Google’s ‘Palestine’ page damaging to peace hopes, says Israel

A senior Israeli official has accused Google of setting back Middle East peace hopes by putting “Palestine” under the banner of its search page for the Palestinian territories.

Palestinians hailed Google’s move as a virtual victory on the path to the state they seek in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip, which Israel seized in the 1967 war.

With bilateral negotiations stalled for two-and-a-half years over Jewish settlement building, the Palestinians have campaigned for foreign recognition of statehood, and were upgraded to “non-member state” at the United Nations in November.