The front page of Sunday’s Washington Post was splashed with escalation of the Israel Palestine Conflict into a ground war. However, on Saturday Andy Carvin decided to use the web to put the size of these countries into perspective by contrasting scale satellite photos of both the Israel region and both Washington D.C. and New York City.
Having lived both places, the photos were a bit of a shock. However, turning them into overlays provided a bigger punch. Taking the baton from Mr. Carvin, here is the Israel-Palestine conflict in terms that an east coast American can understand.
I prepared these in two batches. The first is a direct overlay from the raw satellite photos. In the second photo, I rotated the Middle Eastern map so that Jerusalem was aligned with a major American city. In the case of the DC map, that city is Baltimore, and with New York it’s Manhattan.
 Middle East over DC Raw |
 Middle East and DC Rotated |
 Middle East and NYC |
 Middle East and NYC Rotated |
The end results cast an eerie shiver on the concept of distance that even I myself grew used to. If Jerusalem were placed in Manhattan, than both Gasa and the Gasa Strip would be located on Long Island. Placing Jerusalem over Baltimore puts Gasa in Loudon County and the Gasa Strip in northern Prince William.
These are short roadtrips or a handful of stops on the LIRR in the States. Across the world, they’re a shooting war.
An interesting bit of perspective, no matter how you feel about the conflict.
That's a very interesting perspective indeed… Thanks!
Heya Anne. Good to hear from you again outside of the Facebook. And yes, it is kind of scary.
Hey there! I do have a life outside of Facebook… but I'll be your guinea pig!
Oh hey – it gives me a face! Wheeeee!
Woohoo! It worked. Thanks Anne!
And I see it keeps me logged in for future comments under my full name – thank goodness there are hundreds, if not thousand of Anne Murphys in the world (Murphys – Murphies? heh). I'll retain some level of anonymity.
Actually, I got irritated today because I misspelled librarianguish in Google and it didn't say “do you mean…”
Hmmmph.
It looks like you might have a cookie that's left from when you left your first comment.
thanks
Blogged: http://the-ed-rush.blogspot.com/2009/01/mapping… – nice job!E
Hey Andy,
Thanks for stopping by and the comments about the post. It was actually your comment that made me go ahead and do the layovers, so I guess a fair deal of the inspiration belongs to you.
Hey Rob,
So you last night at #SMCRVA did not get a chance to chat with you. Anyhow, good writing my man and impressed with your work. Being Jewish and being in Israel myself and being there when there were terrorist attacks I can say that yes Israelis live with the idea of death being imminent on a daily basis, but they all go about business as usual. I will have to say though that even though there are alot of clashes, that Israel is still alot safer than what the news portrays it to be.