Brussels Airlines is set to relaunch Tel Aviv service on August 13, but the baggage handling workforce that would service the flights is urging against it and demanding that workers be permitted to refuse to work any Tel Aviv routes without penalty.

The joint union front representing Alyzia workers at Brussels Airport says its members want to be “released” from the assignment “for moral reasons” and calling for a suspension of Israel flying “until the genocide in Gaza and the West Bank ends.” The Alyszia union also says they won’t accept El Al or any Israeli airline as a customer. They’re also demanding that Ryanair not resume flying.

Meanwhile Lufthansa Group carrier Swiss is slated to resume Tel Aviv service on September 29, and Eurowings on October 26. ITA Airways targeted September 1.

• Alyzia is the French ground-handling provider under long-term license at Brussels Airport through October 27, 2025, one of the two firms authorized for ramp and baggage handling.

• It took over Brussels Airlines’ home-base contract in 2021, covering ramp and baggage work and lost and found. It employs 5,000 staff across the company.

• The company hasn’t made any statements about an unwillingness to operate these flights. Rather, it’s the joint union front representing Alyzia workers that objects.

Brussels Airlines says it will crew Tel Aviv flights with volunteers. The union representing baggage handlers says that if that work isn’t staffed with volunteers, and other workers aren’t permitted consequence-free opt-outs, that they’ll “consider taking action.” Brussels Airport does have another licensed bag handler, Aviapartner.

I believe four things here are simultaneously true.

• For the average Gazan conditions are incredibly tough
  
• Hamas is pushing a famine narrative that goes beyond even the facts on the ground
  
• Hamas itself is culpable for those conditions, embedding itself in the civilian population, using them as shields, and stealing food aid.
  
• The union’s claim to genocide in the West Bank gives away that they aren’t primarily concerned with hunger, or current conditions, at all.

It’s also simultaenously true that Israel goes to unprecedented lengths in a conflict to limit civilian casualties and to provide humanitarian assistance to the citizens of its enemy, and that human suffering is significant and tragic.

To the extent that Hamas represents a significant threat to Israel, and an existential threat if allowed to remain in power and rebuild, Israel has a right and ethical justification for taking out that threat. Because Hamas uses the Gaza population as shields and propoganda tools, their suffering is exacerbated.

Ultimately any criticism of Israel over humanitarian conditions, then, also requires a clear statement by the critic of what they’d have Israel do differently while simultaneously eliminating this threat.

Meanwhile, famines in Sudan (e.g. Western Nuba) go unremarked upon despite state obstruction of aid. The junta in Myanmar imposed a blockade as ‘collective punishment’ that has pushed Rakhine State into starvation with aid workers intimated not to publish hunger data. Parts of Afghanistan have slid into famine under Taliban rule. There are far clearer causes where moral stands can be taken.

(HT: Cheryl)