Stop airline for its Israeli ban, Merkel told

GERMANY’S JUSTICE Ministry has asked Chancellor Angela Merkel to strip Kuwait Airways of its landing rights in the country because of its policy of banning Israelis from flying on its planes.

The move follows last week’s German court judgment in which the judge sided with the airline over its discriminatory policy towards Israelis because the airline offered to pay for them to fly on other airlines instead.

The claimant had booked a Kuwait Airways ticket via an online travel agency from Frankfurt to Bangkok, which included a layover in Kuwait.

Shortly before the fight departed, staff at the airline became aware that the passenger was travelling on an Israeli passport, and voided his ticket. They then offered to re-book him on a different airline.

Justice Secretary Christian Lange this week asked Chancellor Merkel to personally withdraw the airline’s landing rights, saying: “We must never be silent when Jews are discriminated against or harassed.”

He added: “The German Government must make it clear that it rejects this form of discrimination and hatred — and that we are on the side of our Israeli friends. Our friendship with Israel is non-negotiable. Such discrimination is not tolerable.”

Another minister, Michael Roth, said it was “incomprehensible” for a passenger to be denied board because of his nationality.

The court had granted Kuwait Airways “a free pass for discrimination against Israelis,” added Volker Beck, until recently a German Green MP, in a statement to the JC.

The US-based Lawfare Project, which supported the Israeli plaintiff, said the judgment had “whitewashed antisemitism” and applauded the ministers’ interventions.

“To see a Jewish person banned from exercising his freedoms in Germany in 2017 is chilling enough,” said Brooke Goldstein, from the Lawfare Project.

“To see that discrimination whitewashed and legitimised by a German judge is grotesque.”