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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.

    • festus@lemmy.caEnglish
      118·
      5 months ago

      You can’t not serve someone because of their country - the hotel doesn’t know whether this man is a soldier or not, just that he’s Israeli.

        • festus@lemmy.caEnglish
          148·
          5 months ago
          • He could be an Arab Israeli
          • He could be ultra-orthodox
          • He could have had a medical exemption
          • He could have received Israeli citizenship later in his adult years after conscription.
          • He may have served but in a role that isn’t committing human rights abuses (say working on missle defense)
          • He may have served but his political views have since developed and he’s now pro-peace / anti-apartheid.

          To generalize and assume that nearly all Israeli men are war criminals is to generalize on the basis of national origin which in most jurisdictions is rightfully assumed to be racist.

    • Echo Dot
      23·
      5 months ago

      The term isn’t war criminal, I mean he might be a war criminal, but we don’t know that. The term is politically exposed. He has an infinitely greater potential to be a war criminal in a way that Joe Average from Australia doesn’t have.

      Of course both could be war criminals, and neither could be war criminals, but you have to work on probabilities.