if we look into the matter even more, I'm not sure there was democratic election involved at the first place. Political fate of Gaza was decided in 2007 in violent clashes between Fatah and Hamas, and Fatah lost. It would probably have lost also if the elections were fully democratic, but what actually happened and the process that led Hamas to assume power in Gaza had almost nothing to do with democracy.

I'm not really interested in those two specific examples used by the OP. My question was more along the lines of the beginning of your reply.

The association of the features you mention with 'our' view of democracy is part of why I personally associate "democracy" and "good".

But, for example, why is it "bad" if people democratically choose a government with values different from ours? Shouldn't the 'voice of the people' be of enough value?

It's not "bad" per se, but the history teaches us that governments that do not share the values of personal rights and freedoms very soon devolve into the governments that are treating their citizens very badly and the citizens themselves are living very poorly. It also happens very frequently that while initial consent may be given by democratic means, very soon such consent is not required anymore by the government and it usurps the power completely and does not let the citizens to dissent and choose better government anymore, instead forcing the citizens to accept the fruits of their poor choice in the past forever, or at least until they can overthrow such government by violent means.

>>> Shouldn't the 'voice of the people' be of enough value?

Not every "voice of the people" has equal value. For example, if 100 years ago in the US white majority would vote to keep black people in slavery, would we now recognize this decision as good and legitimate? What if there were a country somewhere else right now that has majority oppressing the minority and denying them their rights and freedoms? I think we would consider it "bad", despite formal requirement of "voice of the people" being satisfied. That's why, I think, USA is a republic, and while Americans elect their leaders democratically, there are limits to what "voice of the people" could do, at least until current system of government persists.

>why is this a failure?

I am offering a objective standard based on the international community where UN authorized the use of force in one example (which i believe violates the UN charter)and where the other is not a member state. Compare that with a post WW2 era where former colonies throughout the world became independent states simply through "self determination" and democratic elections. The double standard is again attributable to change in international norms, again this creates a problem because the international community does not want to codify their own position that they are unwilling to recognize a democratically elected government.

>Who are we in other courtries to say what's wrong?

"We" should not be referring to individuals with opinions but the international community and I think most would argue the international community has a duty to create international law, norms and customs or in your words say what is wrong behavior.

Here's something few people seem to be aware of - Taiwan agrees it is part of China (aka 'One China' [1]).

While we often hear about the government in Beijing claiming the island as the sovereign territory of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), we don't hear much about the claims made by the government in Taipei that the mainland is the sovereign territory of the Republic of China (ROC).

Although both sides dispute who is the sole legitimate government of a single China, they both agree that territorially it includes the island of Taiwan. Meanwhile, a recent poll suggests that for people on the ground, opinion is divided.[2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-China_policy

[2] http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2013/04/30/2...

>Taiwan agrees it is part of China (aka 'One China' [1]).

That is laughably wrong. I say that as someone who's spent half his adult life in Taiwan. Only a very, very slim minority of Taiwanese feel that Taiwan is "part of China". Even the KMT (國民黨）has long given up that stance.

The tension is between those who want to officially (i.e. UN) recognized independence and those accept the status quo of de facto independence in the interests of avoiding a hopeless war with China. Taiwan has never been part of the the PRC. While a significant minority of Taiwanese people hope for a future democratic China, those in favor of unifying with the PRC measure at under 5%.

> Even the KMT (國民黨）has long given up that stance.

Are you sure? Just a few days ago, the President (and leader of the KMT party) said:

No matter where we are, here or abroad, we’ll by no means push for ‘Two Chinas’, ‘One Taiwan, one China’ or ‘Taiwan independence’.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/399347/taiwan-leader-pledges-to...

"One China" means different things when spoken by the KMT and by PRC.

Yes, I am sure. Taiwan was my home for many years, most of my best friends live there and I still follow the local media in the local language and watched election campaign speeches for multiple candidates in each of the last two elections in person. What about you?

KMT leaders prior to Ma pushed for unification. During Ma's campaign in 2008, he repeatedly emphasized that he would not support any sort or unification or annexation. This created a rift between him, Lian Zhan and the rest of the old guard, but without that assurance he couldn't have won.

