The Maldives has banned entry into the country by Israeli citizens and will fundraise for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency which works directly with Hamas in Gaza and some of whose employees participated in the October 7th terrorist attacks.
If the Maldives were concerned with the plight of Palestinians,
- They wouldn’t ban Israeli passports since ~ 21% of Israeli citizens are actually Palestinian.
- They would take tourism dollars from Israelis and use it to fund aid for Palestinians in Gaza. Except, of course, that the aid would never reach the Palestinians because Hamas steals it and sells it.
The Government of the Maldives did not ban Hamas leadership residing in Qatar. They didn’t ban Syrian passports or Sudanese passports. They banned the Jews.
By law, all citizens of the Maldives must be Sunni Muslim. Yet resorts have alcohol and guests dressing immodestly. Since the nation relies on tourism they thread this needle by allowing resorts in ‘uninhabited areas’ and declaring that Islamic law doesn’t apply in those places. Of course all arriving luggage is screened as passengers exit customs. Don’t bring alcohol or other banned substances into the country, and don’t bring an Israeli passport.
The Maldives has not condemned combatants embedding themselves in hospitals and schools, the use of human shields, or rape of civilian hostages. Here by the way are Hamas weapons being uncovered in a UNRWA school.
Make no mistake, this isn’t banning world leaders with whom you disagree, it is banning all citizens of the Jewish state. American passports, of course, do not contain the bearer’s religion.
Gary, your continued conflation of “Jews” and “Israel” is dishonest at best. There are plenty of American Jews (and Israeli Jews, for that matter) that vehemently disagree with the genocidal right-wing actions of the Israeli government.
lol, whatever.
They’ll be under water in a few years. Hey, maybe they can relocate to gaza.
Hamas claimed their reasons for launching the attack on Oct 7 were to prevent the destruction of the Al Aqsa mosque. They do wrongly claim the entire complex, which is properly a shared site of all three of the Abrahamic religions.
Their real reason was to prevent diplomatic recognition of Israel and Saudi Arabia, which would move other moderate Muslim states in the same direction.
This ego boosting by the Maldives government is an indication that Hamas leaders have gotten what they wanted, regardless of the dead civilians in Gaza. The government of Israel has played into their hands.
Screw the Maldives and their obnoxious government
Hope Hamas doesn’t take over
Actually maybe they will
I’m perplexed at what they are hoping to accomplish with this. It will do nothing but bring drama and hardship to the one thing that holds this sinking nation in place, tourism. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you?
The reality is that while this seemingly affects less than 1% of their visitors it does extend further. A pretty bi-partisan majority of the country is pro Israel and will be very taken aback by this. Not to mention the large population of American Jews that vacation there. As well those in Europe.
Those numbers could amount to a pretty robust base that is forgoing out of principle a trip to Maldives. It’s a serious ban that may very well backfire to a point that takes down the economics of their tourist based economy far more than they imagine.
Perhaps they imagine that they are the only beach destination in the world. Far from it.
@Gary – “Over and over Israel has offered Palestinians not just a state but territory concessions as well, ~ 97% of the territory they’ve asked for (and land swaps for the 3% they cannot honor, turning over Jewish neighborhoods).”
You say this often and both my experience with and history of Israel are certainly weaker than yours so I’ll break this down to one simple question: When was the most recent time that Israel offered the 97% that you cite, last year, 2020, or perhaps as far back as a decade ago? If it was decades ago then the relevance is pretty limited. Otherwise we may as well cite pre-WWII as well since we’re not speaking of remotely current circumstances. If it was within the past decade, I stand chastised and corrected.
Such a shame that the epitome of vacation escapism has turned into the hub of politics…the locals who support the fantastic tourist industry in the Maldives should speak to their idiot Head of State. We now need to turn to the Maldives alternative. I’m sure there are many…let’s start focusing on that. It’s a shame. What a gorgeous place.
Maldives has been taken over by a Jihadi government under the influence of China. With the stupidity that comes guaranteed by that combination, they also sent unfriendly signals to India, which has been the major source of aid, disaster help, free Covid vaccine, as well as tourism income. Indian tourists started opting for friendlier destinations, and it also became clear that China never intended to put any serious money in Maldives—only grab a few islands. So now Maldives are doing road shows in India begging tourists to come back. They may soon be doing the same with Israel. Just ignore the fools, go where you are welcome.
Well they won’t be seeing my American Jewish dollars ever! Still that in your pipe & smoke it.
@ Gary — So, when is your next trip to the PH Maldives?
