The Oklahoman published a guest op-ed on Monday comparing the Oklahoma City Thunder to the state of Israel, and by the end of the day, they were wishing they hadn’t.
The piece, written by Eitan Reshef — a native Oklahoman, Chicago-based entrepreneur, investor, and former advertising agency CEO — was titled “Like Thunder, Israel is an underdog that has become hated.” As Awful Announcing’s Sean Keeley noted, Reshef argued that the growing backlash against the Thunder mirrors the international scrutiny leveled at Israel, framing both as success stories the world struggles to accept.
“As both a fiercely proud Oklahoman and a Jew, the parallels between the Thunder and the nation of Israel are difficult to ignore,” Reshef wrote. “Neither was supposed to become what it is.”
The column was accompanied by an image of a blue-and-white basketball bearing a Star of David that resembles the Israeli flag, which went viral on social media almost immediately and was pulled from The Oklahoman’s website not long after.
On Tuesday, the paper issued an editor’s note taking responsibility for the lapse in editorial judgment.
“On May 18, we mistakenly published a guest opinion piece that did not meet our opinion standards. The op-ed has been removed, and we deeply regret any distress this may have caused.”
The note is about as bare-bones as an editor’s note can be, offering no explanation of how the piece cleared the editorial process, no acknowledgment of who approved it, and no accounting for why a column invoking one of the most divisive geopolitical conflicts in the world was deemed publishable under their masthead to begin with. The Oklahoman is essentially admitting the mistake happened without explaining how, which raises more questions than it answers.
Somebody at The Oklahoman read Reshef’s piece, saw the Star of David basketball image, and signed off on it anyway. The note tells you they regret that decision. It doesn’t tell you how it happened, who made it, or what changes, if any, are being made to prevent something like this from running again.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.