Apple Pulls Pro-Palestinian Application From App Store
by Joe White
June 23, 2011
Apple has removed a pro-Palestinian application from the App Store, following its condemnation by a Jewish human rights group and a top Israeli official. The iPhone application, ThirdIntifada, can no longer be downloaded from Apple's App Store.
Following the app's release, the Simon Wiesenthal Center called for Apple to remove the application, as did Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. Furthermore, Yuli Edelstein (an Israeli Minister) contacted Apple, requesting the "immediate removal" of the application.
Less than 24 hours later, Apple has kicked the application out of the App Store, citing section 19 of the company's approval policy as the reason behind the removal: "Apps containing references or commentary about a religious, cultural or ethnic group that are defamatory, offensive, mean-spirited or likely to expose the targeted group to harm or violence will be rejected."
This was confirmed by an Apple spokesperson:
We removed this app from the App Store because it violates the developer guidelines by being offensive to large groups of people.As mentioned, ThirdIntifada is no longer available to download in the App Store. A similar move was made by Apple back in March, when an "anti-gay" application somehow managed to end up in the App Store. It looks to me like the company's App Store approval team needs to pay more attention to Apple's guidelines when accepting and rejecting applications. We'll let you know if there are any developments.
