A series of maps has been circulating on college campuses, anti-Israel websites, and even in mainstream publications that purportedly depict “Palestinian land loss.” They have appeared as advertisements in New York train stations and on the sides of buses in Vancouver. The maps combine a number of false claims implying that Israel has gradually annexed more and more Palestinian land since 1946. Shany Mor explains:
The message of the [maps] is clear: The Jews of Palestine have been assiduously gobbling up more and more “Palestinian land,” spreading like some sort of fungal infection that eventually devours its host.
There are some outright lies in these maps, to be sure. But the most egregious falsehoods transcend mere lies. They emerge from a more general and quite deliberate refusal to differentiate between private property and sovereign land, as well as a total erasure of any political context.
This final point is especially crucial. It goes to the question of whether the Palestinians actually “lost” this land and the context of that alleged “loss.” We could quite easily, for example, make a panel of maps showing German “land loss” in the first half of the 20th century. It would be geographically accurate but, without the political context, it would tell a completely misleading story amounting to a flat-out lie. And that is precisely what these maps are: a lie.
Read more on Tower: http://www.thetower.org/article/the-mendacious-maps-of-palestinian-loss/