The GPS app Waze scandal in Israel by offering to avoid … – Le Figaro

The navigation software created by Israelis, proposes to prevent Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem. The City Council denounced a “partition” scandalous of the city, said to be unified since 1967.

The software GPS navigation Waze, became one of symbols of Israel’s success in the field of new technologies, annoys the mayor of Jerusalem. Citing security reasons, the managers of this application have recently changed its parameters to ensure that the proposed routes avoid some Palestinian neighborhoods to the east of the city. Sacrilege in the eyes of many Israelis who defend its indivisibility from the “reunification” occurred after the Six Day War (1967). “I prayed leaders Waze reconfigure these settings and not to turn their application in political instrument”, immediately responded to the mayor, Nir Barkat.

Developed in 2008 by young entrepreneurs established north of Tel Aviv, the software was bought by Google in 2013, with a billion dollars, and downloaded by over 70 million users worldwide. In the Israeli version, the default configuration includes some specific settings to the local context. In the occupied West Bank, the trips and motorists avoid areas A and B under control of the Palestinian Authority, where Israeli citizens are prohibited from entering. Nationals of other countries, free to cross these areas can turn off the feature.

These access limitations have never attracted any controversy until managers choose Waze recently , to extend them to some Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. According to the daily Yediot Ahronot, they would have taken this decision after Israeli motorists, guided to these sectors, indicate it felt to be in danger. “We work in contact with the Israeli police,” explains a spokesman for the company, which now offers tedious detours for motorists to avoid crossing neighborhoods like Silwan and Wadi al-Joz, yet bordering the Old City.

The new settings as soon as known, provoked outraged reactions within the city council. Arieh King, deputy in charge of security and kingpin of Jewish settlements in Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, denounced unacceptable “score” of the city. “The law, East Jerusalem and in areas bordering the Old Town, is it the same in Hebron or Ramallah ?, he asks. And can we admit that the police are thus determines where Jews can, or can not, move? “

This mini-storm illustrates the divide that, 48 years after its conquest by the State Hebrew, continues through Jerusalem. The annexation of the eastern part, decided unilaterally in 1982, has never been recognized or not the majority of the Palestinian population, nor by the international community. Some 200,000 Jews now live in East Jerusalem, mostly in large settlements and neighborhoods in enclaves established in the heart of Arab neighborhoods. The latter, under-equipped and neglected by public policy, are regularly the focus of tensions between the inhabitants of the security forces.