From a hotel in Kyoto to a sandwich joint in Edinburgh, the world is becoming hostile toward Israelis who are learning that a vacation won’t shield them from the Gaza war.
During the nine months of war the Israeli tourist experience abroad has been marked by fears of antisemitism and efforts to avoid pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
According to reports by Israeli media and posts online, some of those worries have recently turned real for a number of Israeli tourists.Anecdotal incidents at touristic locations around the world are making it clear that even though there is no official policy of excluding Israelis, that is sometimes the situation on the ground.
An especially bumpy week began on June 17 at the Material Hotel in Kyoto, Japan, when an Israeli named Alex was informed that his reservation had been canceled due to the allegations of Israeli war crimes in Gaza. The Material told Alex that it was “not able to accept reservations from persons we believe might have ties to the Israeli army,” as reported by Israeli website Ynet.
The story made the rounds on social media, produced a stern protest letter from Israel’s ambassador in Tokyo, and led to a rebuke by the Kyoto municipality that the hotel had breached Japanese business law and must ensure that such a transgression won’t happen again.
At least in the UK a lot of this was irritation that, yet again, our country was being drawn into a war that had nothing to do with us. It wasn’t aimed at individuals (although certain people decided to take it like that), it was the American government that we were annoyed with.
Everyone knows being rude to Americans is bad for mental health, because they’re the only group that will complain about it. For ages.
Why though? We’re nice people we swear! Everyone says we’re the nicest. Nice people just can’t get ahead in this world without people being rude to them.
(luckily I have ADHD, so ages ends…now.)