Israel-Palestine Dispute Moves on to Facebook

The conflict over land in the Middle East is fought out not only on the ground in Israel and the Palestinian territories. Now the pages of social networking site Facebook have become the latest scene of dispute.

Jewish settlers living inside the occupied Palestinian West Bank complained when they found their addresses identified them as living in Palestine, rather than Israel. More than 400,000 people live in settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, all of which are widely considered illegal under international law.

In true Facebook style, they set up groups to petition their cause. Channah Lerman, a Jewish settler, now has more than 1,730 members in her group: "Facebook - stop discriminating Yesha!" - which uses the Hebrew acronym for the West Bank and Gaza. Another group calling itself "It's not Palestine, it's Israel" numbers more than 13,800 members.

After a campaign of several days Facebook relented and now allows settlers in three of the largest settlements, Ma'ale Adumim, Beitar Illit and Ariel, and in the tense and divided city of Hebron, home to around 600 settlers, to choose either Israel or Palestine as their home country.

"We only support 18 cities in the West Bank at this point, so most settlements are not yet supported, though we certainly intend to add them," said a spokesperson for Facebook.

For some this is a battle that is still being fought. In a post on her group's discussion page Lerman wrote: "What I hope even more is that people keep on fighting against mentioning these towns in Palestine. That's something that doesn't exist and will never exist."

Not surprisingly the campaign generated a swift response from Palestinians and their supporters, who set up groups such as "It's not Israel, it's Palestine". On a page for the 8,800-strong "All Palestinians on Facebook", one noted that Palestinians in East Jerusalem have their country listed as Israel, even though the Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem has not been recognized by the international community. The writer addressed the operators of Facebook: "For you to interfere in such a political issue and sideline with one party in the conflict is simply outrageous."