AUSTRALIA Post has pulled a world globe from sale at its outlets and issued an apology after The AJN alerted it to the fact that Israel was labelled as “Palestine”.The globe, produced by the Discovery company, was bought at Australia Post’s Bentleigh East branch in Melbourne last Friday by a Jewish man as a birthday present for his grandson.After noticing the error, he contacted the Anti-Defamation Commission (ADC) to express his shock and anger and has vowed to return the product.In another blunder, the name Israel did appear on the globe but it was in Lebanon, above the region identified as Palestine. It was also printed across a border line, so all that is visible is “Isra”.Speaking to The AJN on Tuesday, an Australia Post spokesperson said, “We are aware of this issue and have suspended the sale of this product and apologise for any offence caused.”The spokesperson added that Australia Post “stocks a range of Discovery products in our stores, including this one, which was purchased in good faith”.Stating, “Accuracy is of the utmost importance across all areas of the Discovery business,” a Discovery Australia spokesperson told The AJN, “We have immediately consulted our production partner of the 2-in-1 World Globe Light to rectify the geographical error relating to Israel. We apologise for any offence caused to our customers.”Meanwhile, ThreeSixty Group, Discovery’s production partner for the product, blamed “a factory misprint error” for the mistake.“As such we will be working with the factory to immediately correct this and to ensure that our teams more closely check this item for accuracy going forward,” a spokesperson said.“We are currently working with our retail partners to immediately remove this item from shelves. We deeply regret that this mistake was not caught sooner.”
This is a popular globe, sold all over the world.
The manufacturer was clearly not too invested in accuracy or clarity altogether. One would think that Cyprus is part of Syria and the actual island is underwater.
Not all Discovery globes have the same map and error. It is hard to see but this video of Discovery's "World Globe for Students" shows the names of the Levant countries much larger, and Israel is in the right place; Tel Aviv is mentioned as well as Jerusalem.
From a different company, the Little Experimenter Illuminated Globe for Kids says "Palestine" without distinguishing it on the map from Israel.
At least one globe company doesn't even make a pretense admitting that Israel exists.
Here's the region shown on the KINGSO globe - where Israel is not mentioned at all, and is fully replaced with "Palestine."
KingSo is based out of Hong Kong.
(h/t Martin)
