A German Justice Department official on Friday urged his government to revoke Kuwait Airways’ landing rights, in response to the Gulf state’s national airline ban on transporting Israeli citizens.
Christian Lange, the department’s parliamentary state secretary, appealed to Chancellor Angela Merkel in a letter to personally advocate a ban on the airliner’s operations in Germany, saying that the discrimination displayed by Kuwait Airways was intolerable.
“We cannot say ‘Never again’ at a remembrance ceremony, but then remain silent when activists in Germany call for a boycott of Israel, or, as in this case, when an airline refuses to carry Israeli citizens,” Lange said, “Especially the German government must make clear that we reject this form of discrimination and hate, and that we stand by the side of our Israeli friends,” he added.
Lange’s appeal followed a Frankfurt court ruling on Thursday which stated that Kuwait Airways didn’t have to transport the Israeli on a 2016 flight that originated in Frankfurt and included a stopover in Kuwait City, because it would have faced legal repercussions at home.
The court noted the airline wasn’t allowed to have contracts with Israelis under Kuwait’s regulations boycotting of Israel.
The court said it didn’t evaluate whether “this law make sense,” but that the airline risked repercussions that were “not reasonable” for violating it, such as fines or prison time for employees.
Earlier on Friday, German deputy foreign minister Michael Roth told Die Welt newspaper that his country’s ambassador has been asked to raise the issue with Kuwaiti authorities.
“It is incomprehensible to me that in today’s Germany a passenger cannot board a plane simply because of his nationality,” Roth said.
Germany’s Central Council of Jews, the country’s EJC affiliate, condemned the ruling, calling it “unbearable that a foreign company operating based on deeply antisemitic national laws is allowed to be active in Germany.”
