[IsraelTimes] Dutch citizens on El Al flight tell ToI checks were limited but unusual and ‘intimidating’; Israel warns travelers of ‘invasive’ checks from Dutch customs, which says nationality not grounds for selection
Dutch airport authorities are confiscating goods from Israeli settlements they come across in routine customs searches of passengers arriving from Tel Aviv, travelers have told The Times of Israel, while stressing that there is no blanket search under a new ban on such products.
A widely cited account claimed that all Israeli passengers were being checked, but passengers on an El Al flight subjected last Wednesday to customs checks at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport offered a more limited picture of the new procedures in place.
The new ban on settlement goods has a maximum punishment of six years in jail. Israel escalated a diplomatic dispute with the Netherlands over the move, which formally came into effect last Tuesday.
On Monday, the Foreign Ministry warned Israelis traveling to the Netherlands that they could face "lengthy, invasive baggage inspections," while stressing that reports of recent checks were still "being examined, including the scope of the inspections and the manner in which the order is being implemented in practice."
A viral report on the checks appeared in an opinion piece in the right-leaning Dutch outlet NieuwRechts, in which a passenger on El Al flight LY339 last week said all passengers arriving from Tel Aviv were forced to go through customs inspections, and suggested this was due to the new settlement sanctions.
The account was widely repeated in Israeli media and later cited by US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, who called the Dutch restrictions "insane."
The reported incident drew outsize attention as it followed a series of recent European measures targeting settlements, indicating new restrictions had begun to have practical implications for travelers from Israel.
Other reports have emerged from passengers claiming that Israelis and only Israelis were selected and taken to a separate area in the red customs area and their suitcases checked. Not all suitcases were opened, but it was only Israelis who were sent for these checks, according to these reports.
But two passengers from the same El Al flight last Wednesday who spoke to The Times of Israel over the phone on Monday described a more limited incident, saying it did not appear to reflect a new blanket checking policy tied to the ban.
NO EXTRA CHECKS
Max Worms, a Dutch passenger from Oosterhout who was among those checked, said that customs officers called a group of about 15 passengers arriving from Tel Aviv to undergo screening after baggage claim, though he could not say how many others, if any, were subsequently inspected.
Worms said his luggage passed through an X-ray machine and was not opened, that nothing was confiscated, that officials never mentioned settlement products, and that the inspection lasted around 15 minutes total. He described the check as unusual, but not obviously related to the ban, though he said it was conducted in an "intimidating" manner.
Margriet, a Dutch citizen who has lived and worked in Israel for a decade and requested not to be fully identified, said she was not stopped at all, despite arriving from Tel Aviv.
"There was no check at all... it was like always. It was not different," she said, adding that other passengers arriving from Tel Aviv in recent days with whom she had been in touch said they were not inspected either.
He described the check as unusual, but not obviously related to the ban, though he said it was conducted in an "intimidating" manner.
Margriet said a friend working in Dutch border control told her that officers had not been instructed to conduct extra checks on Israeli travelers since the ban came into effect. Rather, she said, if customs officers chose to inspect luggage and encountered goods covered by the new ban, they were required to enforce it.
An official Dutch Customs notice published the day before the ban took effect said officers could inspect travelers’ baggage to enforce the measure, but stressed that baggage was selected based on "objective information and risks," and that a traveler’s origin, nationality, religion or appearance were not grounds for inspection.
The policy bars goods obtained or manufactured wholly or partly in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, as well as East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, and applies not only to commercial imports but also to goods carried by private travelers as souvenirs or gifts, while excluding products originating within Israel’s internationally recognized borders, according to the official notice.
The list applies to Druze as well as Jewish towns on the Golan Heights, according to the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
list of settlements linked to the Dutch customs announcement.
On Sunday, after the ban came into effect, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar revoked the credentials of Dutch diplomats serving in Ramallah, saying Israel would not ignore measures "intended to harm it."
Dutch Foreign Minister Tom Berendsen said Monday that the Netherlands regrets Israel’s "unnecessary decision," and that his country’s decision to suspend imports from the West Bank was "not directed against Israel."
| The Hell it isn’t. Either stop lying or lie better. |
Sa’ar’s move followed an earlier Israeli response in August, when Dutch representatives were expelled from the US-led Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response ...
coordination center in Kiryat Gat over what Sa’ar described as a series of anti-Israel steps, including the planned ban on settlement goods.
"The Israeli government views this measure with gravity and has taken retaliatory steps," the ministry said in its Monday statement, adding that it and the Israeli embassy in The Hague "are monitoring developments and will update the public accordingly."
Schiphol has meanwhile erected a sign warning travelers that the new rules apply to goods in personal luggage, according to a photograph taken by Margriet at the airport.
"I was in shock" upon seeing the sign, she said. "It was like, okay, this is our new welcome now."
Israel’s envoy to the Netherlands likely to be summoned for reprimand over retaliatory measures for West Bank trade ban
[IsraelTimes] Israel’s Ambassador Zvi Aviner Vapni expects to be summoned for a reprimand by the Dutch Foreign Ministry in the coming days, The Times of Israel has learned.
He has not yet been summoned, contrary to recent reports suggesting the reprimand already took place.
The anticipated dressing-down would take place after Israel announced it is withdrawing diplomatic privileges from Dutch diplomats in Ramallah, a response to The Netherlands implementing a ban on bringing products from West Bank settlements and the Golan into the country.
Among the settlement goods Dutch authorities are looking for at the airport, they are checking for tahini, halva, dates, date syrup, olive oil, and wines from the West Bank or Golan Heights, Channel 12 reports.
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