One the largest publishing companies in the world, HarperCollins, has apologized for the conscious omission of Israel from one of its atlases. The latest edition of an English language atlas it sells in the Middle East showed Gaza and Jordan but not Israel. HarperCollins has pledged to destroy any remaining copies.

The Palestinian Authority, Hamas, and other groups sworn as enemies of Israel, have adamantly denied the multi-cultural nation’s right to exist. Collins Middle East is targeted to schools with English-speakers in the Persian Gulf. Based in the United States, HarperCollins Publishers is part of News Corp, which is led by media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, a globally visible figure known for his pro-Israel views.

The subsidiary of HarperCollins that published the atlas, Collins Bartholomew, said that showing Israel in its pages would have been “unacceptable” to its customers. As reported in Mail Online, an unnamed spokesman for the publisher expressed regret for the deliberate omission. He or she said that the book is no longer available for sale “in all territories” and also that any remaining stock will be “pulped.” His company “sincerely apologizes” for the omission, he said, “and for any offence caused.”

HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the “big six” English-language publishing companies. The company goes back as far as 1817, when Harper & Bros. was founded in New York City. News Corp’s founder, Rupert Murdoch, has linked the presence of personal freedoms around the world with the continued existence of the only democracy in the Middle East, Israel. He has said the natio is the “greatest ally of democracy” and that the enemies of Israel “are our enemies, glorifiers of death, seeking to impose their bloody doctrine through violence.”

This is not the first time Israel has been deleted from maps from a leading publisher. While HarperCollins appears to have taken quick action to correct the situation it caused for itself, it has now been two years since the Scholastic Corporation committed, in its own words, an “inadvertent error” in omitting Israel from a children’s book. The situation reportedly has not yet been fully rectified. Nevertheless, a “Look Inside” the book at amazon.com shows the same map illustration but now with Israel showing. The action of Thea Stilton and the Blue Scarab Hunt: A Geronimo Stilton Adventure, published by Scholastic in 2012, takes place in Egypt. It includes a map showing all of the territory of Israel as a part of Jordan, which is shown bordering Egypt. Scholastic apologized for its omission late in 2013, placing blame on an “oversight” in its translation from the original version of the book, which was in Italian.

Based in the U.S., Scholastic Corporation is the largest publisher of childrens’ books in the world. The company also publishes the Harry Potter, The Hunger Games and Magic School Bus series.

According to a 2013 study from the Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land, 96 percent of Palestinian textbooks omit Israel completely. In those, most show the word “Palestine” over the full area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.