The Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday afternoon ordered U.S. carriers to stop flying to or from Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv, prohibiting them from traveling through Israel’s largest airport after a rocket landed nearby.
Airlines were banned from flying to Tel Aviv for a 24-hour period beginning on Tuesday at 12:15 p.m. The FAA said it will issue additional guidance by the end of that period.
This prohibition came after a rocket landed about a mile away from the airport, the FAA said.
“The FAA immediately notified U.S. carriers when the agency learned of the rocket strike and informed them that the agency was finalizing [the notice],” the agency said in a statement. “The FAA will continue to monitor and evaluate the situation.”
Even before the FAA’s notice was sent out, several U.S. airlines began canceling flights on Tuesday morning and afternoon.
Some experts think that Israel will continue to pound Hamas in Gaza because of the revenue lost in tourism. Once the United States cancelled flights in and out of Tel Aviv, other countries followed suit.
Some feel that the cancellation of flights is giving in to Hamas. Others think safety is far more important.
What do you think? Will flights resume after 24 hours or will this cancellation last for several days or weeks?
Is Israel pounding too hard to should they continue to ferret out the source of the rocket attacks? What are ordinary Palestinians to do? Surely they would like for all of this assault to stop.
Alan Dershowitz points out this danger to Tel Aviv and the airport may have ended ANY idea of a “two state” solution.
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4467/hamas-israel-airport
Excerpt: Hamas’s decision to fire rockets in the direction of Ben Gurion Airport may well have ended any real prospect of a two-state solution. Whether the regulators and airlines that have stopped flights to and from Israel are right or wrong, this stoppage cannot possibly be tolerated by a democratic country that relies so heavily on tourism and international travel. It is of course a war crime to target an international civilian airport, as Hamas has clearly done.
Even more importantly, Hamas’ actions in essentially closing down international air traffic into Israel, considerably reduces the prospect of any two-state solution. Israel will now be more reluctant than ever to give up military control over the West Bank, which is even closer to Ben Gurion Airport than is Gaza.
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Personally, I think its time to reoccupy Gaza, root out HAMAS, ask if Egypt would like Gaza back, and if they don’t, tell the Palestinians that they can either stop shooting at Israel and be peaceful or they can move to Jordan. No country should have to accept the threat that HAMAS and the Gazan Palestinians present. WE would have taken the territory long ago.
And our gov’t needs to shut the hell up and stop telling the Israelis that they need to worry about casualties while they endure daily rocket attacks. Do we worry about civilian casualties? Does Kerry remember Dresden? Tokyo? Israel is under an existential threat.
Or do we want to accept this?
Netanyahu:
“As I’ve said many times, the United States has a right to defend itself against terrorist attacks from Al Qaeda. And as a result of its war in Afghanistan, and drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, the United States has already done significant damage to Al Qaeda’s infrastructure. I’ve also said, however, that we have serious concerns about the rising number civilian deaths from drone strikes and the potential loss of American lives from terrorism. And that is why it now has to be our focus and the focus of the international community to bring about a cease-fire that ends the fighting and that can stop the deaths of innocent civilians.”
Forgot the link for the quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/07/22/netanyahu-calls-for-immediate-u-s-al-qaeda-ceasefire/
The BEST thing that could happen to the “Palestinians” would be if they kicked the terrorists to the curb and acted civilized. If they would partner with Israel, they would be the envy of the oppressed Muslims everywhere.
Imagine if the Palestinians had agreed to the 1948 two state UN decision. They would ALL be rich, comparatively to the average arab.
Why are you putting Palestinians in quotes? That’s who they are.
I don’t disagree that they need to kick aggressive Hamas to the curb and anyone else who gets in the way of the peace process.
This is effectively the US placing strict economic sanctions on Israel in an attempt to stop them from their military actions in Gaza. It was done under the guise of ‘safety’ but that is BS. The President and his administration is using that as an excuse to try to strong arm Israel into ending it’s campaign against Hamas.
Now there’s a conspiracy theory for you. How about a rocket landing a mile from the airport? How about us not wanting our planes shot down?
When do we fly commercial airlines in and out of countries at war?
A very bad situation indeed – but we do not need another MH17 so soon after MH17 was shot down. If another airline goes down in a war zone will we all not look at each other and say how stupid it was to be flying there?
Where’s that iron dome?
Where does the FAA get this authority? And advisory – yes,but a “legal” ban. These are private companies, insurance companies and passangers who should be making a decision like this. Real overreach.
Who grounded all the planes on 9-11?
Do you want private planes flying in during rocket fire?
The people in the airport were rushed to bomb shelters during the firing.
Really? The ability to close american air lanes and airports given the unknown nature of the 911 attack over the US is not even close the same thing as closing foriegn air lanes and airports to private american airline companies. A 24 hour ban – WTF, this was a stunt and an illegal gross overreach by the government stunt. And oh Gee, I bet an airplane can even be told what is going on around it even while its going on and the companies themsleves can make long term – multi-flight decisions like that.
