Maldives Ban On Israelis Hits Snag: Not Targeted Enough At Jews [Roundup]

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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. People around the world need to call out hate- especially the hate now against JEWS!! Don’t be silent or indifferent- CALL IT OUT-

  2. EES keeps getting delayed in Europe and ETIAS gets delayed along with it. The “AI” thing for “truth-telling” judgments of passengers arriving into the Schengen parts of Europe is even more remote.

    About the “Maldives ban on Israelis”, has that “ban” even been implemented by the country? Given all the “well, this ban will ban Arabs/Muslims from Israel too” stuff slowing down a ban implementation, it seems like the country isn’t all as eager to actually implement a ban on Israelis as much as to engage in some version of public “virtue-signaling” against Israel’s war on Gaza.

  3. @GUWonder. Oh no, I disagree. Officials in Maldives are clearly VERY interested in banning ***Jews*** from their country. Clearly, that was their intention all along as they don’t want to ban Muslim Israelis. They’re just trying to figure out a way to do it effectively (including not facing too much backlash from a subset of Western countries).

  4. GUWonder once again defending antisemitism. Did you write off Trump’s early 2016 campaign proposal to ban entry from Muslim countries just virtue signaling? You’re disingenuous and despicable.

    Maldives, don’t worry, I’ll ban myself. You couldn’t pay me to go there. Nothing but fundementalist islamists, IG influencer wannabes, and elitist leftists who suddenly don’t care about CO2 emissions when they are their own…just the highest concentration of the worst people on the planet. Hard pass.

  5. The Maldives government has given zero indication of any intent to ban entry to Jewish persons using Canadian, US, UK, EU or Schengen passports to enter the Maldives.

    Would you fuss about this bantered about proposed ban if it said that Israeli passport users with past or current IDF service are banned from entry to the county and subject to a multi-year incarceration if found guilty of perjury on an entry declaration to that point? I assume there are people that would fuss about any such targeted ban too because they want to see the continued campaign of massive death and destruction in Gaza being delivered by the Netanyahu regime.

  6. Israel just needs to engage the kill switch on all Israeli telecom/internet technology in use in the Maldives and that’ll show them. Next, they’ll order all Israeli pharmacuticals in use in the Maldives to violently self-destruct, including those already injested, and that’ll really show them. And if they really want to hurt them, they’ll ignite all those overwater grass roofs with the Jewish Space Laser.

    You want to ban Jewish Israelis? Let’s also get rid of all the goodies produced by the same people. FAFO.

  7. Maldives ban on Jews…where is the outrage from the international community?? Can you imagine what would happen if any other group was banned?

  8. There are a number of other countries that don’t allow Israelis, or in some cases even people with evidence of having visited Israel. Is Maldives getting all the attention because it’s something new, or because it’s one of the few of these countries that actually get lots of Western tourists?

    I haven’t seen the outsized appeal of Maldives. There are plenty of amazing beaches that are not in places run by fundamentalist Islamists.

  9. @Gary
    What is your obsession with the Maldives about?
    There are tons of other paradisiac islands all around the world.
    The Maldives is a radical Muslim nation that is using tourism money to actively participate in the shadow financing of Muslim military & terrorist groups.
    If you were supporting the cause of the Jews you would use your public notoriety to demand the boycott of the Maldives and lobby the US hotel chains to shut down their hotel there.
    Instead, you keep promoting The Maldives year after year.

  10. Mantis is off his rocker like a typical Lord Trump worshipper who can’t get facts straight and peddles misinformation about people critical of right-wing violence-supporting extremists like himself and his Lord Trump.

    As I’ve said repeatedly, I am opposed to bans on Israeli passport users. I am not a fan of blacklisting by country of passport issuance and I am very much opposed to restrictions or prejudices along religious identity lines.

  11. Maldives? In 6-10 years there will be nothing to visit by anyone. Maybe Israel can get them some acreage in Gaza?

  12. I’m certainly hoping that you will no longer highlight mileage opportunities to the Maldives. As another poster said, imagine the worldwide outrage is they had targeted ANY other group.

  13. @ GU and others. Trump’s “Muslim ban” was somewhat like this, based on nationality not religion, on the statement there was a lack of vetting capacity in the effected nations. Muslims from Indonesia, India, etc. not effected.

  14. Trump’s “Muslim ban” was called by him as a Muslim ban. It was repeatedly rewritten to try to pass court muster.

    Haven’t seen the Maldives call for a “Jew Ban” on visitors but there have been calls there for a ban on Israeli passport users entering the country. Not a ban on Jewish Americans using US passports to visit.

  15. Señor Leff isn’t on the payroll of the Maldives government or its agents. The coverage of the Maldives was more likely influenced by informing people about “aspirational” loyalty program awards which coincidentally help to sell credit card.

    About Trump’s “Muslim ban”, it had to be redone repeatedly by the Trump Admin and used different excuses in order to pass US federal court muster. It was done to “virtue-signal” to the Muslim-hating section of his base.

  16. @GUWonder – I wrote about the Maldives quite a bit when I was going there frequently. I haven’t written about it a ton for awhile, because I haven’t been recently. Simple as that. I enjoyed the Park Hyatt back when it was super cheap on points and empty and upgrading to overwater villas. And I could go in first class pretty easily, redeeming AAdvantage miles for Etihad first class. I also really like the distance and time zone difference which is perfect for my own relaxation. That has/had nothing whatsoever to do with credit cards, except that it sometimes involved transferring points from card programs (and my first stay was funded by redeeming a 110k venture offer x 4 with a 70% redemption bonus).

  17. I don’t get how the Maldives is in the perfect time zone for relaxing for those based in our time zones for TX and DC/VA. Is it to sleep much of the day in the Maldives while sticking to work schedules closer to home?

  18. Wouldn’t you agree that coverage of the trips to the Maldives has helped sell credit cards which made such trips possible and better?

  19. Banning folks people from vacation, in retaliation to their slaughtering 40,000+ civilians. Sure, sounds about right….

  20. Maldives is feeding ethnic hate. Banning Netanyahu and banning any known member of Hamas, that makes sense.

  21. @GUWonder – first, when I arrive in the Maldives – even flying first class, but after perhaps a domestic flight and boat ride as well – I’m tired and ready to crash into relaxation in a way I’m just not if I fly somewhere close by.

    But as for the time zone it’s not ‘sleep[ing] much of the day’ in the Maldives. Instead it is that I wake up in the morning and answer some email, but the entire day in the Maldives is outside of business hours here in the States. So I get my day of relaxation without anyone trying to reach me (and without my feeling the need to check in on work, or news).

  22. Bill S. you are aware that Sinwar, the head of Hamas has been very transparent about welcoming the killing of civilians, because it helps his cause? And that Hamas killed many of their own civilians during the operation to free Israeli hostages? And that Hamas embeds themselves and their weapons with civilians in hopes that civilians will be killed and impact world opinion?

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