The East Palestine Archipelago
 |
Above: Imagined map by Julien Bousac, graphically illustrating the Palestinians’ difficulty in getting around. All the zones of the West Bank occupied by Israel are pictured as the sea. Left: The legend of the map in English.
Source: L’Atlas, Un monde à l’envers, Paris: Le Monde diplomatique, 2009. |
For years, the United Nations has regularly condemned Israel’s settlement policy. Even the European Union and the United States do not miss an opportunity to let it be known that Israel’s encroachment on the Palestinian lands endangers the prospect of creating an independent Palestinian state.
This policy has nevertheless continued under all Israeli governments, whether left, center, or right, without any action taken against it, though according to the statute of the International Criminal Court it is “a war crime.” And no sanctions have ever been adopted against the state pursuing this strategy. However, can this archipelago of Palestine really constitute the foundation of a state?
The text above combines “L’archipel de Palestine orientale” (Le Monde diplomatique, 30 April 2009) and the description of the map given in “Cartographie politique” (Cartographie du virtuel, Histoire-géographie en LP, académie de Rouen). According to Strange Maps, the mapmaker Bousac borrowed the conventions of typical maps of island tourism to highlight, by way of contrast, the grim reality of Palestine in fragments. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com).