Pro-Israel group objects to sales of mislabeled globes

Monday, Jan. 6, 2003 | 11:06 a.m.

A pro-Israel Internet site has launched an e-mail campaign asking Las Vegas gift stores to quit selling expensive gemstone globes that label the same land in the Middle East as "Palestine" as well as "Israel."

Some supporters of Israel say Palestine is not a recognized nation and to give it that status on a globe is offensive. For years, many Palestinians have attempted to be recognized as an independent state on land they contend belongs to them.

The political controversy spilled onto the shelves of several local gift stores when the pro-Israel Internet site Olam4Israel.com e-mailed subscribers and recommended that they contact the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce to complain about the labeling on the globes. "Olam" is the Hebrew word for "world" and the Internet site was created by Olam magazine and Suissamiller Advertising executive Dave Suissa.

Gaby Wenig, editor of the website, said readers brought the matter to her attention after a successful campaign involving a store chain in the upper Midwest.

"We heard a few months ago that Menards was stocking these globes," Wenig said. "We contacted the store management, they said they were sorry and they removed the globes from their shelves."

Menards has stores in nine states, with several in Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago and Indianapolis.

After the Menards campaign, several Olam4Israel readers said the globes also were available at several high-end gift stores in Las Vegas.

Wenig said thousands of readers received the recommendation to contact the Las Vegas Chamber.

The e-mail from Olam4Israel.com recommended that subscribers send a note urging the chamber to press businesses to take the globes off the shelves.

Chamber spokeswoman Catherine Levy said her organization has received more than 150 e-mails complaining about the labeling of the globes since Dec. 26.

"What we'll be doing is to respond to each of those e-mails, explaining that we're not a policing agency and that if they have concerns about any product that they need to contact the stores directly," Levy said.

Among the stores that carry the globes with the Palestine and Israel labels are the Treasure Island Store at the Treasure Island hotel-casino and the Crystal Galleria at the Forum Shops at Caesars, a mall attached to Caesars Palace, and a store in the Canal Shoppes at the Venetian, Regis Galerie Inc. A second store in the Canal Shoppes, Tolstoys, carries gemstone globes, but does not have a globe among its inventory that has both the Israel and Palestine labels.

None of the gift shops contacted by the Las Vegas Sun would allow the newspaper to photograph the globes in question.

A spokeswoman for MGM MIRAGE, which owns Treasure Island, said a reporter's inquiry was the first the company had heard of the matter.

"We've had this product in our stores the better part of a decade and have never had a complaint," said Shelley Mansholt, who said there are no plans to remove the globes from the shelves.

A 13-inch globe in the Treasure Island store with Mother-of-Pearl features and gold-plated longitude and latitude lines retails for $4,000 there.

Vicki Brown, manager of Crystal Galleria, which is liquidating its inventory in preparation for the store's closure, said the globes in her store were distributed by a Las Vegas company, Alexander Kalifano.

"I don't think most people look at these globes as accurate geographical representations as much as they look at them as works of art," Brown said.

The stores at the Venetian mall also have the Alexander Kalifano globes.

The Alexander Kalifano-distributed globes include up to 20 different kinds of semi-precious gemstones from around the world representing different countries. For example, there are jades, amethysts, jaspers and turquoises hand cut into the shapes of countries and inlaid onto each sphere.

Ruthann Hook, a representative of Alexander Kalifano, said the company's globes are usually acquired for their artistic appeal and not their geographic accuracy. She referred all other inquiries to company President Alexander Rhalaf, who was unavailable for comment.

But Olam4Israel's Wenig said there's no artistic license for portraying a false image of the world.

"People study globes, especially young people, and these globes are portraying a historically inaccurate and false picture of the world," she said.

Wenig said ultimately she hopes she could track down the manufacturers of the globes to ask them to discontinue the Palestine labels.

"I really don't know where these globes come from, probably a sweatshop in China," she said.

There are numerous gemstone globe distributors listed on the Internet. One distributor, Alan Naysmith of Toronto, said he wasn't surprised by the Israel-Palestine labelings. He said most of the labor for gemstone globes occurs in China or Taiwan and in his 4 1/2 years in the industry, he has seen some other politically incorrect geography.

"I've had some customers ask prior to making a purchase whether a globe was labeled with Israel," Naysmith said. "My globes come from mainland China (which doesn't recognize the independence of Taiwan). When Chinese Customs discovered Taiwan had a different color than China (on the map), all those globes were confiscated. Sometimes, politics comes into it."

Ronald Abler, executive director emeritus of the 8,000-member Association of American Geographers, Washington, said mapmakers frequently get caught in the middle of political disputes between nations and peoples when names are assigned.

"It's a no-win situation," Abler said. "Even if you call it disputed territory, you'd probably have both sides mad at you then."

Abler said most countries have a board on geographic names. In the United States, it's a part of the State Department.

"They, typically, as an individual feature is concerned, take a position that becomes the official government position," he said. "On international matters, it often goes to a U.N. board."

Abler said the most recent global controversies involve the Kashmir region of India and a water feature commonly known as the Sea of Japan. The Korean government is now leading an effort to have the body, formerly known as the Sea of Korea, known as the East Sea.

But as far as the U.S. government's position on Israel, it recognizes that name and not Palestine.