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.
Not for much longer, because human lives are transient. Which is good, because humans seems to prefer making the world worse to making it better.
Sure, bullying some Israeli tourist for war crimes they oppose themselves is absolutely making the world a better place.
Innocent people being killed is important enough to harm people by telling them they’re not welcome to holiday with you, because you disagree with what their government is doing. Yes, that is a form of collective punishment. No, it is not as bad as being killed because you happened to be born Palestinian.
A thing can be bad while still not being as bad as mass murder.