Culture Minister Miri Regev praised NBA Commissioner Adam Silver thanking for his willingness to change a reference to the "Occupied Palestinian Territories" on its All Star Game voting website.
A new website the league set up for the 2018 All-Star Game in Los Angeles enables fans to vote for their favorite players. After the vote, fans are directed to a page where they are instructed to pick which country they are from. While the website lists Israel, it also lists the "Occupied Palestinian Territories".
Fans only became aware of the option when they tried to vote for Israeli NBA player Omri Casspi. Hadashot 2 said that league officials were unable to comment as they were on Christmas vacation.
Minister Regev sent an angry letter to NBA Commissioner Silver demanding that the listing be removed.
"I was surprised to discover that on the official website of the NBA, where hundreds of millions of basketball fans are voting and who are currently choosing the players for the 2018 All-Star Game, the state of ‘Palestine - Occupied Territory’ was listed as one of the many countries to which basketball fans belong," wrote Regev.
She noted that “Palestine” is “a country everyone knows doesn’t exist,” and added, “I view the inclusion of ‘Occupied Palestine’ in the list of countries appearing on your official website as legitimizing the division of the State of Israel and as gross and blatant interference, in contrast to the official position of the American administration and the declarations of President Donald Trump, who just recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Therefore, I would like to express my disapproval and ask you to immediately act to remove ‘Palestine – Occupied Territory’ from the list of countries.”
