Iphone shows Palestinian flag after ‘Jerusalem’
APPLE has been accused of anti-semitism after a system update brought up a Palestinian flag emoji when users typed the word “Jerusalem”.
Typing the word on an iphone running the most recently updated software makes a Palestinian flag pop up for inclusion in text messages.
The emoji keyboard can be searched using phrases such as “smile” ”laugh” ”angry” or simply searching for items such as “burger” or “car”.
Searching by country will bring up a flag, although it’s not clear which capital cities perform this function.
Searches on an iphone running the latest version of Apple’s IOS software for “London”, “Paris”, “Bangkok” and “New York” did not bring up their respective country’s flags.
The phenomenon was highlighted by Countdown star Rachel Riley on social media. She tweeted: “Dear \@***Apple @applesupport \@tim_cook I’ve just upgraded my software to version IOS 17.4.1, and now, when I type the capital of Israel, Jerusalem, I’m offered the Palestinian flag emoji.
“This didn’t occur on my phone immediately before this update.
“Below is a (non-exhaustive) list of capital cities that do not offer their nation’s flags, let alone the wrong one.
“Showing double standards with respect to Israel is a form of anti-semitism, which is itself a form of racism against Jewish people.
“Please explain whether this is an intentional act by your company, or whether you have no control over rogue programmers. Sincerely, a Jewish woman concerned about the global rise in anti-semitism.”
Although Israel has declared that Jerusalem is its capital city and this was recognised by Donald Trump’s US government, the city is also claimed by the Palestinians as their capital. The eastern part of the city is viewed as Palestinian territory by the UN.
It comes six months after a terror attack on an Israeli music festival saw hundreds of civilians murdered and hostages taken by Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
It also comes after a group of Apple workers signed an open letter calling on Tim Cook, the chief executive, to “redefine expectations of how the world views the Palestinian struggle for self-determination”.
The Telegraph has verified that the Palestinian flag emoji is automatically suggested whenever the word Jerusalem is typed into the emoji search box on an iphone. This was displayed on three handsets running IOS 17.4.1, the latest version of the phone’s software that was released on March 21.
Apple said the flag was the result of a “bug” within predictive emoji, describing it as unintended, and added that a fix would be made available soon.