Kuwait Airways’ Ban on Israeli Passengers Challenged in German Court

By Deputy Chief EditorDecember 19, 2017

159 1 minute read

An Israeli man has appealed against a German court’s decision to uphold Kuwait Airways’ claimed right to ban him from boarding a flight due to his citizenship, a legal decision that triggered uproar in Jewish groups.

The appeal argues that the verdict applied the racist law of a radical, totalitarian regime and allowed it to overrule German national air transportation laws that obligate every air carrier to transport any passenger with valid travel documents.

As Breitbart Jerusalem reported, the Frankfurt state court noted in its original decision that Kuwait Airways is not allowed to have contracts with Israelis under an archaic 1967 Kuwaiti law that bans all such relations between the two states.

“We cannot allow our laws to be subverted by the state-sponsored racism of other nations,” said Nathan Gelbart, the German attorney for the the Lawfare Project, the group backing the appeal. He said the decision by the Frankfurt district court had allowed “anti-Semitic discrimination to be imported into our country and helped whitewash and sanitize it.”

Foreign Ministry State Secretary, Michael Roth, agreed. He said the decision was “incomprehensible”, while State Secretary of the Ministry of Justice, Christian Lange, wrote to Chancellor Angela Merkel asking her to “personally ensure that the landing rights of Kuwait Airways in Germany are immediately withdrawn.”

Three German state parliaments in Bavaria, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia, have passed resolutions condemning the airline for its policy.

Acting Transportation Minister Christian Schmidt also raised concerns about the issue in a letter to Kuwaiti officials, saying it was “fundamentally unacceptable to exclude citizens because of their nationality,” according to the Lawfare Project.

Courts in the United States and Switzerland previously have ruled in favor of plaintiffs in comparable cases.

In January 2016, Kuwait Airways halted its passenger service from New York’s JFK airport to Heathrow in London, due to a requirement by the United States Department of Transportation that it cease discrimination against Israeli travelers.