JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Complaints by Jewish settlers angry at Facebook for
listing them as residents of "Palestine" prompted the popular social
networking Web site to allow users to switch themselves back to Israel.
Facebook users living in Maale Adumim, Ariel and other large Jewish
settlements in the occupied West Bank protested when the site
automatically
listed their hometowns as being in "Palestine." A group of settlers
accused
the California-based company of having a political agenda.
"I was surprised and disappointed to find that my hometown of Ariel is
listed in Facebook as being part of a country called 'Palestine,"' wrote
Ari
Zimmerman in a posting on Facebook. "I am a citizen of Israel, as are all
of
the other residents of Ariel. We do not live in 'Palestine', nor does
anyone
else."
Brandee Barker, Facebook's director of communications, said users living
in
major settlement blocs can now choose between being listed as residents of
Israel or Palestine.
"Facebook users in the Israeli West Bank settlements of Maale Adumim,
Beitar
Illit, and Ariel can now choose between Israel and Palestine," Barker said
last week in an email to Reuters.
Israel wants to hold onto Maale Adumim and other major settlement blocs
under any future peace deal with the Palestinians.
"We also offer Hebron in both Israel and Palestine," Barker said,
referring
to the major West Bank city which is home to about 150,000 Palestinians
and
some 400 Jewish settlers.
Barker said about 18 West Bank settlements were currently listed on
Facebook
and that many more would be added in the future, giving users the option
of
choosing Israel or Palestine.
In a posting on a Facebook page used by settlers, Channah Lerman wrote:
"Be
aware! Should you restore the cities of Judea, Samaria (the West Bank) ...
people will get more enraged than they are already. Palestine is not a
country."
RIVAL GROUPS
Palestinian users have set up their own Facebook group whose members
threatened to cancel their accounts if Palestine was removed from the
site.
Called "If Palestine is removed from Facebook, I am closing my account,"
the
group has over 4,700 members.
"We created this group to let our voices be heard not only among
Facebook's
management but all the users, and to tell everyone that Palestine is and
will always be a country," Saif Qadoumi, the group's 20-year-old founder,
told Reuters.
Sara Al, a group member, urged users in one entry to join a group called
"It's not Israel, It's Palestine," saying it was a response to another
group
set up by Israeli users advocating the opposite message.
"Please join to beat another group called 'It's not Palestine, it's
Israel'
which has 13,000 members," she wrote.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war, and annexed
Arab
East Jerusalem in a move that has not won international recognition. It
regards all of Jerusalem as its capital.
Facebook, for its part, identifies Jerusalem as part of Israel.
Palestinians
want East Jerusalem to be the capital of the state they aspire to
establish
in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
(Editing by Paul Casciato)
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