Israelites Sue GPS Provider For Faulty Wilderness Directions

Kadesh Barnea, Sinai Wilderness, December 25 – The twelve tribes of Israel have filed a lawsuit in district court over what they claim is negligent behavior on the part of their Global Positioning System provider, accusing the company of causing them to wander aimlessly in the desert for decades.

Israelite Nation v. Moreh Derech, Ltd. names the company and its senior management figures individually, charging that they knowingly and carelessly provided mapping and guidance that failed to offer a clear or navigable route to the land of Canaan. Instead of taking slightly less than two weeks to traverse the area between Mt. Horeb and the southernmost extent of the Promised Land, as promised, the Israelites claim they were forced to spend nearly thirty-eight years camped in one spot before proceeding, and even then they were taken on a circuitous route around the eastern edge of the land.

The plaintiffs seek an unspecified amount in damages and compensation for emotional distress, plus the dismissal of the executives named in the lawsuit and a court order barring the company from conducting activities in the realm of guidance or mapping systems.

“The initial detour around the land of the Philistines was understandable, and in fact travel into the Sinai Desert led the plaintiffs to direct revelation from the Almighty,” notes a friend-of-the-court brief filed by Joshua Nunson, Esq. “However, subsequent portions of the journey were characterized largely by confusion, thanks primarily to the ambiguous or discouraging portrayal of the route.” Though it does not call for criminal charges, the suit also claims that Israelite casualties inflicted by Canaanite forces at Horma would never have occurred had the GPS guided them around those enemy positions.

Moreh Derech has encountered legal troubles before. A previous lawsuit, Adamson v. Moreh Derech, charged that the latter consistently provided faulty directions, causing the plaintiff to move about constantly.That suit was eventually dismissed when the plaintiff failed to appear in court as a result of his wanderings.

More recently, in Nahorson v. Moreh Derech, the plaintiff charged that the company failed to guide him and his family to their desired destination of Canaan, instead sending them to the Mesopotamian land of Haran. The court rued in favor of the plaintiff and granted him and his family a portion of the company’s real estate in Canaan as compensation, including a tract of land near Hebron valued at four hundred silver shekels.

Caleb Knizi, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, stressed the importance of discouraging such behavior on the part of GPS providers. “Only a hefty penalty will deter this from recurring,” he told reporters. “We will fight this case and we will win.”

Og Bashan, representing the defendants, dismissed the suit as a nuisance. “We’ll squash the plaintiffs like bugs,” he predicted.