"The one China policy" has a specific political meaning -- it's intentionally ambiguous as to what "China" is (a country or a civilization). While the policy isn't exactly loved by most in Taiwan, it allows the peaceful continuance of Taiwan's de facto independence. Any formal break from the policy to formalize this independence is extremely dangerous as the article you linked to points out:

"Beijing has threatened to invade in response to any such declaration."

Also, it's important to point out the role of the US. The US has pledged to treat Taiwan as a country in the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, but has stated that any support or defense of Taiwan could end in the case of a formal declaration of independence.

He is saying Taiwan is asserting China is a part of Taiwan, with the ROC government in control, not unifying with PRC.

It's interesting to read this post as a "western world citizen" whose country's boundaries rarely (if never) change (well, I don't think a big part of HN ever heard of its country boundaries ever changed in his lifetime).

It felt eye-opening when I stumbled on this issue some years ago. We were building a Google Maps app for a branch of the UN and my boss told me we needed to hide the map's boundaries and use the ones supplied by the UN. I was rather intrigued and he explained how the boundaries used by Google sometimes clashed with the UN's recognition of boundaries for some countries. So I went and loaded the KML using the UN-official boundaries.

Of course, I see some were quick to jump the "Google is taking too much power" bandwagon, but a story is not just on HN to be told but also to engage our minds to reflect. And to me, the story here seems to be about digital recognition of countries beginning to be almost on par with international recognition, and how the digital world, that we thought (hoped?) would abolish the frontiers between men, is still taking these frontiers in account.

Borders change quite a bit, Yugoslavia broke up, and Czechoslovakia too, both of which I am sure many HN readers are from. East and West Germany merged, even more HN readers from there.

Guilty on this one, especially since Germany is a neighboring country and I didn't even think of it. Which illustrates my point: when our borders never changed, we can have a tendency to take them for granted and not imagine that other countries are struggling to have theirs recognized.

We've already had our first Google Maps "war". http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/the-first-go...

If it was this easy, google should take a survey in asia and redraw the map of every country there. A map of India with Line of Control with Kashmir and Line of Actual control with China as real borders should permanently resolve the issues between three nuclear armed nations.

There is more. The island between Japan and China. The island between Russia and Japan. Also for Sri Lanka create a map of Tamil nation with Jaffna as capital. And Taiwan..

Wish it was so easy...

Hell, that would even solve the disputes between the USA and Canada [1]. </sarcasm>

1- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_areas_disputed_by_Canad...

Edit: Just adding some context, the disputes mostly deal with islands and areas of the sea. Canada, other 163 countries, and the European Union join the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea; but the USA does not.

Well done Google. Palestine is and always has been a country, occupation or not. To call it by any other name is simply ignorant and uneducated.

Part of me (the part that watches Better Off Ted) thinks this is just another change along the lines of the recent Gmail minimalism.

The new logo which drops the word "territories" looks much cleaner and switching to Palestine from Palestinian really tightens things up.

I don't think it's as simple as that. For example there was a debate about Google Farsi[1]. It used to be Google Parsi which is closer to Persian culture but then it changed to Google Farsi which is new name of Parsi (Persian language) after adopting Arabic alphabet by Persians.

Farsi vs. Parsi has tons of difference. People got mad and happy for this decision. I don't believe this kind of decision is made by design team.

[1] https://www.google.com/webhp?hl=fa

Wow, odd coincidence here. I was just taking a stroll through the ISO 3166-1 country lists to update our own database and noticed that they had changed it to "Palestine, State Of".

I'm not sure when it happened, but I dutifully changed ours to match (in the same way Google has) as following the standards orgs is generally good practice.

Bravo Google.

And the relevant XKCD:

http://xkcd.com/787/

A relevant letter sent to the New York Times in 1975:

---

Dear Sir:

Your newspaper frequently uses the term "Palestinian" to describe a section of the Middle East population which is Arab, to differentiate it from Israeli Jews. As the holder of a Palestinian Identity Card and a Certificate of Discharge from a Palestinian Unit of the British army, I find this practice annoying and certainly untrue...

