The NBA on Friday apologized and removed wording from its Web site referring to “Palestine-occupied territory” after complaints by Israeli Minister of Culture and Sport Miri Regev
Regev had sent a letter to NBA commissioner Adam Silver calling Palestine “an imaginary ‘state,’” and asking for the reference to be removed from the league’s Web site.
“We do not produce the country listings for NBA.com and as soon as we became aware of it, the site was updated,” NBA president for social responsibility Kathy Behrens said. “We apologize for this oversight and have corrected it.”
The UN along with most of the international community considers the West Bank and east Jerusalem, areas Israel captured in the 1967 war that the Palestinians claim for a future state, as occupied territory.
Regev, of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party, thanked Silver for removing the language, saying: “Israel’s lands are not occupied; therefore what was written was false and should have been deleted.”
She added that the NBA listing was not in line with US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
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