Halifax bank has denied accusations it "rejected the Israeli state" after a customer received a letter that referred to Tel Aviv as being in "Occupied Palestinian Territory", blaming human error.
David Bender, an Israeli citizen, received a letter from the British bank about a new credit card in August. However, where the address was printed the British bank indicated Israel’s largest city was not in the Jewish state.
Bender, who has banked with Halifax for 20 years, said he was "staggered" and contacted the company immediately.
A member of staff then told the 75 year old told him they would look into the matter and get back to him within 15 days.
My dad lives in Tel Aviv & has had an account with @HalifaxBank for 20 years. As 10,000's of Brits chant the maximalist genocidal ‘from the river to the sea Palestine will be free’ its incredible that @HalifaxBank declared Tel Aviv occupied Palestinian territory. pic.twitter.com/XhSULsSwBv
— Calev Ben Dor (@CalevBenDor) November 6, 2023
Bender, who resides in Tel Aviv, told the JC he was worried that a "rogue individual" at the company removed the word "Israel" and replaced it with "Palestinian Territories, Occupied" before the letter was sent.
However, Halifax has insisted this was not the case. Instead, the bank said, an employee entered the wrong country code from a database on the letter, which led to the printing error.
A spokesperson for the bank said: "We’ve investigated and can confirm this was due to an individual human error, which was corrected in August.
“We are sorry for any upset caused and are contacting our customer to apologise for the mistake."
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