We Palestinian Jews wore the uniform of the British Army, and on our shoulder epaulettes the single word, "Palestine" in English. We tried to get permission to wear Hebrew insignia, fly the Jewish flag and be recognized as Palestinian Jews, but-no, Palestinian meant Jew and Arab, and who cared if there were fewer than 3000 Arabs as compared to 36,000 Jews in khaki? In British Army nomenclature, the equivalent of a GI is BOR, meaning British Other Rank. We were formally known as POR, Palestinian Other Ranks.

So we fought the war as Palestinians, set up the Jewish Brigade as Palestinians, and I'll be damned if I agree that only Arafat and his assassins are Palestinians.

As a Palestinian, I was arrested by the British on suspicion of smuggling immigrants into the country. As a Palestinian, I had the honor of commanding the 329th Palestinian Company of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME - all Jews). There were no equivalent Arab units. Once a British general said to me, "Migawd| I have so many things to dislike you for, for being a Jew, American born, a Palestinian-and you don't even know how to handle a knife and fork!

So cut it out, please. Call them what you will, but not Palestinians.

Yours truly, Joe Criden

---

Source: http://afsi.org/pamphlets/PalestiniansKahn.pdf

While this helps showcase the problem in nomenclatures and how people relate to them, I personally don't feel there was that much to this specific claim/complaint.

The population at the 'British Mandate of Palestine' (which resulted in the name of the unit in the British army at the time) was mostly of Arabs. Especially if you also count parts of Transjordan that some claim where also "Palestinian".

Agreeing to definitions is usually hard, and especially so in that region.

I find the source, the subject matter, and the motive of the letter to be rather questionable.

I hereby declare Quebec free.

> "In this case, we are following the lead of the UN, Icann, ISO and other international organisations."

Maybe corporations will start to recognize Quebec as free when the UN, ICANN, ISO, and a handful of other apolitical organizations do too, as is the case with the officially recognized state of Palestine.

> Maybe corporations will start to recognize Quebec as free when the UN, ICANN, ISO, and a handful of other apolitical organizations do too

UN, ICANN, and ISO aren't apolitical organizations.

No organization is apolitical.

Some are much closer to being apolitical: Doctors without Borders and the Red Cross, for example.

Vive le Québec libre! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vive_le_Qu%C3%A9bec_libre)

You do that. Nobody wants Quebec.

It could end up like Lesotho, or worse, like Bophuthatswana, Ciskei, Transkei, or Venda. (the trick to setting up independent states to get rid of territory seems to be setting up several at once, which all cross-recognize each other, so you can claim they're each recognized by "several states". Maybe ditch the Maritimes at the same time?

Declare everyone free, within Quebec and without, and I'll be there with you. Until then it's just another government deciding what to do with "its" people.

It's interesting how internet companies are taking authority over many things away from official entities that nominally should have that authority.

For example owning the domain name is more important than registering a trademark for that name.

> It's interesting how internet companies are taking authority over many things away from official entities that nominally should have that authority.

What authority is google taking up here? A text change on a localized website? Nothing about the I/P conflict is changed here. Unless Google's gotten a seat on the UN Security Council since I last read the news.

Maps really are just lines on paper. "A text change on a localized website" is all the power you need to recognize someone's authority.

True, though recognition of someone's authority is not "taking" authority at all, which is what OP was complaining about.

One can make the argument that Google shouldn't be endorsing either side, but taking authority away from either they are not.

> One can make the argument that Google shouldn't be endorsing either side, but taking authority away from either they are not.

Referring to Palestine as an entity is (an act certain to be seen, especially by the other side, as) endorsing one sides position.

Not referring to Palestine as an entity in and of itself but instead referring to "Palestinian Territories" is also (an act certain to be seen, especially by the other side, as) endorsing one sides position.

Even having or not having a .ps localized site would meet that description.

There really is nothing with regard to the whole Israel/Palestine issue that is not going to be seen as endorsing one side or the other.

The point is that these days having Google recognize your claims to being a country is more important than having the UN recognize it (which it doesn't, yet Google does).

When the UN recognizes Palestine, it will be much more significant than Google's copy change.

> When the UN recognizes Palestine, it will be much more significant than Google's copy change.