@Christian: I have studied this history going back to pre-Abrahamic times. In all of recorded history there has never been an empire, a country or even a city government called Palestine. That designation was given to a small area by Romans and it meant “backward people”. There has never been a religion or a language called Palestinian. There has never been an archaeological dig with Palestinian artifacts. The Quran mentions Israel 43 times, Palestine 0 times.There is no history of a Palestinian nation struggling for freedom from Roman, Turkish, British, or Arab rule. This artificial nation was invented in 1967 as a weapon against Israel to continue the millennia long war fueled by nothing but religious hatred. Israelis have been foolishly generous, but perhaps they were tired after 2000 years of exile, anti-semitism, etc., and tried the high road. Mistake! The only way to deal with Islamic hatred of Jews is how Allied nations dealt with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan: I don’t recall any peace talks, or food + medicine shipments for “civilians” during WW2, do you?
@AKTCHI
Well said!
One problem though, hate doesn’t care about facts, it’s plain and simple hate! And unfortunately hate to Jews comes easy to a lot of people through most of history …
It’s quite simple. You’re either with civilization, or you’re with the terrorists.
Thank you Gary for standing with morality! Time for Hamas to love their children more than they hate Jews! It’s not and was never about land, this is hate and don’t think for a second they don’t hate America as well….
This will not end well for The Maldives.
Nor should it…
They’re not banning Jews. They’re banning Israelis. Nice attempt at twisting facts. Why do all right whingers do this?
Time to boycott Maldives.
@747always you must have never opened a Bible. Land of Israel given to the Children of Israel. Jews and the holy land are connected. Facts. Hamas at least states their goal openly, kill every Jew…
The Maldives is officially off my bucket list…
Why a country that demands anti-freedom, anti-women, pro-terrorism, Shariah law was on any normal persons bucket list to begin with is a great question…
+Mak’s comments
Oh, and I just saw this welcome response.
“The Congress of Christian Leaders is issuing a global travel warning: no Christian should feel safe in a country where Islamic extremists determine national policy.”
The Catholic-majority country of Mexico has now elected a female President who happens to have European Jewish ethnic origins. We in the US couldn’t even elect Hillary Clinton over Don the Con, and here we are concerned about the Maldives adding immigration restrictions based on country of passport issuance in the run up to Don the Con being re-elected as US President even after being found guilty by a Trump attorney-vetted jury on 34 felony counts under state law. Why am I not worried about the Maldives’ revised immigration restrictions when that country’s government has been repeatedly in turmoil over the last several years and has never really been much of a bastion of equal rights and equal civil liberties for all? And yet only now do we see a right-wing led push to cut the Maldives off? If the Maldives had killed tens of thousands of minors in less than 12 months, then I would be more concerned about the Maldives than what this sick right-wing Israeli government has been doing to the children and “unborn children” — fetuses — of Gaza within the last 7 months. The sick hypocrisy of that so-called “Congress of Christian Leaders” isn’t really surprising. Doesn’t that group include those right-wing Christian wackos who have been wishing for Armageddon to hit Israel so that Jesus can rule the devastated world of some desired prophesy?
“The Congress of Christian Leaders” is led by a pro-T-rump dude who supported “the Muslim ban” from Trump. That says it all.
@JD “Such a shame that the epitome of vacation escapism has turned into the hub of politics…the locals who support the fantastic tourist industry in the Maldives should speak to their idiot Head of State. We now need to turn to the Maldives alternative. I’m sure there are many…let’s start focusing on that. It’s a shame. What a gorgeous place.”
In fact, the Maldivian hotel industry has never had much to do with the Maldives or any place other than corporate Board Rooms in Abu Dhabi and Singapore. The hotels are mostly owned by Private Equity funds from the Gulf or Asia and most of the employees mostly come from Bangladesh. The hotels are all remote off shore enclaves, and your chance of encountering any real culture or having any real experience unique to the Maldives hovers around zero.
As for alternatives, there is no shortage. India is developing the Andaman and Nicobar islands – which already got a shot in the arm last year because of the Maldives’ hostility to Hindus – and the beaches in Sri Lanka are beautiful and the culture absolutely vibrant. For Europeans there are beautiful remote beaches all down the coast of East Africa (especially Moçambique, Lamu, etc.) and for those in North America there is the huge coast of the Brazilian Northeast which are the most beautiful and empty beaches in thew world and without compare in my opinion, along with interesting local culture and exceptionally friendly people (not to mention Ilha Grande near Rio which is spectacular). North Americans can get to the fantastic places in Indonesia with no more difficulty than getting to the Maldives.
I’m always a bit disappointed for them when somebody tells me that they are going to the Maldives given all the much more interesting places to go, and I hope now people will head there instead out of solidarity for decency.
