New York Woman Sues Kuwait Airlines Over Ban on Israeli Passengers
An Israeli woman who has lived in the United States for the last 15 years was barred from boarding a Kuwait Airways flight in New York because of her Israeli citizenship.
Iris Eliazarov, 26, who came to the United States when she was 11 and has a Green Card, was barred from the Nov. 1 Kuwait Airlines flight from John F. Kennedy Airport in New York to London, the New York Daily News reported. Her husband, David Nektalov, a U.S. citizen, was allowed to board the flight.
A Kuwaiti law prohibits Israeli citizens from flying on Kuwait Airways.
Eliazarov has filed a discrimination lawsuit against the airlines, which argues that the airline policy violates both state and federal civil rights laws.
“I take strength from the experience of Rosa Parks,” Eliazarov said in a sworn affidavit, the Daily News reported. “She became famous for her principled stand. This experience has awakened the nightmare of the experience of the Jewish people in Europe in the last century. That was a time of the wrongful splitting of families, often at transportation facilities.”
The airline’s attorney John Maggio told the newspaper that the suit has no merit because the policy is based on citizenship, not religion. He said that a Muslim with an Israeli passport also would not be allowed on the plane.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO