Israel asks Apple to remove ThirdIntifada app [UPDATE: Apple pulls app]

Apple has been asked to pull an app called ThirdIntifada from its App Store. The Israeli government has requested the app, which is currently still available and calls for a Palestinian uprising. ThirdIntifada hit the App Store June 15 and helps organize protests, updates on these efforts, as well as revolutionary songs and critiques of Israel. “I believe Apple, as a pioneering and progressive company, places the values of liberty, freedom of expression and creativity as a guiding light,” Israel’s minister of public diplomacy Yuli-Yoel Edelstein wrote in a letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs. “Also, as a leader in its area, I am convinced that you are aware of this type of application’s ability to unite many toward an objective that could be disastrous.”

This isn’t the first time Israeli officials have had to make this request. Earlier this year, Edelstein asked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to remove the official Third Intifada Facebook page, which served much of the same purposes as the app. Zuckerberg pulled the page after Edelstein’s complaints (although many copycats have sprung up). Despite Facebook’s cooperation, attorney Larry Klayman sued the site and Zuckerberg for more than $1 billion after he says the page wasn’t removed quickly enough.

According to the Third Intifada’s official page, the group wants to lead the third Palestinian uprising. The Second Intifada, or uprising, occurred in 2000 and led to more than 7,000 deaths. The Third Intifada’s site also says its Facebook was “shut down more than once!!! And without reason.”

If Apple chooses to follow in Facebook’s footsteps and pull the app, it wouldn’t be the first time Apple has yanked a controversial app. A “gay cure” app was pulled recently, as was an immigrant-smuggling game.

[UPDATE]

The ThirdIntifada app has been pulled from the App Store. “We removed this app from the App Store because it violates the developer guidelines by being offensive to large groups of people,” Apple says.

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