From: TruthDig
—Posted by Peter Z. Scheer. Follow him on Twitter: @peesch.
The Internet giant isn’t waiting for
Palestinians and Israelis to settle their differences. On the first of
the month, without firing off a press release, Google changed its home
page in Gaza and the West Bank from “Google: Palestinian Territories” to
“Google: Palestine.”
It turns out a lot of people noticed. According to one Palestinian interviewed by NPR: “Everybody knows about it and they screen shot [and] post on Facebook: ‘Yay Google, thank you.’ ”
Israel took the name change seriously
enough to send a letter of complaint to CEO Larry Page. “Google can do
anything they want. They’re not a diplomatic entity so they can do
Google La-la Land if they want to and that’s fine,” says a spokesman for
the Israeli Foreign Ministry. But, he adds, “if people on the
Palestinian side believe that they can get anything they want through
unilateral steps by international bodies, well in that case they will be
more reluctant to talk to Israel.”
According to NPR, Google is not keen to
talk about the decision, but the company suggested the Palestinians’
recently enhanced status in the United Nations was a contributing
factor.
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