Monopoly, the Hebrew version
Photo: Rinat Luke
Country names pulled from Monopoly site after protests over J'lem
Hasbro says mid-level employee decided on her own to eliminate the word 'Israel' after name 'Jerusalem' in an online contest to select names for a new, global Monopoly board game. All country names from cities listed on site removed
A mid-level employee with Hasbro Inc. decided on her own to eliminate the word ''Israel'' after the name ''Jerusalem'' in an online contest to select names for a new, global Monopoly board game after pro-Palestinian groups and bloggers complained, the company said Thursday.
Her decision sparked even more protests - this time from the other side - prompting the company to apologize a day later and pull all country names from cities listed on the site.
''It was a bad decision, one that we rectified relatively quickly,'' Hasbro spokesman Wayne Charness said. ''This is a game. We never wanted to enter into any political debate. We apologize to our Monopoly fans.''
The issue has been a sensitive one for decades: Israel captured the eastern part of Jerusalem _ home to Jewish, Muslim and Christian holy sites _ in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it. The Palestinians want east Jerusalem to be the capital of a future independent state.
'Game was never meant to include country names'
The toy company is preparing to launch its new ''Monopoly Here and Now: The World Edition,'' and has been asking people to vote online for cities to include in the board game. Until Tuesday, every city listed had the country next to it.
But a ''mid-level'' employee based in London decided to pull Israel without consulting senior management, leaving Jerusalem as the only city on the list without a country, Charness said.
Hasbro management learned of the change Wednesday when its London office noticed a spike in traffic on the site and figured out what happened, Charness said. The company then took out all country names.
He said that the game, due out in the fall, was never meant to include country names. The countries were added to the Web site just to make voting easier.
''Monopoly is the world's most popular game,'' he said. ''We want it to remain that way.''
Voting in the contest ends Feb. 29 for the Top 20 cities and March 9 for two wild card cities nominated by voters. The top vote-getting city will get the prime Boardwalk spot: as of Thursday, it was Istanbul, Turkey.
