Why Google Earth Can't Show You Israel

This is not new, and has been known for many years.<p>Interestingly enough, this policy is awkward - borderline useless - for two reasons. First, <i>any</i> satellite imagery, at any resolution, can be purchased on the private market, for the right price. Maybe not from the US, but it's not like the US is the only country that collects satellite imagery.<p>But there is a more interesting aspect to this story. Israel <i>does</i> allow publishing high-resolution imagery of its territories, given that they have been censored. Thus, you get ridiculous images such as a huge park in the middle of Tel Aviv, where clearly the Kirya [1] usually stands.<p>The fun starts once you diff a censored map with a publicly available one, even if it's low-res. Even an untrained eye can easily spot places that someone does not want you to look at. (I have been toying with the idea of mining satellite imagery and running image diffs between censored and uncensored versions of the same area.)<p>Ridiculous, considering that most secret places blend in perfectly with their surroundings.<p>Had they not been censored, no one would notice these facilities.<p>[1] - <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HaKirya" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HaKirya</a>

Living in TLV for a week now. This annoys me, for various practical reasons: I became (maybe a bad thing?) dependent on decent, free and _readable_ maps. Maps are easy to get by, but I am used to get a decent preview of places I'm interested in. I'd love to explore the country virtually and check out places of interest, possible targets for a day off or a weekend trip.<p>Pretty certainly someone, somewhere thought that this would be necessary and a good idea, but I fail to grasp the reasons. It seems as if the 'privacy' gained by censoring/prohibiting this kind of imagery is borderline security by obscurity. It's not like anyone really interested in these maps couldn't get them from other places - or travel the country and look for places of interest. It just annoys the laymen - like me.<p>What am I missing?

How is this not a violation of the first amendment? They aren't US government buildings (which still exist on the map, just some things are occasionally blurred). Why as an American company can't I take pictures of anything I want from the sky and post them online?<p>Furthermore, its just silly in an international market. Thinking that this will make images of Israel go away to protect them is just silly. Useless legislation is useless and a waste of taxpayer time and money.<p>We don't do this for any other country/ally. As a non-religious American, I quite honestly don't understand why we have such a relationship with Israel as it yields us zero benefit and many losses.

Well, this article isn't accurate at all, you can see Israel on Google Maps in a great resolution, but you don't have API. Must be outdated or something.

Who cares about google maps? I use waze, a free gps that has all Israeli roads and hotelier listed, plus, if there is a new road, users can create it into the map. I also have an iPhone app that tells me about different shops and entertainment and gas stations etc that are around.<p>I use google maps (map view, not satellite) multiple times a week. I use the walking directions, and find the directions and the estimated time to be highly accurate.<p>It would be a nice perk for satellite imagery, but that doesn't really hurt my usage of google maps in israel. It would be really nice too for google street view, but I'm not crying.<p>Why don't we let israel manage it's satellite imagery how it wants. For a country constantly at war over since the writing of its declaration of independence, it seems only prudent to hinder the spread of even mediocre quality intelligence gathering tools.

I'm in the UK and loading up Google Earth I get pretty good resolution images of Gaza and Israel...

For a good comparison look at the map quality of South Korea near the border and North Korea over the border. The maps of North Korea are higher resolution and completely uncensored. Occasionally, when I am wandering along in South Korea with my GPS on I find something censored on Google maps. Why are the images of the Palestinian territories not available in in higher resolutions? It doesn't seem like a problem to allow clearer images of other non-US friendly nations.

there have been made calculations by economists how much this so-called ally Israel has cost to Americans ,<p>its trillions<p><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1209/p16s01-wmgn.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1209/p16s01-wmgn.html</a>

This raises a really interesting privacy question, the answer to which I do not know.

I have no idea why some people complain. Suppose Google Maps had "erase" feature. The same people who would "erase" Israel from the map, would complain, that they need higher resolution images ;)