The UN granted Palestine the status of "Non-member observer State" last year. This status change is one of the many by international organizations with regard to Palestine that led to Google making the "copy change" at issue here.

Notice Google said "In this case, we are following the lead of the UN, Icann, ISO and other international organisations."

Not only does the UN recognize Palestine as a state. But ICANN, ISO, and other international standards organizations do too.

> The point is that these days having Google recognize your claims to being a country is more important than having the UN recognize it (which it doesn't, yet Google does).

Actually, Google is (and this is covered in their announcement) following the UN and other international organizations in the wording change (which is not, on Google's part, recognition of Palestine as a State so much as recognition that it is an entity with the name "Palestine" rather than "Palestinian Territories".)

Also, the UN, as of last year, actually does recognize Palestine as a State, having accorded it the status of a "Non-member observer State". http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2012/ga11317.doc.htm

Thanks for the link.

I don't think companies should take a stance on political issues, which is what Google is doing here.

Would actually prefer companies have totally no influence on politics at all, but as we all know, that would be an utopia.

How could Google avoid taking a stance? Either they call it one thing or the other. Or they could call every contested bit of land Narnia but then no one would be happy with them.

I agree. The domain name is already in political territory. Maybe if domain names were by language instead of location...

That would be nowhere easier.

Many languages have different names across populations. And people strongly identify to a specific nomenclature.

Also, many people speak multiple languages, languages that cross disputed borders, and languages spoken only by populations that want independence from the current states where they're located (e.g. Basque).

That wouldn't solve or even sidestep any political issues. You've still got problems like: * ip geocoding to decide which language to serve the UI in * what do you call the languages? Chinese vs Traditional vs Simplified, or Farsi vs Parsi vs Persian, as mentioned elsewhere

And while political boundaries are messy, language boundaries are even more so. How do you decide dialect boundaries? And once you do, how do you decide which dialects get separate domains?

"How could Google avoid taking a stance? Either they call it one thing or the other."

Perhaps avoiding taking a stance could take the form of following the current practice of major players (UN and others)...?

Which is exactly what they've just done?

You do realise that however they refer to the region ('Palestine' or 'Palestinian Territories'), they're making a political statement.

Their reasoning (following the example of multiple international organisations - including the UN, ICANN, and ISO) is sound.

And it's not just Google that's affected either.

Imagine making a desktop environment and e.g. showing a world map to select your time zone.

Or having a list of countries & regions to assist the user with localization. Seemingly any list of countries you show will "make a political statement" to someone out there. KDE, for example, had many bugs filed about the naming used for what the ISO calls the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonia_naming_dispute

http://www.iso.org/iso/home/standards/country_codes/country_...

Redhat actually removed Taiwan from KDE's list of locales to please PRC: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/10/6/173153/329

> "In this case, we are following the lead of the UN, Icann, ISO and other international organisations."

Sounds like this was the less political choice, really.

Not if, like OP, you define "political" as, "different than my preference."

I don't think this comment makes much sense. If the original name was not political, then the change should be apolitical too. If the choice of text on the .ps page was a "political issue," then google's use of "Palestinian Territories" was already political in a pro-Israeli way – changing it is no worse than keeping up the old text.

Yes, I know you're jumping on the "corporations have too much power" bandwagon, but here I don't think it makes any sense.

Why Google made this change, from the article, "In this case, we are following the lead of the UN, Icann [the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers], ISO [International Organisation for Standardisation] and other international organisations."

When it comes to Israel/Palestine, every mapmaker in the world is taking a stance.

> I don't think companies should take a stance on political issues, which is what Google is doing here.

Every possible choice of wording for anything having to do with the area of land bounded by the Mediterranean Sea, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt involves taking a stance on a contentious political issue.

I don't think corporations (or anyone else) should avoid making such choices because they inherently require taking such a stance, nor do I think that they should avoid changing such choices because of that.

My maps show Lebanon with Syria to the north and east, the Mediterranean Sea to the west. I imagine yours do also.

Yeah, yeah.

Edited: Turkey -> Lebanon

Even those bordering countries/areas are unclear. cf Golan Heights (which resulted in Facebook being banned by the Syrian government); and the dispute between Lebanon and Israel on maritime borders.

Talk about messy...

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