The maps are ubiquitous-for phones, flight and automobile displays and in textbooks around the world. While some maps determine territories and boundaries, others show different blocks of voting in elections, and GPS devices help drivers go to the destination.
But no matter the purpose, all maps have something to do: They are political. The maps involve making decisions about what to disregard and what to have in mind. They are subject to selection, classification, abstraction and simplifications. And studying elections that enter the maps, like meHe can reveal various stories about the land and individuals who consider it their very own.
Nowhere is it more true than in the contested regions that today include contemporary Israel and Palestinian territories. Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, various government and non -governmental organizations and political interests have been involved in what’s best to explain as “Maps of wars. “
The region’s maps use the name of places, the position of borders and the inclusion or omission of some territories to present contrasting geopolitical visions. To today, Israel or Palestinian territories may fall from some maps, depending on the policy of their creators.
This doesn’t apply only to the Middle East – “MAP wars” are ongoing around the world. Some of the more known examples include the disputes between Ukraine and Russia, Taiwan and ChinaAND India and China. Everyone is involved in the controversy regarding the territorial integrity of nation -states.
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Short history of maps
Traditionally, maps were used to represent cosmology, cultures and beliefs. In the seventeenth century, the maps represented spatial relations on a given territory Beaome vital for the creation of national states. Such official maps helped with an attachment of territories and determine property rights. Indeed, mapping territory that’s to know and control it.
Recently, map creation tools have change into more available. Anyone who has access to the computer and the Internet can now create and share “alternative maps” that present various visions of the territory and make a number of geopolitical claims.
And the maps produced in the conflict region, akin to Israel and Palestinian territories, tell a wealthy story about the relationship between map creation and politics.
Middle East mapping
While The British Palestine Mandate in 1917–1947British inspectors mapped territories to manage the ground and its people. It was an attempt to interchange more informal claims from the Ottoman land of those times.
By Establishment of Israel in 1948IN Only about 20% of the total area of what’s often known as historical Palestine – The undeniable fact that he still fueled disputes about the earth today. The British efforts of mapping and their omission enabled the newly established state of Israel to acknowledge most territories as state lands, thus delegitimizing claims from the Palestinian region.
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The maps also helped construct an Israeli state. Surveyors and planners mapped the land to assign land rights and helped construct state infrastructure, including roads and railways.
But the maps also helped to create a sense of nationality. Maps representing the shape of the nation by sketching its national borders are often known as Maps “Logo”. They can increase the sense of national unity and a sense of national belonging.
After establishing, the Israeli state converted the maps of the region. The Israeli government commission invented Hebrew names, which previously replaced Arab and Christian names for various cities and villages on the official map of Israel. At the same time, there have been previously Palestinian topographs and places omitted from the map.
However, some Palestinian map creators still create maps, including the Palestinian named and present the historical Palestine before 1948-which extends from the Jordan River in the East to the Mediterranean in the West. Such maps are used to support the right of Palestinians for landing and supporting the sense of national affiliation.
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At the same time, Palestinian cartographers who work with Palestinian authority – The government body, which manages partial civil control over Palestinian enclaves on the west shore – creates official maps of the West Brzeg and Gaza in the hope of creating the future state of Palestine. They adapt their maps to UN efforts to map territories in accordance with international law by winning the West Bank and Gaza as separate from Israel.
After In 1967, the war between Israel and his Arab neighborsIsrael occupied the west and gauze. As a results of the wars of the map, he intensified, especially between different fractions in Israel. The leftist “peace camp”, which was dedicated to territorial compromises with Palestinians, was directed against the Israeli right -wing wing involved in the recovery of the “promised land” for ensuring the security of Israel.
Such incompatible geopolitical visions are still reflected in produced maps. The maps of the “peace camp” adhere to the designation of territories in accordance with international law. For example, they include a green line – a recognized international weapon line between the western shore and Israel. Official maps produced by the Israeli government, while, He stopped setting a green line after 1967.
Wider and border disputes
Various interest groups and political actors not only used the region’s maps to make competitive geopolitical claims, but the maps also played a key role in sporadic efforts to ascertain peace in the region.
. 1993 Oslo contractsThe goal was that after a five -year temporary period, a everlasting peace settlement was negotiated based on the boundaries set out on these maps.
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Consequently, Palestinian planners and surveyors he mapped the territory Assigned to the future state of Palestine. Due to the undeniable fact that Oslo guarantees only the future state – but with its borders and the level of sovereignty still uncertain – Palestinian experts are still preparing for the ruling territories by mapping them.
Oslo maps are still used today to stipulate the geopolitical visions of Israel and the future state of Palestine based on international law. But for a lot of Israelis, the vision of Oslo The two -state solution has died – The attack of Hamas, a Palestinian nationalist political organization, which rules gauze, on Israel on October 7, 2023, was his last blow.
Another war between Israel and Hamas, currently being suspended by weapons, from the very starting was related to the maps.
In December 2023, the Israeli army published an internet “Map of evacuation”, which divided the Gaza belt into 623 zones. Palestinians can go to online mode – provided that they’ve access to electricity and the Internet on the territory harassed by browning – to search out out if their area has been called to evacuate. Israeli military commanders I used this map Decide where to shoot raids and perform ground maneuvers.
But the map also served the political goal: to persuade the skeptical world Israel took care of protect civilians. Regardless, its introduction caused it Confusion and fear amongst Palestinians.
Determining the road forward
Maps usually are not only to grasp the past and present – they assist people also imagine the future. Different maps can reveal conflicting geopolitical visions.
For example, in January 2024 Israel’s victory conference. The goal was to plan the resettlement of Gaza and increase Jewish settlements on the west bank. The speakers were in favor of transferring Palestinians from the belt to Sinai through “voluntary emigration”. Because Jewish settlers plan to return to Gaza, and the speakers cite each the safety of the Bible and Israel on justification, the oversized map showed the location of the proposed Jewish settlements.

Paintings Amir Levy/Getty
Similarly, the Israeli Movement for the settlement in Southern Lebanon published Maps of planned Jewish settlements in southern Lebanon.
Such maps reveal the desire for some in Israel for “Larger Israel“-Inzar described in 1904 by Theodor Herzl, considered the father of up to date Zionism, as the stream of Egypt to the Euphrate.
No wonder that Palestinians make different maps to assume the future. Flast appearing – Palestinian and international initiative, which mixes various experts, organizations and founders – uses maps connecting gauze with the west bank and a wider region.
Flast appearing
Their goal is to rework gauze in Commercial Hub for Trade, Tourism and Innovation and integrate it with the global economy. Therefore, maps of urban projects, airports and seaports overlap the cartographic contours of Gaza; and the corridor of Bank Gaza-West, which could be sealed for Israeli security, can connect two geographically separate Palestinian territories.
Such maps reflect the efforts of Palestinian stakeholders in order to further study territories, which since the agreement in Oslo were to be the future state of Palestine.
A brand new era of expansion geopolitics
With the current US administration more adapted to the right -wing Israeli policyMaps of a larger Israel can lead what Hagit ofran from Room now calls the starting of the latest “Larger Israel“Politics period.
Seemingly increasing US rule, a long -term policy of supporting a two -state solution in which Gaza could be a part of the Palestinian state, Donald Trump on February 4, 2025. He raised a plan for the United States to “take over” gauzeby leading their current residents and transforming the enclave into “” Riviera Middle East “.
Such a move could be one other try to convert borders in the Middle East. However, this is able to not end the “map of the map” in Israel/Palestine.