In fact .. Delta Air Lines and United Airlines suspended service between the U.S. and Israel indefinitely Tuesday. US Airways scrapped its one flight to Tel Aviv Tuesday. Several European airlines, including Germany’s Lufthansa and Air France, also suspended flights. FOLLOWING those actions the Federal Aviation Administration issued a Notice to Airmen, prohibiting U.S. airlines from flying to the Tel Aviv airport for 24 hours. It was a political stunt and had no impact.
Can’t imagine any sane person wanting to fly to Ben Gurion
under present circumstances, so the airlines might as well cancel.
Maybe the pilots don’t want to put themselves and their
passengers in danger either, for that matter.
@Moon-howler
Because there is no such thing as a Palestinian. Arafat was Egyptian. He even stated he hated the word as applied to his people until he saw the political usefulness of it. It is an invented term. The people called themselves Arabs/Jordanians until it became more politically useful to be Palestinian.
Palestine is the historical name for the entire region. That makes the Israelis a “Palestinian” as any Arab that wants to live there.
The PLO was an artificial construct formed from the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt.
My usage is due to a desire to be accurate, similar to this:
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2014/07/some-thoughts-on-the-use-of-the-word-palestinian.html
If Palestine is an artificial name, then so is Israel and its boundaries. I suppose the people of Palestine can call themselves anything they want to call themselves. I also don’t see why you are looking to Arafat for the definitive answer. Just call them Palestinians and be done with it.
Free Palestine!
The FAA directives are not and cannot be political decisions. It makes no sense to fly civilian airliners into combat zones, especially where approaches to airports are within range of rockets and mortars. This is just simple common sense. If the FAA hadn’t made that decision, every man-jack among them should be fired. I wouldn’t dream of sending civilians on commercial aircraft into the fringes of a combat zone to make a political point in favor of one or the other of the combatants.
@ Cargo re “Palestine”. I don’t see what the significance of these names is. Places/countries have names. They change over history. I don’t see what the significance of Arafat having been born in Egypt is. You seem to be saying there is no such thing as Palestine or Palestinians because one of their leaders was born in another country. Golda Meir, David ben Gurion, Menachem Begin were born in eastern Europe. That doesn’t tell us that there is no such thing as Israel. Of course, what we call Israel today is not Israel of the Bible. It is a zone designated by 20th Century European colonial powers as a location for Jewish settlement. Within some of our lifetimes (and I noted in another thread you were a citizen of the United States pre-1865, so you go back even farther than do I), Jordan wasn’t Jordan, Israel wasn’t Israel (it was called Palestine, but before that, it was called several other things). “Palestine” seems as good a term as any, particularly when one recognizes that there is a certain arbitrariness to any of the names we attach to any piece of geography (My town in Virginia changed its name in the mid-1800s to attract a physician from Vienna, Austria, or so the story goes).
@Scout
I do not recall an FAA ban on flights in previous skirmishes between Israel and Hamas. If politics plays no role, then there should be something that distinguishes the current situation from previous ones when Hamas also used rockets.
I believe that the FAA ban has been lifted today, so one is also left trying to figure how the situation has changed. Presumably Hamas still has some capability to launch missiles, although the Israeli occupation of Gaza is likely to curtail opportunities to set up rocket launchers.
Hamas has rockets that get further into Israel that previous skirmishes. The FAA said the ban was for 24 hours when the ban was announced. When it comes to people’s lives, don’t you think its better to err on the side of caution?
I don’t know what fool would be vacationing in Israel right now anyway.
The difference was that rockets were landing in or near the flight approaches to the airport. If that were happening at Dulles, I’m sure the civil air authorities of all the international airlines that have service there would have cancelled those flights, Kelly. No big deal
@Starryflights
Absolutely! Get rid of HAMAS and the FATAH!
“You seem to be saying there is no such thing as Palestine or Palestinians because one of their leaders was born in another country.”
There has never been a nation-state of “Palestine”. Going back to Biblical times, the nation-states that have existed were Israel/Judea, The Assyrians/Babylonians/Persians, and eventually became the Macedonian Greek province of Palestine, which was in turn conquered by the Roman Empire, which was conquered by the Arab Caliphate. Then it switched hands during the various crusades, and was eventually conquered by the Ottoman Turks. Post WW1, it was administered by Britain as part of the League of Nations mandate, and eventually divided between the restored Israel, Egypt, and Trans-Jordan. If anyone has a legitimate claim to Gaza, it’s Egypt, which would make the nationality of those living there, Egyptian. If anyone has a claim to the West Bank, it’s Jordan. Both nations ceded their claims in order to secure peace with Israel, and the “Palestinians” are not wanted by either nation. Israel should be given credit for not annexing either territory, and for unilaterally withdrawing from Gaza, fulfilling their part of the 1993 Accords. If “Palestinians” want recognition as part of the community of nations, and a seat at the “grown-up table”, perhaps they should act like a functioning government, instead of continually poking the bear.
