The Georgia-Russian War generates his own specific graphics. One graphic in the news is the empty Google’s Georgia map, the other is the following caricature.
The Georgia-Russian war: a caricature found on a russian blog (here).
And I quote myself from my own post on NowPublic about
“Where is Georgia’s Map on Google?”
In this sudden burst of war between Georgia and Russia, Google Maps as an impartial observer’, removed the map details from the Georgian map , preventing the map from being used by the Georgian or by the Russian for any warfare purpose..Well, I suppose that Russia as the former Soviet Union has maps of Georgia and Georgia as a former part of the Soviet Union has also maps of Georgia. But we, the not participating part of the world in the conflict, seeking a map of Georgia, we don’t have a map..
But later on ( August 12, 2008) Google denied that she erased Georgia’s map:
…”One story says that ‘the relevant maps went blank as soon as fighting broke out,’ according to the Azerbaijan Press Agency.
Google says that’s not so. While its Web maps shows only the outlines of those three countries — without roads or even the capital cities marked — Google says that the lack of information is not new.
Interestingly, Google Earth, the company 3-D geographic visualization service, identifies many Georgian cities, and it allows users to zoom in to them close enough to see individual buildings. So Google Earth clearly has some “local data” on the countries that are blank on Google Maps.
Microsoft’s rival mapping service, Virtual Earth, pinpoints dozens on cities in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.”…see here.
korzacsol 
It’s the same with Israel too, I believe. The street maps aren’t functional. You can see satellite pictures, though, but the zoom stops before anything looks clear.
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