Facebook is drawing flak from settlers of Jerusalem’s West Bank and the Gaza Strip for automatically labeling individuals either Palestinian or Israeli. The settlers began to send complaints, form groups and threaten to terminate their accounts if the errors weren’t rectified quickly. To it’s credit, Facebook was quick to rectify the situation, giving settlers of these blocs options to select the country to which they claimed citizenship.

What interests me most about this Reuters story is the human element behind it. The groups that formed around the argument. Palestinian users are said to have amassed 4,700 members for a group called “If Palestine is removed from Facebook, I’m closing my account.” While also compelling its members to join the group “It’s not Israel, it’s Palestine,” in opposition to “It’s not Palestine, it’s Israel,” the latter of which has about 13,000 members.

It’s not the biggest surprise that these people would transfer their nationalism to Facebook, but it’s interesting to see the territorialism carry over as well.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, Gaza Strip, West Bank, middle east, politics, nationalism

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