A new video shows Jewish teenagers on the Vueling Airlines flight from Spain to France being told by their counselors they need to remove all Jewish symbols, just before the violent arrest of the camp director and the expulsion of 50 Jewish children from the airplane “for singing Hebrew songs”. Antoher passanger testified that the Spanish police came on and asked the French Jewish children if “any of them were Israeli”.
In a testimony to the hostility and antisemitism aboard and in Spain in general, the camp counselor can be seen saying: “Hear me out. The rules are very clear. Everything here that is religious, including signs, trails, orange things, and kippahs, we take off. Tzitzit we put away in our pants, and tefillin we put in our suitcase. We leave nothing religious. You will listen to the rules. We will embark. There won’t be one word. Not one sound. No one gets up without permission. Even if it’s to go to the washroom, we will not allow them to kick us out for these Jew-hating acts. Even if you need to use the washroom, ask permission first. And I count on your maturity to play the game.”
A non-Jewish French passenger shared the following account on social media: “Hello. I’m going to give my point of view as a passenger. I was coming back from Valencia with my daughter and no one on the plane understood what was happening because the group entered the plane normally, without screaming, which is normal for teens. I insist they were carrying themselves well for teenagers. And during the security instructions, they called the police. Because they said there was a security problem on the plane. Finally, they debarked us. Two and a half hours late for nothing. I want to say those kids were polite and left the plane calmly.”
While the airline denies the allegations of antisemitism and has blamed the incident on the Jewish campers, saying they behaved inappropriately, and that “Despite multiple warnings, the inappropriate behavior persisted, forcing the immediate activation of established safety protocols. The crew, acting with complete professionalism and in accordance with Vueling procedures, requested the intervention of the Civil Guard.”
Contradicting those statements is a student on the flight who said the Spanish police came on board asking if some of them were from Israel, and that arrests and deplaning began shortly thereafter. Family of the camp director who was violently arrested shared that “After her arrest, the young woman was taken alone into a room inside the airport with a police officer, leaving the children scared and abandoned in the terminal.
While alone with the officer, she was told she would be banned from entering Spain for two years. He then began questioning her about Israel.”
Horrific.
source https://x.com/DahliaKurtz/status/1948379952761438523