Here is an interesting perspective from some Israeli reservists, mostly women:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/07/23/we-are-israeli-reservists-we-refuse-to-serve/?hpid=z10
The flight ban has been removed so need to get yourselves in a frenzy.
Israel is shooting fish in a barrel.
@Starry flights
Fish with guns, rockets, and bombs. And those fish store the weapons in hospitals and schools.
The fish also don’t necessarily represent the women and children and some of the men. That’s a huge problem because those are who are getting the worst end of this barrel shooting.
Israeli policy in dealing with those in Gaza isn’t always even handed either. I saw the American kid getting brutalized by the police. At the end of the day, neither side is without fault.
I would place more blame on the Palestinians if the women had any rights to speak of.
@Moon-howler
Unlike the Palestinians, those police are being investigated and possibly charged. I’ve not seen more on it. Perhaps the young man should not have been using a deadly weapon against them.
In Gaza, the Palestinian authorities routinely murder “enemies” of the Palestinian people.
The reason that the Gaza population is getting screwed is because of the policies of HAMAS placing weapons in “safe zones” and using human shields. That same population doesn’t rise against their true enemy, HAMAS. They ELECTED them.
@ Steve (#22): And? I fail to see the point. Biblical Israel disintegrated in a succession crisis and civil war after the death of Solomon. Judea hobbled on for a spell, but always compromised in some way or another be superior After the second century BCE, we were just talking about a succession of occupying foreign powers. To an Arab whose forebears have lived on the land from time immemorial, it looks like more of that same old procession. What we have now looks to an Arab resident of that area (be he Muslim or Christian) like a change-out from Malmuks to Ottomans to Brits to European Jews. That’s the nub of the problem. It’s a major reason (although not the only reason) why this issue is so difficult to find a resting point on. What you call people (Palestinians, Arabs, Israelis, Christians, Jordanians, etc. etc. has very little to do with anything (going back to Cargo’s #14). The point is that the region is a historic waypoint between a lot of different cultures, none of whom have had clear title for nearly 3 millennia.
One of the ideas considered by the British Foreign Office with regard to finding a designated area of close settlement for Jews was Uganda. Imagine what the implications of that approach might have been. That point crossed my mind rather forcefully about the time of the Entebbe action.
The reason modern Israel hasn’t annexed either the West Bank or Gaza is that to do so would be fatal to the idea of a Jewish State. Only a two-state solution protects Israel as a democratic state that is predominantly populated by the Jewish people. If Israel absorbs the West Bank and/or Gaza and their populations, it has to impose and apartheid-like system that prevents the overwhelming numbers of Arabs from gaining control of the government. The Israelis don’t want that.
My last sentence was a sweeping generalization. I probably should have said something like: “I don’t think most Israelis want that.” I have no polling data.
I know several ‘dog whistles’ for racism…. Calling President Obama “President Barrack Houssien Obama”, saying he golfs a lot, etc… So, is this:
….a ‘dog whistle’ for antisemitism?
Not really. Don’t even start that here. Criticism of the state of Israel for certain actions is certainly not the same as suggesting they do not have a right to exist nor is it anti-Jewish.
Let’s keep the discussions here intelligent and adult.
The Palestinians (or whatever they end up being called) are Semites, Jackson.
For this blog’s purposes, I am just going to have to insist that the Palestinians be called Palestinians. Thank you for your cogent explanation earlier, Scout.
A cogent case can be made that strong support for a viable independent Palestinian state is the best possible way to secure the security of Israel in the long term, at least Israel as a Jewish state (the theocratic implications of that are another issue, but we hardly need more difficult issues now). That has essentially been the official position of the United States across several administrations. It’s not a view universally held in Israel, but it has substantial support there. Those who oppose that essentially are in a kick-the-can-down-the-road mode or, as the Boers used to say, a “laager mentality.” The situation is virtually intractable, extremely complex, and there is no obvious way to resolve the competing positions. However, if Palestine (or whatever anyone wants to call it) as a separate state can provide an orderly, non-corrupt, secure home for non-Jewish elements of the region, Israel will be more, rather than less secure, and the absolutely ineluctable problem of how Israel could remain a true democratic state when it occupies regions where the non-Jewish population vastly exceeds the Jewish population would have some kind of a rough, imperfect answer. Right now neither side has anything. The leadership on the Palestinian side has left a lot to be desired (and Israel is not without problems in that department also of late), but the only way we get to an improved position is for Israel and its supporters to do what can be done to raise up the Palestinian side to a position where it can function fully as a united, cohesive state.
Americans given over to reflexive simplifications, who have little idea of the history of the area or its cultural diversity and who view this as simply an matter of white hats, black hats do a great deal of harm to Israel’s interests in preserving some sort of long-term, enlightened democratic state based on Judaic principles.