It turns out that Google Maps is able to provide these directions, but only if you search for directions from “Shvut Rachel, Israel” to “Yitzhar, Israel”. If you try to enter the settlement names followed by Palestine, then the route is not identified. If you try just the settlement names without the country, the route is not identified. Only if you identify illegal Jewish colonies on Palestinian land as belonging to the state of Israel can you find the route you are searching for.
See the image below:
Google Maps directions from Shvut Rachel to Yitzhar settlements
To be fair, the map does include the Green Line, marked as the “1949 Armistice Agreement Line”. But what are we to infer about the legitimacy of the settlements upon viewing Google Maps if we didn’t know they were illegal according to international law, that they involve the theft of Palestinian land, that they even run contrary to US foreign policy?
Given these settlements are built in occupied Palestine, they ought not to be recognized by Google Maps as a part of Israel.
Its the little things as well as the big things that allow these “facts on the ground” to become “facts in our minds”.
