Alex Trelinski
A PARTY of around 50 French-Jewish children were booted off a Vueling flight at Valencia airport on Wednesday with accusations of anti-semitism coming from Israel.
The plane’s captain called in the Guardia Civil to remove the group off the Paris-bound service for disruptive behaviour with officers also arresting one of the group leaders.
The youngsters aged between 10 and 15 years had been at a summer camp and had allegedly refused to stop singing Hebrew songs according to some reports.
The children later returned to France on various flights.
Vueling issued a statement denying that anti-Semitism was involved as had been claimed by an Israeli minister and Israeli media.
“The actions of the staff on board responded exclusively to behaviour that compromised the integrity of the flight, as well as the safety of passengers and operations as a whole, the company said.
“The group adopted a highly conflictive attitude, putting flight safety at risk, improperly handling the emergency material and interrupting the mandatory safety demonstration- repeatedly ignoring the instructions of the cabin crew,” the statement continued.
The carrier said they were warned on multiple occasions but the bad behaviour continued, forcing the immediate activation of established safety protocols.
“The crew, acting with total professionalism and in accordance with Vueling’s procedures, requested the intervention of the Guardia Civil which, after assessing the situation, disembarked the group to prioritise the safety of the rest of the passengers.”
The airline said that even after disembarkation, the group’s behaviour continued to be aggressive and ‘some individuals showed a violent attitude towards the authorities, which led to the arrest of one of the group’s leaders’.
The incident has been described by some Israeli media as an act of ‘anti-Semitism’ but Vueling denies ‘any claim that links our crew’s decision to the religious expression of the passengers involved, which we absolutely respect’.
Israel’s Minister for Diaspora and Combating Anti-Semitism, Amichai Chikli, has posted a social media video featuring the arrest of the camp director.
Chikli says that the children ‘sang Hebrew songs on the plane’ and that the Vueling crew claimed that ‘Israel is a terrorist state’ and forced them off the plane.
“We are witnessing numerous serious anti-Semitic incidents recently; this is one of the most serious,” Chikli wrote.
The Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain(FCJE) has voiced its concern about happened.
In a statement it said that different accounts on social media do not clarify what the cause of the incident was.
“That is why we requested detailed explanations at Vueling, accompanied by documentary evidence, of what happened on board the plane, with special interest in clarifying whether there were possible discriminatory motivations of a religious nature towards minors,” it said.
“The chants and signs of euphoria to the planes are not an isolated thing, and we consider that, if these expressions were the cause of the incident, Vueling has to clarify it. Airlines have a responsibility to ensure the respect and dignity of all their passengers, without exception,” the statement continued.
The FCJE does not question the actions of the Guardia officers who intervened and added that it is committed ‘to coexistence, mutual understanding and respect within a framework of security and order’.
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