The Delegitimization of Israel in the Airline Industry
Daniel Flesch /
This article is the first in a series examining the expanding scope of efforts to delegitimize Israel as it fights a war for survival against Iran and its proxies in the Middle East.
As a small country in a hostile neighborhood, Israel is overly reliant on international flights for business and tourism. So, it’s troubling when the airline industry joins efforts to delegitimize Israel through manipulated maps and boycotts designed to undermine the Jewish state’s international standing.
On a JetBlue flight in early September, a passenger reported that the in-flight map of the region had the words “Palestinian Territory” overlaid on, and “in significantly larger text” than, the word “Israel.”
Moreover, the in-flight map excluded the Golan Heights, which Israel annexed in 1981, from the Jewish state’s borders.
This was not an isolated incident. In 2009, a British Airways subsidiary flight failed to show Israel on in-flight maps. In 2015, an Air France flight omitted an identification of Israel despite including neighboring countries, the Gaza Strip, and West Bank.
A report in 2017 found that numerous Middle Eastern airlines—including Etihad, Saudia, Qatar Airways, Kuwait Airways and, despite flying between Cairo and Tel Aviv, EgyptAir—failed to show Israel on their in-flight maps.
The use of manipulated maps is particularly troubling for domestic carriers because the U.S. government has stated policy on foreign borders.
In 2019, for example, the Trump-Pence administration recognized the Golan Heights as sovereign Israeli territory, a decision the Biden-Harris administration maintains.
Moreover, the CIA World Factbook’s map of Israel includes the Golan Heights. Notably, “West Bank” and “Gaza” are two separate entries.
These incidents aren’t trivial. They create the perception that Israel doesn’t have sovereignty over its borders and, therefore, is an illegitimate entity.
And if Israel is illegitimate, then any action it might take, even in self-defense during an existential war of survival, is illegitimate. In this environment, it should be unsurprising when sins of omission escalate into overt antagonism.
This was the case during a Ryanair flight from Italy to Israel in June 2023. In an overt act of incitement and political grandstanding, a stewardess repeatedly described the final destination over the public address system as “occupied Palestine.”
Amid heightened tensions since Hamas’ brutal terrorist attack Oct. 7 last year in southern Israel, an attendant on a domestic JetBlue flight in May wore a “Free Palestine” pin. She deliberately moved the pin to her apron during in-flight service so it wouldn’t be obscured.
And in July, two Delta attendants on a domestic flight wore Palestinian flag pins, an odd wardrobe choice considering flag pins customarily are worn to represent the language of the attendant between international destinations.
While indicative of the abiding battle Israel faces in the international arena, these occurrences are, for the moment, episodic and don’t have an appreciable effect on the Jewish state’s ability to defend itself. However, an active boycott by the airlines themselves constitutes a much more significant threat.
In August, the three largest domestic airlines—Delta, American, and United—suspended flights to Israel until Dec. 31, March 2025, and indefinitely, respectively.
Yet, unlike the Federal Aviation Administration’s 36-hour ban during the Israel-Hamas war in 2014, the FAA has not instituted any restrictions about flying to Israel since the Oct. 7 attacks over a year ago.
Thus, by acting unilaterally, the airlines themselves made a conscience choice not to engage in commercial relations with the Jewish state. This decision, as Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., wrote in a letter to the executives of each airline, amounts to “a discriminatory boycott of the world’s only Jewish state.”
Concerned that the Federal Aviation Administration is again taking a political position, Rep. Marc Molinaro, R-N.Y., sent a letter to FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker, asking whether, among other things, the FAA has “discouraged airlines from operating flights to Israel” and how the agency ensures “political matters do not influence the decision-making process.”
The FAA’s 2014 ban was viewed by some as an effort by the Obama-Biden administration to pressure Israel to end military operations against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Given the Biden-Harris administration’s relentless efforts to pressure U.S. ally Israel in the current war prompted by the Oct. 7 massacre, political motivation can’t be ruled out.
(It is worth noting that the FAA lists “Palestine” as a country, despite its not having an airport, in a list of service areas for the agency’s Miami international field office. That listing is also outside the nomenclature of the U.S. State Department.)
Particularly as other international airlines continue to fly to Israel, the decision to suspend flights absent a government mandate has the net effect of creating additional cover to discriminate against the Jewish state. Greater than the financial cost of this discrimination is the message that these efforts by airlines to undermine Israel’s sovereignty sends to America’s friends and enemies.
In the end, JetBlue apologized and committed to adjusting its onboard maps to align with the “U.S. government’s map guidance for the region.”
Perhaps Congress should consider legislation mandating all domestic-based airlines and government authorities to abide by official maps and guidance. Then lawmakers could call executives of U.S. airlines that suspended flights to Israel to testify about their policy and why they did so.