NBA deletes phrase ‘occupied’ after Miri Regev says it is at odds with Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital

Israel’s far-right sports and culture minister has taken credit for the US National Basketball Association’s decision to remove the description “occupied” from its depiction of Palestine on its website, despite the fact that the phrase describes the internationally recognised legal status of the Palestinian territories.

The NBA’s site originally listed “occupied Palestine territories” and at time of writing had deleted the word “occupied” at the instance of two Israeli ministers, one of whom suggested they were in fact part of Israel.



The row over the inclusion of the words in a pop-up menu provided by a third party in an online poll of favourite players is the latest example of the lengths Israeli ministers will go to challenge the accepted legal definition of Palestine’s status.

Q&A Why is recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital so contentious? Show Hide Of all the issues at the heart of the enduring conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, none is as sensitive as the status of Jerusalem. The holy city has been at the centre of peace-making efforts for decades. Seventy years ago, when the UN voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, Jerusalem was defined as a separate entity under international supervision. In the war of 1948 it was divided, like Berlin in the cold war, into western and eastern sectors under Israeli and Jordanian control respectively. Nineteen years later, in June 1967, Israel captured the eastern side, expanded the city’s boundaries and annexed it – an act that was never recognised internationally. Israel routinely describes the city, with its Jewish, Muslim and Christian holy places, as its “united and eternal” capital. For their part, the Palestinians say East Jerusalem must be the capital of a future independent Palestinian state. The unequivocal international view, accepted by all previous US administrations, is that the city’s status must be addressed in peace negotiations. Recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital puts the US out of step with the rest of the world, and legitimises Israeli settlement-building in the east – considered illegal under international law. Photograph: Thomas Coex/AFP

In a letter to the NBA commissioner, Adam Silver, the sports minister, Miri Regev, called the Palestinian territories “an imaginary ‘state’” and said the listing was not in line with Donald Trump’s recent recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.



“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,” wrote Regev.

The NBA’s president of social responsibility, Kathy Behrens, told Israel National News that country listings were provided by a third party. “We do not produce the country listings for NBA.com, and as soon as we became aware of it the site was updated. We apologise for this oversight, and have corrected it,” Behrens said.

Palestinians seek east Jerusalem, captured by Israel from Jordan in the 1967 six-day war, as the capital of their future state. Israel claims the whole city as its capital.

Regev thanked Silver on Friday for removing the words. She said: “Israel’s lands are not occupied; therefore what was written was false and should have been deleted.”

Regev’s position is starkly at odds with mainstream international opinion and that of the UN, which refers to the West Bank and Gaza as occupied.

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Both the United Nations security council and the international court of justice regard the West Bank, Gaza and Western Golan Heights as territory that is occupied by Israel under international law.

Israel’s deputy minister of foreign affairs, Tzipi Hotovely, had also called on the NBA to take action. “This week, US ambassador Friedman called for the cessation of the use of the term ‘occupied’ in regard to Judea and Samaria, and an important sports league such as the NBA should respect this view,” said Hotovely.

Hotovely was referring to a reported claim in the Israeli media – sharply disputed by the US state department – that Friedman had called for the dropping of the term “occupied”.

Regev is no stranger to interposing herself in disputes with sporting organisations whose views do not accord with her own. Last month she threatened to pull support for the Giro d’Italia bike race after organisers described a section of the route as going through “west Jerusalem”.