ISRAELIS PUNISHING TURKS WITH UNOFFICIAL TOURIST BOYCOTT
by Gil Ronen

IsraelNN.com
10/15/09, 10:41 PM

(IsraelNN.com) Israel tourists are punishing Turkey over its latest
insults to Jews and Israel by boycotting its tourist industry. Arutz
Sheva in Hebrew surveyed a number of tourist agencies in Israel and
has found that there has been a drop in demand for tourist resorts
in the last week. "The end of the season plus the crisis between
Turkey and Israel have hit tourism severely," a tourism agency
representative said.

Turkey has been a favorite vacation spot for Israelis for many years
but in recent years, Israeli tourists have taken to boycotting it
after diplomatic spats between the country’s leaders. In the Passover
season, Turkish resorts were reportedly hit hard by an unofficial
Israeli tourist boycott after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan’s attack on Israel at the Davos conference.

‘Turkish coffee’ ban Israeli coffee shop chain Ilan’s has announced
it will no longer serve its customers Turkish coffee, in protest of
the airing of a grossly anti-Israeli scene in a Turkish television
show. The scene showed IDF officers supposedly shooting Arab babies.

Ilan’s marketing manager said that "like all Israelis, we too were
shocked to see the nauseating scenes from films showing IDF soldiers
supposedly shooting small children. We believe everyone can take
action [against the film] in his own way, and this is our modest and
symbolic way."

The manager, Michal Shteg, said that "right now we have decided
to stop selling ‘Istanbul Coffee,’ our Turkish blend, and we will
continue like this until the situation improves."

"True, this is not a boycott that will hurt Turkey financially,
it is not the boycott of IKEA – but this is a cultural boycott and
a patriotic act, which expressed our lack of will to identify with
those who act almost anti-Semitically. Because before everything –
we are Israelis first."

Armenian genocide reminder The "Im Tirz st rally at 12:30 on
Friday opposite the Turkish embassy in Tel Aviv. "Following the ugly
anti-Semitic incitement of the past few days by the official Turkish TV
station and the Turkish Prime Minister we will hold a performance to
highlight the extent of the Turkish government’s hypocrisy and lies,"
the movement announced.

"On the one hand," it explained, "the Turks continue to deny the
holocaust which they perpetrated against the Armenians between 1915
and 1918, and [yet] at the same time they dare to spread blood libels
and lies about the State of Israel and the IDF."

The display will include photos from the Armenian genocide. Books
about the genocide will be handed out to passersby and signs will be
carried, calling on the Turks to take responsibility for the genocide
they perpetrated.