Accusations online that Google had deleted Palestine from its Maps facility prompted the internet giant to explain that the country “has never been” on the service. 

The row came after a technical glitch caused the West Bank and Gaza to briefly disappear from Google Maps.

Instead of being demarcated with a solid line that denotes a country border, Google instead defines the Gaza Strip and the West Bank with a dashed border – the mark it uses to outline disputed territories.

Google was forced to explain that it doesn’t define Palestine as a country separate from Israel on Maps after a petition signed by 250,000 people described the company’s “airbrushing” of Palestine as “deeply offensive” and called for the internet giant to put Palestine on its map.

Al-Jazeera’s social media arm, AJ+, reported that the petition called for Google to reinstate the label “Palestine” onto its map after a complaint by the forum of Palestinian journalists spread via social media and later news outlets with the hashtag #PalestineIsHere. But further investigation by the media outlet claims that the label wasn’t removed at all as it was apparently not labelled to begin with.

See alsoAnti-Israel media giant accidentally says “Palestine” was “never there to begin with”

The discovery has caused a wide anti-Israel backlash with AJ+ failing to remove comments on its post that are clearly anti-Semitic. Some AJ+ followers claimed the reason for the omission was that Google is “owned by a Jew” and that “Israel are the real terrorists”

Abdul

Sameer

One follower went even further.

Carmen

But not all the comments demonstrated hatred towards Israel. Here is one user that openly defended Israel:

Yaron