Map of Middle East Without Israel. Photo: Israel Today

The British publisher of a textbook that featured a map that labelled Israel as “Occupied Palestine” has apologized for the error. A message posted to the Garnet company’s website read in part, “This was a serious editorial error and was subsequently corrected. The book in question has not been in print for several years.”

In a further twist, The Commentator revealed that the company is owned by the Tahseen Khayat Group of Lebanon. The Tahseen Khayat Group also owns Garnet’s “sister group” Ithaca Press, which describes itself as a ‘leading publisher of academic books on Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, most recently featuring the ‘Great Books of Islamic Civilisation’ and books such as ‘Through the Wall of Fire’ which documents, “the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians beginning in 1948.”

Nicky Pratt, Publisher of Garnet Education, who didn’t work at Garnet when the book was published in 2003, wrote in an email to The Algemeiner that he  “cannot with any confidence determine why it happened,”  and added that “Garnet Education has never had a political agenda and as a publisher that sells globally would never seek to alienate any client. Please be assured that we are taking this matter extremely seriously, and will ensure that such an error is not repeated in the future.”

He further added in the email: “Since this course has been out of print for some time, and the ‘life-cycle’ of educational materials tends to be relatively short (normally a maximum of five years), it is unlikely that very many institutions will be using the 2003 edition. It’s not easy to identify who these people might be, as all publishers have a system of third-party distribution, and our main distributor has changed in the last few years. Our Sales team are currently trying to track down as many people as possible who have been in receipt of these books, in order to either replace them with the corrected edition or offer a more up-to-date alternative. In the meantime, we are more than happy to do the same for anyone who contacts us over the issue.”