GEOGRAPHY

An apparent error on a satellite navigation app led two Israeli soldiers into a Palestinian village. The ensuing skirmish left at least one person dead. (Washington Post)

Use our great activity to get an introduction to GIS and its impacts on our everyday lives.

Teachers, scroll down for a quick list of key resources in our Teachers’ Toolkit.

Discussion Ideas
Read through our activity “Introduction to GIS,” and adapt its questions to the situation in Jerusalem.

• What is GPS?
  • GPS stands for global positioning system. It’s the American system of satellites and receiving devices used to determine the location of something on Earth.

• What is GIS?
  • GIS stands for geographic information system. GIS describes a system or tool for displaying and analyzing data related to positions on Earth’s surface. While GPS provides users with geographic data, GIS allows users to display and analyze that data.

• Does Waze, the Google-owned app used by the Israeli military, use GPS or GIS technology?
  • Both. Waze is a GPS-based app that provides traffic information and suggested routes. The data displayed on Waze are crowdsourced, meaning local users continually input and update data about traffic patterns.

• How might Jerusalem residents and law-enforcement personnel use geospatial information from Waze? Take a look at this great video series for an introduction to the “Geospatial Revolution.”
  • Waze provides updated information on road closures, construction zones, vehicle accidents, and things like garbage collection routes and where police are issuing parking or speeding violations. (That last bit is very controversial.)
  • The key setting used by law enforcement in Jerusalem, however, navigates around “areas ‘dangerous or prohibited for Israelis to drive through’.” This information is crowdsourced by local Jerusalemites.

• How did this analysis go wrong?
  • Authorities are not entirely sure. Here are three major theories:
    • Because Waze relies on users for updated information, “in places where the app is not widely used—such as the Palestinian villages surrounding Jerusalem and in the West Bank—the service could face limitations.”
    • Waze officials say the police had the “avoid dangerous areas” setting turned off.
    • The Israeli army says the setting was turned on, but malfunctioned and directed the soldiers into Qalandiya by mistake.

• Wait a minute—isn’t there a great big barrier separating Jerusalem from the West Bank? Check out these outstanding videos from our favorite Jerusalemite, Nat Geo Explorer Aziz Abu Sarah, for some background on the conflict.
  • Yes, the West Bank Barrier cuts through Qalandiya, and the Qalandiya (sometimes spelled Kalandia) checkpoint is in fact the main checkpoint between the northern West Bank and Jerusalem.
  • According to the Washington Post, “a former military commander of the area, Gadi Shamni, said that the refugee camp was a symbol of Palestinian resistance and that it had become a no man’s land, where neither the Palestinian Authority nor the Israeli authorities were in control.”
  • WaPo correspondent Sufian Taha witnessed the battle and described Qalandiya as a “war zone.” (Not subtle.)

• What crowdsourced settings do you think law-enforcement personnel might use to avoid these clashes in the future?
  • Some critics have suggested that law-enforcement personnel should limit crowdsourced input on certain layers.
  • Some critics have suggested that law-enforcement personnel be required to input data in certain places or at certain times.

TEACHERS’ TOOLKIT

Washington Post: Israeli troops who relied on Waze blundered into deadly firefight with Palestinians

Nat Geo: Introduction to GIS activity

Nat Geo: Geospatial Revolution video series

Nat Geo: The Conflict Zone video series