PARIS (EJP)---The Simon Wiesenthal Center expressed outrage at the fact that Nivea apparently removed the State of Israel from the list of its client countries in the Middle East and replaced it with "Palestine territories".

In a letter to German cosmetics company Beiersdorf Chairman, Thomas Quaas, at his Hamburg headquarters, the Centre's Director for International Relations, Shimon Samuels, expressed amazement "that a German company would, allegedly, implement a genocidal policy recommendation of Iranian President Ahmadinejad to '"wipe the Jewish state off the map'".

The Centre demanded "an immediate investigation into the images of '"Boycott Israel" slogans scrawled across Nivea posters, the prompt punishment and dismissal of the perpetrators, the reinstatement of Israel and an apology for this offence to the Jewish people".

"Mr. Chairman just as hate speech presages hate crime, so virtual Holocaust aspires to its recurrence. This is one cosmetic that Nivea should not be selling", concluded Samuels.

In August already, Israeli-American actress and model Becky Griffin complained to the company that she could not select Israel as a location on the Nivea website.

"I was very surprised to find out that according to you, my country, Israel is good enough to sell your products in, but not worth being a part of the rest of the world. When asked to select my location on your website I couldn't do so,” she then wrote in a letter to Beiersdorf.

At the time the German company claimed that the reason Israel was not listed on its website was not due to a boycott but is because there was no local marketing platform that customers could be directed to.

It said that Israel’s branch is managed by Greece.