Art of War, Art of Resistance: Palestinian Counter-Cartography on Google Earth

Abstract

Rarely discussed about the Israel–Palestinian conflict is the antagonism that exists between the Palestinian leadership and the refugees. With the advent of the Oslo “peace process” in the 1990s, the antagonism began to escalate, for the process's key assumption became that the leadership would relinquish the refugees' right to return home so that Israel would be preserved as a majority Jewish state in exchange for the Palestinian leadership's sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Because the refugees’ return home would upset the demographic balance of a Jewish-majority state, they have become impossible figures for both Israel and for the Palestinian leadership's political frame, an “impossibility” that is taken for granted in dominant maps of Palestine/Israel. This article highlights some ways the refugees have refused this erasure by mapping onto the land their historical presence. Taking their use of Google Earth as a case study, it begins by providing background on Google Earth, situating the software's prehistory within Cold War battles for surveillance and control. It then points to some “cracks” Google Earth's introduction has presented the post–Cold War political scene with: namely, that nation-states are today stumbling to control with whom maps are shared, who can make them, and what they will look like. It then moves on to show how the refugees have taken advantage of the State of Israel's (as well as the Palestinian leadership's) inability to control the map, in the process rendering the geoweb a new battlefield in the conflict. I conclude with an analysis of how cartographically placing Israel's founding and perpetual violence at the fore, as the Palestinian refugees' counter-cartography does, can help to move forward the refugees' demands for justice. Key Words: counter-cartography, geoweb, Google, Palestine, qualitative GIS, social movements.