Fatah official calls for Arab boycott of airlines after ‘flytilla’
Dimitri Diliani says the campaign was a success, despite Israeli preemptive measures
Elhanan Miller is the former Arab affairs reporter for The Times of Israel
A member of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement called on Arab states to boycott European airlines which collaborated with Israel in thwarting a pro-Palestinian campaign Sunday.
Dimitri Diliani, a member of Fatah’s Revolutionary Council, said in a statement published Monday that the national carriers of France, Italy, Turkey, Austria and Germany, as well as the low-cost companies EasyJet and Jet2, colluded with Israeli security agencies in preventing the arrival of some 1,200 pro-Palestinian activists at Ben Gurion International Airport on Sunday.
“They have directly participated in moving the Israeli roadblocks from the Palestinian territories to the capitals of Europe,” Diliani was quoted by Palestinian daily Felesteen as saying.
Diliani called on Arab states to boycott the European airlines, arguing that Israel had done the same by tacitly threatening to sanction the companies if they did not comply with its security demands. He also encouraged European activists to press charges against the companies in their own countries.
Israeli authorities had contacted the European airlines ahead of the campaign and requested that they remove suspected activists from flights scheduled for Sunday. As a result, only 31 activists managed to reach Israel.
Nevertheless, Diliani considered the “flytilla” a public relations success for Palestinians, noting that it “shed light on the fascist nature of the Israeli occupation.”
