Australian globe pulled after leaving Israel off
Typo-riddled product from chain Typo inflames passions; chain says it never intended to offend
Lee Gancman is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.

An Australian stationery chain has been accused of anti-Israel bias after carrying a globe that eschewed the name Israel in favor of Palestine.
The globe found in the Typo store showed the name of each country written on top of its territory. Twelve smaller countries, including Israel, Lebanon, and many in the Balkans, received a number, with their corresponding names written in a separate legend.
While Israel is mentioned in the legend, under the number 2, the name Palestine is written in full over the territory.
Incensed activists took to social media on January 21, with one writing on Typo’s Facebook page that the company had “wiped Israel from the face of the Earth.”
The company initially said the issue arose only over space concerns on the globe, but later said it would take the globes off the shelf.
“We never intended to offend anyone with this product and as a result we have decided to remove them from sale and halt all future production until our supplier can provide artwork that eliminates the need for a key entirely.”
That move, in turn, drew accusations from pro-Palestinian activists who said the chain had given in to Israeli pressure.
Maps and other geographical products have in the past found themselves tripped up by the fraught Israeli-Palestinian conflict amid disputes over what to call territories, towns and more.
The issue is not unique to Israelis and Palestinians. Gulf Arabs have long chafed at the use of the term Persian Gulf, favored by Iran, and in 2012 Google Maps stopped putting a name on the body of water altogether to avoid controversy.
The Israel/Palestine snafu wasn’t the only er… typo on the Typo globe. Other errors included a misspelling of Azerbaijan as “Azerbalian” and the Syrian capital being written in a transliteration of its Arabic name as “Dimashq.”
Additionally, Russia’s second city, Saint Petersburg, is written as “Sankt Petersburg” and Latvia is referred to as “Datvia.”
Last week National Public Radio’s (NPR) ombudsman Elizabeth Jensen released an explanation and apology Monday for a map published on the news organization’s website that erased Israel from the Middle East.
Patric Sandi, a Swiss illustrator who drew the map, told Jensen: “It was not my political intention to draw the map that way at all.”
“I had a very short time for creating the illustration. If you work under time pressure, mistakes can happen,” he said. He added that the NPR staff did not notice any mistakes after he submitted his work.