The Defective Harper Collins Atlas and the Missing State of Israel

There are sins of Omission and sins of Commission. In this case the sin of Commission is a sin of Omission. Israel is such a tiny country, too tiny to be clearly identified, or its borders delimited, in many newspaper articles. But a world atlas is another thing, and there is no explanation but malevolence and greed — the desire to sell copies to a large Muslim market (no doubt delighted to see that Israel, that offense against Muslim sensibilities and amour-propre) has been effaced, coupled with the hope that non-Muslims will think it merely an oversight, or not worth complaining about. After all, so many other outrages against Israel — the rewriting of history to describe its relation to the soi-disant “West Bank” as an “occupation” without any felt need to acknowledge the Mandate for Palestine’s express provisions, and the rules of warfare since the beginning of time, and even U.N. Resolution 242 — pass without protest every day.