From a hotel in Kyoto to a sandwich joint in Edinburgh, the world is becoming hostile toward Israelis who are learning that a vacation won’t shield them from the Gaza war.
During the nine months of war the Israeli tourist experience abroad has been marked by fears of antisemitism and efforts to avoid pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
According to reports by Israeli media and posts online, some of those worries have recently turned real for a number of Israeli tourists.Anecdotal incidents at touristic locations around the world are making it clear that even though there is no official policy of excluding Israelis, that is sometimes the situation on the ground.
An especially bumpy week began on June 17 at the Material Hotel in Kyoto, Japan, when an Israeli named Alex was informed that his reservation had been canceled due to the allegations of Israeli war crimes in Gaza. The Material told Alex that it was “not able to accept reservations from persons we believe might have ties to the Israeli army,” as reported by Israeli website Ynet.
The story made the rounds on social media, produced a stern protest letter from Israel’s ambassador in Tokyo, and led to a rebuke by the Kyoto municipality that the hotel had breached Japanese business law and must ensure that such a transgression won’t happen again.
No, they didn’t get any side eyes. Only maybe from western Europeans who considered themselves that. Even calling them Byzantines is anachronistic, they were called Romans.
Greeks literally mainly called themselves Romans since then till Kingdom of Greece became a thing, and they kinda still do.
Interesting. I never knew that. I still don’t think the Ottomans get to be the Romans any more than modern Italy or Germany but I’ll concede they conquered people who considered themselves Roman still.
Being Armenian, I don’t think they in any way get to be Roman, even less than Russians, but it’s a fact that they called themselves that officially.
Italy speaks Romance languages, except for the parts of its population which speak Greek and Albanian, so of course. And both Italy and Germany are (historically during formation of those nations) Christian.