{"id":60727,"date":"2018-04-10T17:05:14","date_gmt":"2018-04-10T15:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=60727"},"modified":"2018-04-09T06:41:44","modified_gmt":"2018-04-09T04:41:44","slug":"16-05-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=60727","title":{"rendered":"GERMAN DIPLOMATS DEFEND KUWAIT AIRWAYS\u2019 ‘NO ISRAELIS ALLOWED’ POLICY"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>GERMAN DIPLOMATS DEFEND KUWAIT AIRWAYS\u2019 ‘NO ISRAELIS ALLOWED’ POLICY<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

BENJAMIN WEINTHAL<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Kuwait Airways. (photo credit: STEVE FITZGERALD\/WIKIMEDIA)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

German diplomats have said accusations of antisemitism against Kuwait Airways for its practice of refusing Israeli passengers are exaggerated, triggering sharp criticism from the Simon Wiesenthal Center and a German lawyer who sued the airline.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The statement defending state-owned Kuwait Airways was first reported by the D\u00fcsseldorf-based business daily Handelsblatt on Monday.<\/span><\/p>\n

A court in Frankfurt ruled in November that Kuwait Airways was within its rights to refuse service to an Israeli citizen. The Israeli in the lawsuit had booked a flight on Kuwait Airways from Frankfurt to Bangkok.<\/span><\/p>\n

Katharina Ziegler, a German Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, declined to comment on the record in response to a query from The Jerusalem Post addressed to Heiko Maas, the new foreign minister. Maas has promised improved German-Israel relations after the anti-Israel policies of his predecessor, Sigmar Gabriel. Germany\u2019s Foreign Ministry is widely viewed as one of the harshest critics of the Jewish state within Chancellor Angela Merkel\u2019s administration. The US- and EU-designated terrorist entity Hamas praised Gabriel in January for terming Israel an \u201capartheid regime.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Handelsblatt article, authored by Moritz Koch and Daniel Delhaes, alleged that there is little understanding within the Transportation Ministry for Scheuer\u2019s threatened sanctions against Kuwait Airways. The criticism of Kuwait Airways, wrote the paper without sourcing, was termed a \u201ccomplete farce\u201d by anonymous sources within the ministry.<\/span><\/p>\n

German \u201cdiplomats told Handelsblatt that relations with an important Arab partner country are being jeopardized for an internal domestic campaign.\u201d The diplomats added that it was problematic that Kuwait Airways refuses to serve Israelis.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Handelsblatt, unnamed experts in the Transportation Ministry said if Kuwait Airways is penalized by Transportation Minister Andreas Scheuer, then \u201cHe will have to cancel the [aviation] agreements with other Arab states like Saudi Arabia and Iran.\u201d Saudi Arabia, Iran and other Arab states deny service to Israelis.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nathan Gelbart, the Lawfare Project\u2019s German counsel and the attorney for the Israeli plaintiff suing Kuwait Airways, told the Post on Saturday that \u201cHandelsblatt is quoting anonymous German diplomats who criticize Minister Andreas Scheuer\u2018s pressure on Kuwait Airlines as exaggerated, and this quote completely lacks minimal journalistic standards and is not appropriate for comment.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Gelbart said, \u201cThree federal governmental ministries have clearly condemned Kuwait Airways\u2019 policy of boycotting Israeli passengers departing from German airports, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He added that \u201cKuwait Airways is the only airline boycotting passengers in Germany from only one country, even though they\u2019re booked on destinations they hold valid travel documents for: Israelis. Singling out Israelis as a target of discrimination and boycott meets all definitions of antisemitism. Letting this happen in Germany has an especially bitter taste, and fighting this phenomenon is just and right and definitely not exaggerated.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When asked about the German diplomat\u2019s comment, Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the head of the Jerusalem office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told the Post:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is clearly a case of a policy rooted in antisemitism. It has already been widely acknowledged that anti-Zionism is a form of antisemitism, and the stance adopted by Kuwait Airlines is clearly another example of this phenomenon.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Kuwait Airways dropped service between New York and London in 2015 after the US Department of Transportation ordered the airline to cease refusing to transport Israeli citizens between the US and any third country where they are allowed to disembark.<\/span>
\n Volker Beck, a Green Party politician, said on Friday, \u201cAnyone who excludes citizens of the Jewish and democratic state from transportation violates anti-discrimination law and transportation law. Anyone who does not recognize this is a part of the problem.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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GERMAN DIPLOMATS DEFEND KUWAIT AIRWAYS\u2019 ‘NO ISRAELIS ALLOWED’ POLICY BENJAMIN WEINTHAL Kuwait Airways. (photo credit: STEVE FITZGERALD\/WIKIMEDIA) German diplomats have said accusations of antisemitism against Kuwait Airways for its practice of refusing Israeli passengers are exaggerated, triggering sharp criticism from the Simon Wiesenthal Center and a German lawyer who sued the airline. The statement defending […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60727"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60727"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60737,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60727\/revisions\/60737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}