{"id":17284,"date":"2014-07-23T20:59:06","date_gmt":"2014-07-24T02:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=17284"},"modified":"2014-07-23T20:59:06","modified_gmt":"2014-07-24T02:59:06","slug":"why-the-tel-aviv-flight-cancellations-are-such-a-blow-to-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/why-the-tel-aviv-flight-cancellations-are-such-a-blow-to-israel\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the Tel Aviv flight cancellations are such a blow to Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"color: #222222;\">By URIEL HEILMAN<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #222222;\">(JTA) &#8212; When the Federal Aviation Administration announced a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jta.org\/2014\/07\/22\/news-opinion\/united-states\/delta-grounds-flights-to-israel-diverts-plane-to-paris-1\" target=\"_blank\">ban<\/a>\u00a0Tuesday on U.S. carriers flying to Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, prompting a slew of similar decisions by European carriers, the flight cancellations were more than just a major inconvenience to thousands of passengers on 160-plus canceled flights.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_17288\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a title=\"Delta Airlines jet\" href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Delta-Airlines.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-17288\" class=\"wp-image-17288 size-medium lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Delta-Airlines-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"Delta Airlines\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Delta-Airlines-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Delta-Airlines.jpg 1024w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/199;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-17288\" class=\"wp-image-17288 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Delta-Airlines-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"Delta Airlines\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Delta-Airlines-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Delta-Airlines.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-17288\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Delta Airlines and other U.S. operators have been idled from flights to and from Israel following the FAA ban. (Delta Airlines)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"color: #222222;\">They were a distressing reality check to a country that prides itself on being an island of normalcy in a sea of chaos.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #222222;\">Israelis and visitors alike often talk about how Israel is wrongly perceived as a war zone.\u00a0Yes, the surrounding region is a mess, full of unstable and repressive autocracies where violence \u2013 often perpetrated by the government against its people &#8212; is de rigueur. But Israel is a stable Western democracy, closer to Europe in mentality, economy and culture than to its neighbors to the north, east and south. It&#8217;s a normal\u00a0country with normal\u00a0people leading normal lives.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #222222;\">The moment the airlines decided Tel Aviv was too dangerous to fly in and out of gave the lie to that argument, dealing a serious blow not just to Israel\u2019s image overseas but to the way Israelis look at themselves and their country (though many of them believe\u00a0the airlines are grossly overreacting).<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #222222;\">The cancellations on Tuesday came not long after a rocket fired from Gaza struck and destroyed a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jta.org\/2014\/07\/22\/news-opinion\/israel-middle-east\/rocket-hits-tel-aviv-area-home-as-gaza-fighting-continues\" target=\"_blank\">home in Yehud<\/a>, a town\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/maps\/dir\/Ben+Gurion+Airport,+Israel\/Yehud,+Israel\/@32.0080269,34.8385431,13z\/data=%213m1%214b1%214m13%214m12%211m5%211m1%211s0x1502caad000787ad:0xf28b9e6fcef00032%212m2%211d34.870728%212d32.000733%211m5%211m1%211s0x151d356de63f3ca7:0xd98e0a1668f3c190%212m2%211d34.879579%212d32.029338\" target=\"_blank\">about a mile from the runways<\/a>\u00a0of Ben Gurion. Taking place just days after the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine, airlines are understandably jittery about flying over or into conflict zones. The Malaysia flight appears to have been shot down by a surface-to-air missile fired amid fighting between Russian-backed militants and the Ukrainian military.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #222222;\">But Israel doesn\u2019t want to be lumped in with Ukraine or Syria or Iraq. It wants to be part of the West. And if you look at the country\u2019s economy, government and culture, for the most part it is.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #222222;\">But dammit, there\u2019s this war going on, and it\u2019s getting harder and harder to ignore. One of Hamas\u2019 aims in the war is to disrupt Israeli life and do as much damage as possible to Israel. It\u2019s why terrorists in Gaza have fired more than\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/IDFSpokesperson\/status\/491820094884810752\" target=\"_blank\">2,100 rockets<\/a>\u00a0at Israel since the Israeli military launched its operation July 8 in an effort to quell the rocket fire from Gaza.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #222222;\">While only two people have been killed from those rockets, the disruption of travel into the country represents a real victory for Hamas, as Israeli officials and Israel supporters have pointed out in arguing for the quick resumption of flights.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #222222;\">\u201cThe flight restrictions are a mistake that hand Hamas an undeserved victory and should be lifted immediately,\u201d<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jta.org\/2014\/07\/23\/news-opinion\/politics\/netanyahu-raises-faa-ban-on-israel-flights-with-kerry\" target=\"_blank\">Michael Bloomberg<\/a>, New York\u2019s former mayor, said in a statement Tuesday night announcing that he was on his way to board a Tel Aviv-bound El Al flight to demonstrate how safe it is to fly to Israel.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #222222;\">It\u2019s hard at this point to measure the economic damage Israel will suffer as a result of this war. But the flight cancellations send a signal to the world &#8212; including potential tourists and businesspeople &#8212; that Israel is a dangerous place to be.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #222222;\">Then there\u2019s the psychological component to consider.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #222222;\">As JTA\u2019s Ben Sales notes in his\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jta.org\/2014\/07\/23\/news-opinion\/israel-middle-east\/after-flight-cancellations-a-waiting-game-at-ben-gurion-airport\" target=\"_blank\">story Wednesday from Ben Gurion Airport<\/a>, \u201cMany Israelis consider international travel a vital escape valve to living in a small and often tense country \u2014 even when there are no wars happening.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #222222;\">The cancellations threaten to close that valve and leave Israelis with a greater sense of isolation.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #222222;\">During the height of the second intifada, amid the bombings of Israeli buses, cafes and nightclubs, Israelis began to lament another kind of \u201cpigua,\u201d the Hebrew word used in Israel to describe terrorist attacks. The word pigua is not a precise translation of \u201cattack\u201d &#8212; that would be \u201chatkafa\u201d &#8212; but a variant on the word \u201cwound.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #222222;\">When rock groups like the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jta.org\/2001\/08\/15\/archive\/the-popular-rock-band-red-hot-chili-peppers\" target=\"_blank\">Red Hot Chili Peppers canceled<\/a>\u00a0their performances in Israel due to the violence (despite<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jta.org\/2001\/07\/04\/archive\/president-clinton-reportedly-called-members-of-the-music\" target=\"_blank\">entreaties by President Clinton<\/a>), Israelis began complaining of cultural piguas.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #222222;\">The decision Tuesday by a slew of airlines to cancel 160 flights to and from Israel isn\u2019t just an economic pigua. It\u2019s a psychological pigua.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #222222;\">How long the flight ban will last \u2013<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Why%20the%20Tel%20Aviv%20flight%20cancellations%20are%20such%20a%20blow%20to%20Israel\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17288,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2333,5781,8781,8790,8795,8788,412],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17284"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17284"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17290,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17284\/revisions\/17290"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}