Due to complaints from Israeli settlers over the selection of geographical location, the American based Facebook website will now allow a choice between stating one’s home in either Israel or Palestine.
Israelis living in settlements inside the West Bank complained this week that the Facebook social network site listed them as living in ‘Palestine’, and not in ‘Israel’.
The settlers formed a group on Facebook named ‘its Israel not Palestine’, which rapidly grew to include some 13,000 members accusing the American service of having a political agenda. In response, Facebook administrators have allowed then to choose between Palestine or Israel as their location.
Communications manager at Facebook, Brandi Barker, stated that settlers living in settlement blocks in the West Bank can now choose their country as Palestine or Israel, as they prefer.
Palestinian subscribers of Facebook formed a group, named ‘its Palestine not Israel’, which also attracted considerable attention, gaining some 4300 members. They collectively threatened that if Facebook remove Palestine from the country selection, they would close their accounts.
According to international law and UN resolutions, the Israeli settlements built in the West Bank, as part of the occupied Palestinian territories, are illegal.
Sourced from Reuters
