Says Jews drove out Arabs even though town was founded on empty sand dunes
By Aaron Klein
TEL AVIV – An Israeli town is suing Internet giant Google after surprised municipal officials discovered Google Earth, the popular, user-driven satellite map, labels their city as stolen Palestinian land.
"[The label] is simply complete nonsense," Yossi Ben-Artzi, a history professor at Israel's Haifa University told Yediot Ahronot, Israel's leading daily. "Kiryat Yam was built on sand dunes, and there wasn't any Palestinian village in the area. The lands were bought in 1939 by the Gav Yam construction company."
The professor was responding to a criminal complaint filed by the northern Israeli coastal town of Kiryat Yam, which a Google Earth user mapped as stolen by Jews when Israel was founded in 1948.
About 600,000 Arabs fled Israel after surrounding Arab countries warned they would destroy the Jewish state in 1948. Some Arabs also were driven out by Jewish forces while they were trying to push back invading Arab armies. At the same time, over 800,000 Jews were expelled or left Arab countries under threat after Israel was founded.
The Google Earth user, identified as Palestinian physician Thameen Darby, inserted a note on ...   more »