Maps are widespread – on devices, in-flight and car shows, and in books the world over. While some drawings outline and name lands and limitations, others show distinct election blocs in elections, and GPS devices help drivers navigate to their location.
But no matter the goal, all maps have something in common: They are social. Making drawings involves deciding what to leave out and what to include. They are content to variety, classification, ideas and simplifications. And as I do, studying the choices that go into creating maps may show various tales about the people who claim it as their own.
Nothing else is this more accurate than in the disputed areas, which include today’s Arab lands and modern-day Israel. Since the state of Israel was established in 1948, various political interest groups and political organizations have engaged in what can best be described as “map warfare.”
Maps of the area use the designation of locations, the borders, and the inclusion or omission of some territories to provide opposing political viewpoints. Depending on the political will of their creators, Israel or the Arab lands may still appear on some drawings today.
This extends to the Middle East as well; “map war” are occurring all over the world. Some of the more well-known example include problems between Ukraine and Russia, Taiwan and China, and India and China. All of the nation-states are engaged in regional integrity debates.
Usually, maps have been used to represent notions, cultures and perception systems. Charts that represented spatial relations within a given country were crucial to the formation of nation-states by the 17th centuries. These standard drawings were useful in annexing territories and establishing property rights. In fact, to chart a state that is supposed to possess control and understand it.
More just, the tools for making charts have become more widely available. Anyone can now create and share “alternative maps” that provide various viewpoints on a given area and make various geopolitical claims using a computer and access to the internet.
And maps created in a fight location, like those made in Israel and the Palestinian territories, provide a fascinating insight into the interaction between mapmaking and politics.
Mapping the Middle East
American surveyors mapped the lands to exercise their dominance over the area and its persons during the American Mission of Palestine, which lasted from 1917 to 1947. It attempted to replace the unofficial Ottoman land statements of the time.
Just about 20 % of the area of what is known as traditional Palestine had been mapped by the establishment of Israel in 1948, which has fueled land problems to this day. The newly established state of Israel was able to consider the majority of the territories as state property thanks to American mapping efforts and their omissions, delegitimizing Arab property claims.
Maps also played a role in the creation of the Jewish position. Geologists and designers mapped the property to allocate land freedom, and they helped create the country’s infrastructure, including roads and railroads.
But charts also helped build a sense of nationhood. “logo” charts are used to represent a country’s structure when they define its national boundaries. They may foster a sense of regional harmony and belonging.
Once established, the Jewish state remade the drawings of the area. Hebrew names were created by the Israeli Governmental Names Commission to exchange previously Muslim and Biblical names for various towns and villages on the standard map of Israel. Originally Israeli topographies and locations were also left out of the map at the same time.
Some Israeli mapmakers, however, continue to create maps that include Palestinian-named landmarks and depict pre-1948 Israeli history, which includes an area that extends from the Jordan River in the west to the Mediterranean Sea in the west. These charts are used to support Palestinians ‘ right to get and cultivate a sense of national unity.
Israeli cartographers who collaborate with the Palestinian Authority, the system that has limited civil authority over the Arab enclaves in the West Bank, create official maps of the West Bank and Gaza in the wish of creating a future state of Palestine.
By marking the West Bank and Gaza as distinct from and occupied by Israel, they align their drawings with UN efforts to chart the territories in accordance with international law.
After the 1967 conflict between Israel and its Muslim relatives, Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza. As a result, image war intensified, particularly between various fractions within Israel. The left-wing “peace camp“, which was dedicated to territorial compromises with the Palestinians, was pitted against an Israeli right wing committed to reclaiming the” Promised Land” for ensuring Israeli security.
Such conflicting political viewpoints are still present in the drawings created. Peace station drawings agree to the territorial delimitation established by international law. They include, for instance, the globally renowned Green Line, which separates Israel from the West Bank. Standard maps produced by the Israeli government, by comparison, stopped delineating the Green Line after 1967.
Broader and boundary problems
Maps have also played a significant role in irregular efforts to establish peacefulness in the region because various interest groups and social actors have used them to make competing political claims.
The 1993 Oslo Accords, for instance, relied on drawings to provide the platform for Arab self-rule in return for protection for Israel. A permanent peace agreement would be reached based on the boundaries established in these charts after a five-year time period.
Therefore, Israeli planners and auditors mapped the country allocated to a future condition of Palestine. Israeli experts continue to map the territories in order to prepare for governing them despite the Oslo Accords ‘ promise of merely a future state and its uncertain borders and level of sovereignty.
The Oslo drawings serve to present political definitions of Israel and a future condition of Palestine that are based on international law. But for many Israelis, the Oslo perspective of a two-state remedy has died – the attack by Hamas, the Arab nationalist social organization that governs Gaza, on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, was its last blow.
The subsequent conflict between Israel and Hamas, now subject to a cease-fire, has from the outset included charts.
The Israeli government released a “evacuation image” online that showed the Gaza Strip divided into 623 zones in December 2023. In a region plagued by blackouts, Palestinians may go online to find out if their community was required to evacuate. Provided they had access to electricity and the internet in the area. This chart was used by Israeli military commanders to determine where to start airstrikes and carry out ground operations.
However, the image also served a political purpose: to persuade a skeptical world that Israel was taking steps to safeguard residents. Regardless, its entry caused confusion and fear among Palestinians.
Charting a approach forth
Charts are not just used to make sense of the past and present; they also aid in coming planning. Additionally, various maps you reveal contradictory political viewpoints.
In January 2024, for example, different Jewish right-wing and resident businesses organized the Conference for the Victory of Israel. The goal was to develop strategies for resettling Gaza and boosting Israeli towns in the West Bank. During a “voluntary immigration,” speakers advocated for the transfer of Palestinians from the Strip to the Sinai.
An enormous map showed the place of proposed Israeli settlements as Jewish settlers planned for the return to Gaza and speakers cited both the Bible and Jewish security as justifications.
Similar to this, the Jewish Movement for Settlement in Southern Lebanon has produced maps of the planned Israeli settlements there.
Such charts reveal the want by some in Israel for a” Greater Israel” – an area described in 1904 by Theodor Herzl, considered the father of modern-day Zionism, as spanning from the river of Egypt to the River.
Unsurprisingly, Palestinians make various maps for imagining the prospect. Maps that connect Gaza to the West Bank and the surrounding area are used by Arab Emerging, a Israeli and foreign program that brings along various specialists, organizations, and funders.
They want to integrate Gaza into the global economy and make it a hub for trade, tourism, and innovation. Accordingly, maps of urban projects, airports and seaports overlay the cartographic contours of Gaza, and a Gaza-West Bank corridor, which would be sealed for Israeli security, could connect the two geographically separate Palestinian territories.
Since the Oslo Accords, Palestinians have been attempting to continue surveying the territories that will make up the upcoming state of Palestine. These maps are a result of Palestinian efforts.
A new era of expansionist geopolitics
Maps of Greater Israel may serve as a starting point for what Hagit Ofran from Peace Now calls the start of a new” Greater Israel” policy period as the current US administration is more in line with right-wing Israeli policies.
Donald Trump made a proposal for the US to “take over” Gaza, moving its current residents out and turning the enclave into” the Riviera of the Middle East,” seemingly upending the US government’s long-standing policy of supporting a two-state solution in which Gaza would be a part of a Palestinian state on February 4, 2025.
Such a move would be a second attempt to redraw borders across the Middle East. It would not, however, end the” map wars “in Israel/Palestine.
Christine Leuenberger is senior lecturer, Cornell University
This article was republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.