*elsewhere.
@Mantis. Again, being critical of Israel doesn’t make me a Hamas supporter. Hamas has killed several thousand civilians. Israeli govt and military have killed over 30k. All three are terrorists.
When trump wanted to ban Muslims from entering the country it wasn’t symbolic because it didn’t happen. It was rhetoric and pandering to his supporters. He couldn’t ban them, and even if he wanted to, there wouldn’t be any way of actually doing it.
Though keep calling anyone who disagrees with you a leftist whatever (in my case, you couldn’t be more wrong)… it builds up your cred among your fellow cultists.
This is as much about the tail wagging the dog. There have been more and more incidents involving radical terrorism targeted against the government of the Maldives itself, in this sort of an environment it’s going to create incident if targeted groups travel to a nation where they’ll inevitably be attacked.
They’ve also had this adversarial situation with Indian tourists and the Modi government recently, so Sri Lanka is I guess capitalizing on that.
It’s really not safe to travel to these types of places as things are, the whole region is inflamed. Try the UAE recently, it’s not rational people, they don’t even know who they are.
As always, @guwonder is talking out his rear-end. There was no “Muslim ban” by Trump. The next thing wonder the clown gets right will be the first.
is there any other country with a similar, or variant of, this kind of ban?
I guess I’ll no longer be flying my highly pressurized tube into the Male.
On the same days that Norway decided to ban Russian tourists.
While I strongly despise the regimes of both Russia and Israel, banning individual citizens from those countries seems a bit over-the-top and pointless. It sort of goes against my firm beliefs in freedom and the rights of man.
Then again, my own country keeps trying to ban people who aren’t white enough, and half of its population would gladly see a muslim/latino ban in place. So who am I to criticize others?
Maldiveds is a great complainer that should look inward. Perhaps they will when sea level overtakes the trash island where they engage in open pit burning of their trash 24/7 while complaining about the WORLD causing the rising sea level.
Never planned on going there anyway. So, it’s back to Tahiti next Spring. Doing it the long way this time. From Malta to Japan for a week, then on to Tahiti, and back. So much to see and do. The people and country are great, as are the fantastic beaches on Morea. They even have over-water accommodations as well.
Pay for climate change yourself. The Maldives wants to beg the West to protect them and move them. Have fun with Chinese tourists and then see if the Gov of China will stop building coal plants and will simultaneously pay for your protection. Big mistake to ban Israel and I hope all Jewish diaspora ever visit those rocks in a bathtub ever again.
I have different positions on some geopolitical and other matters than our friendly neighborhood blog host does, but this blog has always covered topics of personal interest to him even if they didn’t necessarily appeal to all or much of the audience for the blog. Either way, this topic and a BDS angle against the Maldives seems to be a trending topic in the travel news and related social media space. Weirdly, this topic seems to get more coverage in some parts than the pain and suffering of Palestinian children under an Israeli siege and subject to a blockade like no other in decades. But this isn’t really surprising to me — the world is awful at valuing all lives as mattering equally with all lives and so tribalism often comes out when dealing with crimes perpetrated by or against “the other” and the victim is of a different ethnic or religious background than the malicious or criminally negligent perpetrator.
Magnifico is wrong again and struggles with reading comprehension and/or is beating a dead horse of his own imagination.
Trump called for a “Muslim ban” repeatedly while campaigning and then blacklisted a few Muslim-majority countries as President. That “Muslim ban” even led to some chaos with Global Entry being revoked for no good reason other than the nationality-based “ban” that the Trump Admin wanted.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/29/trump-asked-for-a-muslim-ban-giuliani-says-and-ordered-a-commission-to-do-it-legally/
Within the last 10 years, Sri Lanka has seen a massive terrorist attack which killed more wealthy “western” tourists than the Maldives has seen in the same time period. But the chances of a foreign visitor ending up 6 feet under because of a terrorist attack in the Maldives or Sri Lanka or any other popular tourist places is not non-existent.
Guess where my sympathies lie. Hint: I was in Warsaw last week. You know, the country where 6 million Poles were slaughtered, 3 million of them Jews (90% of the Jewish population).
Señor Leff talked about and called it “the Muslim travel ban”:
https://viewfromthewing.com/on-wednesday-the-muslim-travel-ban-will-end-and-masks-will-become-a-federal-mandate-for-travel/
Trump called for a “Muslim ban”.
@Kluge says:
@Mantis. Again, being critical of Israel doesn’t make me a Hamas supporter. Hamas has killed several thousand civilians. Israeli govt and military have killed over 30k. All three are terrorists.
