Dear ZOA Activists and Friends:

Despicably, Brussels Airlines (a 45% Lufthansa subsidiary) announced today that it will stop serving Israeli halva produced by the Israeli company Achva.   After the horrors that Germany did to the Jewish people some seventy years ago, it is especially shocking and disgusting that a subsidiary of a German parent companies is perpetrating a racist discrimination against Jewish businesses and products.  Brussels Airlines should immediately stop this anti-Semitic discrimination against a Jewish business.  Parent company Lufthansa should also step in and demand that Brussels Airlines must end its discriminatory boycott of Israeli halva. 

Brussels Airline apparently promptly caved in to a complaint from a “Palestine Solidarity Movement activist.”  As its excuse for caving in to BDS, the airline falsely asserted that the halva products are made on “illegally occupied land.”  See Brussels Airlines Caves Into BDS, Set To Stop Serving Israeli Halva, YNet News, Apr. 24, 2016).   As ZOA has repeatedly explained, Jewish cities, businesses and homes in Judea/Samaria, a/k/a the West Bank, are legal.  See, e.g., Major Israeli Legal Commission Report: Jewish Communities in Judea/Samaria Are Legal and English Translation of the Legal Arguments in the Levy Report.   Moreover, this is simply a anti-Semitic boycott of a Jewish business (which happens to employ persons of all persuasions).

The YNet article reports that Brussels Airlines also stated that: “the [BDS-promoter] customer who came to us with the complaint brought to our attention that the aforementioned dessert is a controversial product.  As a company which serves an international audience full of people from a wide rang of backgrounds and cultures, it is our responsibility to present products which will be amicable to all, and therefore, we decided to change desserts.“

Halva is not a “controversial product.”   And Brussels has a moral and in many places legal obligation to not boycott Jewish businesses.

Moreover, Achva halva is produced by persons from all communities.  The YNet article reported:  “Yaakov Malach, owner of the Achva factory which produces the halva, said that “(our factory) is an ingathering of the exiles. Palestinians, Israeli-Arabs, Jews, Samaritans, and settlers all work here. Peace begins here, not from airlines. Peace comes from places where people work shoulder to shoulder.””

According to Brussels Airlines’ website: “Brussels Airlines is almost 100% owned by the SN Airholding (1,811,308 shares out of 1,811,309 actions).  The SN Airholding is owned for 45% by the Lufthansa AG.  SN Airholding is a Belgian holding of over 30 shareholders, concentrated on the air transport sector. The holding is made up of top level companies, financial institutions and investment groups such as the Virgin Group, Fortis, ING, Suez, Tractebel, Brussels Airport, la Société Régionale d’Investissements Wallone (SRIW) and Société Régionale d’Investissements Bruxelloise (SRIB).”

ZOA urges our readers to tell Brussels Airlines and its owners to end Brussels Airlines’ discriminatory, anti-Semitic boycott of Israeli halva.  Here are some of the ways you can do so:

(1)  Post a demand to Brussels Airlines to end its discriminatory anti-Semitic boycott of Achva Israeli halva on Brussels Airlines’ social media pages:

Brussel Airlines Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/brusselsairlines

Brussel Airlines Twitter page: https://twitter.com/FlyingBrussels 

(2)  Post a demand on Lufthansa’s social media pages to tell its subsidiary Brussels Airlines to stop Brussels Airlines’ discriminatory, anti-Semitic boycott of Israeli Achva halva:

Lufthansa Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/lufthansa

Lufthansa’s Twitter page: https://twitter.com/lufthansa 

(3)  Buy Israeli products! 

(4)  Send ZOA ([email protected]) your other action ideas for this and we will try to post them here.