(AL.com) Auburn men’s basketball coach Bruce Pearl chose to stick to sports on Friday when a reporter asked him about 24 hours after a Muslim rights group asked the Tigers to cancel their trip to Israel for the inaugural “Birthright for College Basketball” from July 31 to Aug. 10.
“This is a sports trip,” Pearl said. “This is not a political trip. We’re not going to let a political action group define what we’re doing.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations criticized the trip.
“This propaganda junket is clearly designed to normalize Israeli apartheid and racial segregation while ignoring Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights and international law,” CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper said in a statement.
