BY: IQBAL TAMIMI
One can’t help but see malignant projects of gigantic companies committing forgery to steal the history of some nations in broad daylight.
As an example I would say Yahoo. For many years yahoo published pages on its websites and created online services where it has deleted Palestine from its charts, not just Palestine but the West Bank as well.
As an example, their UK website offers a daily horoscope for those who are interested to know what Yahoo believes their day or week is going to look like, despite the fact that the majority of people do not believe in this kind of speculation, it is still amusing to know how they are going to play with our minds. But for once I am going to read the horoscope of Yahoo, and tell the investors that they are entering a gambling game, beware of offending the players; otherwise you will notice a big hole in your pocket.
I looked at the list of countries should one has to fill his birthplace to hear the wisdom of Yahoo’s fortune tellers, Palestine was not mentioned at all, and neither was the West Bank but surprise, surprise Israel is.
Yahoo never cared about Palestine before but I think it is about time that it does, for Yahoo has just acquired the Palestinian Maktoob portal founded by the Palestinian son of Nablus Samih Toukan. www.maktoob.com is considered the largest Arab online portal at a value of around $75M-$80M. This deal Yahoo is after to further its influence in the Arab World as a fast growing internet and mobile market will not be welcomed if it chooses to ignore the Palestinians who are still running the portal and will continue to do so according to the reported information.
The Maktoob portal is based in Jordan but owned and run by the Palestinians that Yahoo does not recognise, the majority of bloggers and business advertisers are Palestinians, even though many are not still based in Palestine but rather holding the most prestigious posts in the Gulf countries and owners and investors of the biggest businesses abroad on international level.
It has been reported that the new Yahoo division will be called Yahoo Middle East. And from now on Yahoo products will be made Arabic and content will be “Arabized” to serve 20 million users in the Arab world along with the original 16 million users of maktoob, thus “arabizing” the Yahoo Mail and messenger along with other services including the mobiles.
Yahoo is expecting to continue the strong commercial relationship with the companies that used to contribute to the success of Maktoob.com. Should this be the case I would say Yahoo should start the first step by respecting the Arab market that would feel offended by eliminating Palestine from every choice list created by Yahoo.
It has been said that Yahoo is concerned about freedom of speech in the region since it is known for its censorship online, while the Maktoob bloggers are concerned that Yahoo will bring with it its pro-Israel policies to the area.
I would advise Yahoo to rearrange its priorities and fix the way it is handling Middle Eastern issues and particularly Palestine. If Yahoo is intending upon digging deep into the pockets of the wealthy Arab business dynamos, it should start to show some respect and sensitivity to the people who are going to make or break its success, starting by acknowledging the fact that it can’t hijack their history and remodel the geography of the area, otherwise it will face a great loss.