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The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil,    but because of the people who don't do anything about it

Occupation magazine - Activism Home page  back Print  Send To friend Palestinian Artist, Israeli Mapping Experts: put missing Palestinian Villages on the map Congress to press Google, Apple to Correct Map Error Inbox x via .org via sg.actionnetwork.org 3:47 PM (21 hours ago) to info FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 14, 2016 Media Contact: Tamsin Avra | (650) 651-7165 | contact@RebuildingAlliance.org Palestinian artist and Israeli mapping experts meet Congress, hold Mapathon to press Google, Apple to map missing Palestinian Villages November 14, 2016 Washington, DC ¨C will be meeting with Congressional offices to ask their help to press Google and Apple to update their depiction of the West Bank to show what is actually there. Next, the team will fly to Silicon Valley where they`ve asked to meet the tech giants¡¯ mapping teams and, in celebration of GIS Week, hold a mapathon to add key sites in each village to Open Street Map, and if possible, to Google Maps and Apple Maps too. ¡°Thousands of children and families in Area C of the West Bank (the territories controlled entirely by Israel) can¡¯t locate their homes on Apple or Google maps, or on Waze (Google¡¯s subsidiary),¡± said Nava Sheer, a GIS mapping expert at Bimkom: Planners for Planning Rights. ¡°They are real locations ¨C however, in the virtual mapped world of the Web, they simply can¡¯t be found. In today¡¯s online society, that¡¯s as good as saying you don¡¯t exist.¡± Currently Google Maps and Apple Maps show Israeli settlements and outposts, which are illegal under international law and violate official US policy, while erroneously depicting an empty countryside. Google Maps are missing some 230 Palestinian villages and Apple Maps are missing nearly all 850 towns and villages. Here`s what the Google maps show now, and via animation, what they should be showing instead. ¡°I mapped my workshop on Google maps using their Add a Missing Place feature, but in fact, my whole village is missing,¡± said Eid Suleiman Hthaleen, the artist from Umm Al Kheir whose exhibition in Berlin was recently sponsored by Chinese dissident artist, Ai WeiWei. ¡°My village owns clear and undisputed title to our land, however the settlement next door cannot say the same.¡± Rebuilding Alliance, an American nonprofit, scheduled meetings with Congressional offices after hundreds of constituents emailed their legislators. This is Geography Awarness Week, so Thursday, with help from the Palestinian Coalition of the Bay Area, the team is holding a community Mapathon in Silicon Valley to work with Palestinian villagers and to map places of interest and send #HeresMyVillage photos to Google and Apple via social media. ¡°Both Google and Apple have received our GPS map data and both have told Congressional offices that there are no policy impediments to proceeding,¡± said Alon Cohen-Lifshitz, an architect and urban planner who leads Bimkom¡¯s analysis and assistance to Palestinian communities in the West Bank. ¡°We¡¯re here to help Google and Apple work through implementation details and we hope they will meet with us.¡± #### About the speakers and orgs: Eid Suleiman Hthaleen is a peace activist and self-taught artist from the Palestinian Bedouin village of Umm al Kheir, one of the villages that is not yet shown on Google or Apple Maps. He is a member of the Saaheb Collective, a group of friends and artists from the South Hebron Hills who use art and creativity to bring about social change. Eid¡¯s work, depicted here in an award-winning video, was recently exhibited in Berlin at the invitation of Chinese dissident artist Ai WeiWei who visited Eid in Umm al Kheir. BIMKOM ¨C Planners for Planning Rights is an Israeli non-profit organization formed in 1999 by a group of planners and architects, in order to strengthen democracy and human rights in the field of planning. Spatial planning plays a crucial role in determining the quality of our life and environment, as well as the prospects for socio-economic development and well-being of individuals and communities alike. Nava Sheer, an urban planner, is the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Coordinator at Bimkom ¨C Planners for Planning Rights in Jerusalem. Born in Bristol, Pennsylvania, Nava holds an MS in urban planning from Hunter College and BS in political science from Yeshiva University. Nava manages Bimkom¡¯s mapping projects in affordable housing and social justice, working with Palestinian communities in Israel, East Jerusalem, and Area C of the West Bank. Alon Cohen-Lifshitz is an architect and urban planner who leads Bimkom¡¯s activities in the West Bank, He joined Bimkom in 2004 and has been working directly with Palestinian villages to appeal decisions imposed by the Israeli civil administration and change Israeli planning policy regarding Palestinians in Area C of the West Bank. A graduate of the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, he also studied Art for Social Change at the Musrara School of art in Jerusalem and has been involved in many exhibitions. Rebuilding Alliance, is a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated to rebuilding war-torn communities and making them safe. Rebuilding Alliance opened fourteen years ago with a life-affirming vision: a just and enduring peace in Palestine and Israel founded upon equal rights, equal security, and equal opportunity for all. Rebuilding Alliance is asking Americans to send emails to their members of Congress who can better get Google and Apple¡¯s attention. Donna Baranski-Walker is Executive Director of Rebuilding Alliance and was awarded Special Congressional Recognition by Rep. Barbara Lee, Rep. Anna Eshoo, and Rep. Loretta Sanchez. Donna was recently awarded Rotary District 5150¡¯s Service Award and received the Rachel Corrie Conscience and Courage Award from the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee of Orange County. In 2010, Donna was awarded the Medal of Gratitude before 27,000 people at the Gdansk Shipyard. Her work in the Middle East began in 1990 with a NYTimes op©\ed, ¡°Small Lights in the Darkness,¡± just before the 1st Gulf War. The Palestinian American Coalition of the Bay Area is made up of many Palestinian-American organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area, working together to unify, strengthen, and preserve the culture of the Palestinian community. They organize Palestine Cultural Day in Golden Gate Park each year, and hold numerous speaking events to raise funds to meet education and humanitarian needs in Palestine. Action Network Sent via Action Network, a free online toolset anyone can use to organize. Click here to sign up and get started building an email list and creating online actions today. Action Network Links to the latest articles in this section Sunita`s Harp Tour in Israel and Palestine, Oct.-Nov. 2019 Sunita`s Harp Tour in Israel and Palestine, Oct.-Nov. 2019 Touring the Israeli Occupation: Young U.S. Jews Get an Unflinching View