Amid the ongoing Gaza conflict and concerns about “war crimes” in TelAviv’s activities, leading Chinese tech giants, such as Baidu and Alibaba,have taken an unprecedented step by quietly removing Israel from theironline maps.
This omission of Israel’s name, while still showing the borders betweenIsrael and the Palestinian territories, has sparked a significant debate inthe digital sphere. Many are questioning China’s motivations behind thisdecision, especially considering even smaller countries like Luxembourg arefeatured on Alibaba’s maps.
The ongoing involvement of Israel in the Gaza Strip has already raisedinternational concerns and calls for ceasefires and diplomacy. Thisdeliberate removal of Israel from the online maps adds another layer to thediscussions surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, leading toquestions about how global powers perceive the situation. While China hasnot officially commented on this change, the act of removing Israel fromtheir digital maps marks a significant departure from the standardpractices in the field of digital cartography.
