(See two important updates at the end of this post)
Earlier this month, the publishing house HarperCollins was the object of much negative publicity when it was revealed that they omitted Israel from maps in atlases sold to schools in the Middle East.
A spokesman for the HarperCollins subsidiary that specializes in maps told the British Christian newspaper, The Tablet, that including Israel would have been “unacceptable” to their customers in the Gulf and the amended map incorporated “local preferences.” However, following the embarrassing row that ensued, HarperCollins expressed regret for the omission, and assured concerned parties that the product had been removed from sale, and all the remaining stock pulped.
More recently, The Economist (in a Jan. 10th story in their print edition about shifting economic power and political influence in the Gulf) published this “amended” map of the region.
Does the magazine’s failure to note Israel’s presence represent merely an innocent mistake?
…
UPDATE: Economist editors responded to our query about the omission of Israel by noting that the map in question is about infrastructure in the Gulf. They explained that there are 20 states and territories that, along with Israel, were not labelled in the single-column map and that there was no attempt to deny the existence, or the right to exist, of any of them.
UPDATE II: Upon further consideration, it appears that our original assessment of the Economist map was not accurate. We accept the Economist’s explanation, and regret the impression created by this post that the absence of the word “Israel” on their map was an error or was in any way deceptive.
COMMITTEE FOR ACCURACY IN MIDDLE EAST REPORTING AND ANALYSIS
