300 Jews Stranded On Washington Dulles Tarmac After Bus Drivers Refuse Service

by Gary Leff

Around 900 Jews from Detroit flew to D.C. to join a protest march against Hamas, seeking return of hostages taken on October 7th. However bus drivers who had been contracted to pick up the group from Washington Dulles airport learned of the purpose of the trip, and reportedly engaged in a sick out, refusing to pick up the group. After scrambling for transportation around 600 people made it, while 300 – stuck on the tarmac for hours – eventually returned home.

David Kurzmann of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit reported that the bus company informed the group that they were facing a driver sick out in response to the group’s plans.

They informed us … that they had drivers, who, when they were aware of the assignment today, called in, more than a few, a number of drivers called in sick.

[The bus company] committed to fulfilling the obligations for our group and we had all expectation that they would they demonstrated a desire and full intention to do, and today they seemed to encounter some challenge…caused by a deliberate and malicious walk-off of drivers. Fortunately, many were able to travel to the march, and we are grateful to the drivers of those buses that arrived.

Ultimately with a limited number of buses, people sat “on each other’s laps” and stood in the aisles.


There were tens of thousands of people marching, sans around 300 Jews from Detroit. The march was joined by prominent leaders like Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jefferies (D-NY). For Jefferies perhaps this helps him to atone for, or inoculate him against, his own earlier involvement in anti-semitism.

Six weeks after the worst terrorist attack in Israel’s history, where as a percentage of population around 15 times as many Israelis died as Americans on 9/11, it’s believed that Hamas holds over 200 hostages. There has been no access provided to the Red Cross. Following their mass rapes and torture, Hamas hides amongst civilians and operates out of tunnels beneath hospitals. They’ve stolen billions of dollars in aid for Palestinian people.

War is horrible, it has always been so, and it’s doubly so when combatants hide amongst civilians. 20,000 civilians were killed in the Battle of Normandy. Over 100,000 were killed in the battle of Berlin. Hamas is responsible for Palestinian deaths, just as they’ve been responsible for blowing up a peace process for decades that has consistently offered a Palestinian state with nearly all of Gaza and the West Bank, a connection between the two, and a capital in East Jerusalem.

The world needs to call on Hamas to return hostages and to stop holding Palestinians as hostages inside Gaza. If Arafat could have agreed to the Camp David deal in 2000, a majority of Palestinians today would have grown up under their own state – better off than they are today. Not with everything their leadership wanted, but a whole generation’s lives would be substantially improved. Hamas, and whatever replaces Hamas, needs to be eliminated. And this has to be a priority for Palestinians or they will never have their own state.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. “@Rob & @Total, don’t be silly. Open your minds for solutions. Busses arrived, picked up 600 of 900. The busses could first have taken 300 to the metro station, gone back and picked up the remaining 600. This isn’t rocket science. It’s easier to act like a victim.”

    Hey, I’m on your side.

  2. There’s plenary of misinformation out there due to vacant or poor judge of context to say that Jefferies need to atone for his “earlier involvement in anti-semitism”. Involvement? Twenty-five year ago as a college student he said some things that in reality, since college is a place for exploring ideas and sometimes wild rhetoric, were mild in comparison to almost anything else said. I remember saying some things in support of the Black Panthers back in the 70s while in college. College is where you change and grow up. So let’s try a little context before casually besmirching someone.

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