I really do wonder about where people have learned their bizarre moral values such that right and wrong isn’t so much about good and evil but about a relative body count. Young people are tought that the weaker part is always right and the stronger always wrong – and this leads to strange and immoral conclusions. The Allies killed millions of Japanese and German civilians, flattened those countries beyond recognition and would accept nothing less than unconditional surrender, long past Japan or Germany had any offensive capabilities. Did that make it wrong to assure the world that it wouldn’t be subject to the mass atrocities of Japan and Germany again? It is one thing not to know the facts – there are plenty of examples here – but it’s almost worse not knowing how to think about them.
Poor poor @g-u-r-a-clown. Nope, wasn’t a “Muslim Ban,” no matter what the ComPost says. The seven nations in the order were actually chose by President Obama, and for good reason.
You can read the actual text and background here.
https://sethfrantzman.com/2017/01/28/obamas-administration-made-the-muslim-ban-possible-and-the-media-wont-tell-you/
Now, please return to your ignorant, impotent yelping…
@Mak The Israeli government and military have not killed over 30K civilians. 11-14K of the dead have been armed Hamas, members of a group sworn to the genocide of every Israeli. If every government and military is actually a terrorist organization (especially the ones involved in defensive wars they did not start) then I guess the US and every nation in the world with any military are terrorists too. The thing is, when people intentionally gaslight and use the wrong terms they no longer have a meaning.
@Larry
Of course I agree. I was merely quoting the post I was responding to. As far as I’m concerned, every civilian death is occasioned by Hamas’ barbaric rapes, murders, and kidnappings on 7/10, as well as their war crimes of embedding their military troops and their rockets and war materiel within civilian neighborhoods and using their people as human shields. If I were Israel I would be precisely as concerned with civilian deaths in Gaza as the UK was in Dresden and the US was in Hiroshima, which is not on the same level of importance as winning the war.
Bravo Gary.
Thank you for having the guts to post this.
I applaud you!
This tool is going on and on about them “banning Jews” but starts it out with them banning a country with citizens who are 21% Palestinian. Which one is it, Gary?!
“Islamic Shari’ah”. Islam is the official religion of the Maldives and open practice of any other religion is forbidden.”
The Maldives will never be on my travel list. Chile is next this summer, followed by Romania.
Contrary to Magnifico’s clownish indications, Obama didn’t call for a “Muslim ban”. The “Muslim ban” call was Trump’s doing and got implemented under the Trump Admin in 2021 after Trump was inaugurated.
The Obama Admin did a US VWP use restriction. That US VWP list was a list of countries of almost entirely Christian-majority nations and aimed at nationals of primarily Christian-majority countries who had traveled recently to or had citizenship from a small list of Muslim-majority countries but would have otherwise been entitled to US VWP use as a national of the Christian-majority countries on the US VWP list at the time of the US VWP restriction implementation under the Obama Admin.
Go back to the circus, Magnifico, as you are in over your head when it comes to this subject matter area. Don’t buy Muslim-hating Magnifico’s “whataboutism”.
Vin, that is correct. Could as well say it is banning Muslims, banning Christians, banning Druze and banning atheists along with banning Jews. The Maldives is not banning by religion. It’s restricting by country of passport-issuance. Personally, I am more annoyed by countries which:1) ask for religious identity on visa applications than by countries that restrict immigration by passport-issuing country; or 2) go from being de facto visa on arrival to de facto visa/evisa before departure for US and EU/Schengen country citizens.
No comment about how Israel is going to a de facto evisa requirement for US and EU passport users? That is going to be more annoying than this Maldives restriction on Israeli passport use to enter or transit the Maldives.
@GUWonder “No comment about how Israel is going to a de facto evisa requirement for US and EU passport users? That is going to be more annoying than this Maldives restriction on Israeli passport use to enter or transit the Maldives.”
Everybody is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts, and as you have lost the argument your statements have devolved into falsehood. Israel does not require an “evisa” for US citizens, or for the vast majority of countries. Like the US (ESTA) and the EU (ETIAS), and a growing list of countries presently or in the near future, Israel will require a travel authorization to be submitted before flying. If that is going to be “more annoying” than people being barred from certain countries, that could be because the later won’t affect you at all. In any case, the assertion that it is an “eVisa” is false.
Mak again is having problems with reading comprehension or deliberately misrepresenting what was stated in my post.
The fact is Israel will be requiring visas of sort for American and EU passport users to come as tourists. They are building an evisa system for just that.
Trial first and then mandate, straight from the promised land of milk and honey:
https://www.gov.il/en/departments/topics/eta-il/govil-landing-page