Israel Matzav

Norwegian Cruise Lines drops Tunisia

In an earlier post, I reported that the government of Tunisia did not allow Israeli passengers to disembark at Tunis when all of the other passengers on their Norwegian Cruise Lines ship had gone ashore. In response, Norwegian Cruise Lines has announced that it will no longer make port calls in Tunisia.

The government of Tunisia refused to allow Israeli nationals the right to disembark Norwegian Jade in the Port of La Goulette, Tunis on Sunday, March 9, 2014. In response to this discriminatory act, Norwegian Cruise Line announced today that it has cancelled all remaining calls to Tunisia and will not return.

"We want to send a strong message to Tunisia and ports around the world that we will not tolerate such random acts of discrimination against our guests," said Kevin Sheehan, Norwegian Cruise Line's CEO. "We are outraged by this act and the fact that we were not notified in advance of this practice. We apologize sincerely to our guests who were affected and want them to know that we have taken the appropriate action in response."

Norwegian Cruise Line employs more than 90 different nationalities and welcomes people of all nationalities aboard its vessels. The Company does not condone or tolerate discrimination of any type and with these cancellations hopes to send a message to those who do that such acts are completely unacceptable.

This is great, but I have to wonder what would have happened if the Tunisian government  had given advance notice so that the ship could have gone elsewhere.

Labels: anti-Semitism, Islamic anti-Semitism, Tunisia

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:23 PM