Video from an American Airlines flight to Miami this past week shows a dispute between a Jewish passenger and members of the cabin crew over a flight attendant wearing a watermelon-themed pin that’s meant to symbolize solidarity with Palestine. Employees who aren’t allowed to wear Palestine flag pins often wear this instead. The passenger accused the crew member of supporting terrorism and antisemitism. They demanded he delete the video.
The man approached two female flight attendants, one wearing the pin, and recorded the interaction. He accused them of antisemitism, while they say he isn’t allowed to record them and that he touched one of them. They wouldn’t let him leave the plane while police were called. Police backed him up on the recording, and the footage is being shared broadly online.
According to American Airlines,
We want every customer who flies with us to have a positive travel experience. A member of our team has reached out to the customer to learn more about their experience.
American Airlines uniform standards simply do not allow these pins. Wearing your own pin that is not company-issued (such as part of a company-sponsored affinity group) is not permitted. Here’s the version of the company’s flight attendant uniform standards that were issued when the current uniforms came out.
Here are some of the allowable pins (not that different work groups have different allowable pins).
Flight attendants break company policy all the time. We saw Let’s Go Brandon pins a few years ago. From time to time the airline will crack down on violations.
Meanwhile, several airlines have had controversies with their crew over support for a Palestinian state and even Hamas. It’s put Delta in damage control mode and caused JetBlue to tighten its uniform policy.
United Airlines, for the past few years the U.S. carrier whose politics have leaned farthest left, concocted the argument that flight attendants aren’t violating uniform standards by wearing Palestine pins because they are ‘language pins’ (that crewmembers speak Palestinian?). United has also refused to say whether a pilot who celebrated the atrocities committed by Hamas on 10/7 still flies for them.
There’s little question that the civilian plight in Gaza is heartbreaking, though as the Current Thing it has gotten far more attention over the past decade than perhaps the world’s greatest refugee crisis in Syria where over half the nation’s Muslims were forced to leave their homes. It is more difficult to use the situation in Syria as a bludgeon against Israel and Jews. Meanwhile, every statement about the plight in Gaza should accurately end with “because of Hamas.”
It is possible to wear a Palestinian flag and believe you’re advocating for two states. That isn’t usually what it means. Spain, Ireland and Norway now recognize a Palestinian State. The Catalan independence movement would like a word!
There’s a real concern with front line airline employees voicing political positions and aiming those at passengers. The issue is asymmetric speech. Airline employees exercise power over passengers – power over whether they’ll board and fly, or whether they’ll be considered “disruptive” for expressing their own contrary opinions. And bringing politics into the cabin is already enough of a problem with passengers.
(HT: Paddle Your Own Kanoo)
One question, how would they know this idiot is Jewish? It’s a religion, not a race. Does he have it stamped on his forehead? Is he wearing some clothing that says hey I’m Jewish? Seems he wanted attention.
I don’t understand why the delete the video demand. The flight attendants should be willing to have it broadcast to show their cause to a larger audience. My guess is that they knew that they were going against company policy and didn’t want to get punished for it.
I do not like “woke “ United on many policies, and I will look for opportunities to fly other carriers, especially non-DEI airlines.
What people don’t get is that Hamas attacked and murdered innocent Israeli civilians IN ISRAEL (and the Iranian terror proxy attacks on innocent Israeli civilians continue on a daily basis to this day). Not in Gaza (which was not occupied by Israel at the time but occupied and run by Hamas), not in the West Bank but within the borders of the sovereign, UN recognized State of Israel. So every useful idiot wearing a pin, going to a protest, talking about Palestine on social media, every single one, is negating the right of Israel and Jews to exist and defend its borders and citizens. From the River to the Sea means exactly what it means. Not coexistence, not peace but removal by death or other means of all the Jews from the ME. During this whole war I have not once seen a pro Pali post or demonstration that was advocating for peaceful coexistence.
So the pin IS inherently antisemitic and political, just like all the antisemitic demonstrations and movements in the US, and the employee clearly overstepped and broke company policy and should be treated accordingly.
“He accused them of antisemitism, while they say he isn’t allowed to record them and that he touched one of them. They wouldn’t let him leave the plane while police were called. Police backed him up on the recording, and the footage is being shared broadly online””
Where was the statement from the Police confirming this? The only source for that came from the man himself. I can’t see a statement from any police department where they back up his statement.
Regardless of what the cause was the behaviour of the passenger was unacceptable. He was acting belligerent and aggressive and the cabin crew were totally right to call police and have him removed off the flight.
People are allowed to support or not support whoever they please. Whether the flight attendant violated the uniform code of the airline is not the concern of the passenger who is using his Jewish identity as a crutch to vilify another human being without her uttering a single anti-Semitic trope or statement. To completely lose his cool for a matter of a pin that offends his sensibility points to his prejudice to be above the rest of humanity. To accuse another person of supporting terrorism for wearing a pin is far-fetched. The author tries very hard to make equivalency by dragging other factors into this argument and does not point to the fact that it was the passenger who chose to confront the flight attendant due to his prejudice as clearly indicated by his statements. The flight attendants were not saying anything against Israelis or Jewish individuals. In the end, he provoked the entire episode and got away with it. If the company is strict about their dress code, a separate matter, this should include all pins to be fair to all. The passenger at no time states that she is violating company policy. Again, he is not the airline inspector and she was undertaking her duties, pin or no pin. No one was endangered and no terrorists were on this flight.
So “because of hamas” absolves anyone of committing a genocide? They could do literally anything “because of hamas”. The world sees what’s up. And tey see a microcosm of the entitlement and shameless self victimhood in the video. Get real
How could you possibly know the civilian to militant kill ratio Gary? Israel has banned foreign journalists and literally been killing any journalists reporting what’s happening!
“The village of Huwara needs to be wiped out. I think the State of Israel should do it.” – Bezalel Smotrich, 2023
“Our nation is the chosen one. You will never have the right to this land.” – Amichai Eliyahu, 2023
Imagine if an arab said this about israel, I’m sure you’d be singing a different tune considering you seem to think that wearing a pin, which supports people’s right to freedom and self determination, as antisemitic.
You do you.
Keep supporting genocide pal!
Larry sounds like a bot.
Larry is the only sane comment on this post!