Spain’s FM accused of antisemitism after calling French Jews thrown off plane ‘Israeli brats’

A group of Jewish campers was removed before takeoff after singing in Hebrew, with Spanish airline Vueling saying they had endangered the flight.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Spanish Foreign Minister Oscar Puente is being accused of antisemitism after describing a group of French children who were removed from a Spanish plane as “Israeli brats.”

The incident occurred on Wednesday, when 52 Jewish campers — non-Israelis — from the Kinneret Club returning home from Valencia began singing in Hebrew before takeoff.

The Vueling flight crew allegedly shouted at the children to stop singing while calling Israel a “terrorist state,” and then called the police to force them off the plane.

Although they said they had done nothing wrong, a sentiment backed by unrelated passengers on the plane who did not understand what the problem was, the children, ages 10 to 15, calmly complied with the authorities and disembarked.

The camp director, a woman who verbally protested their treatment, was treated roughly by security personnel in the terminal and then arrested.

After Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli slammed the airline for its antisemitic behavior, Vueling issued a statement on social media saying it “categorically rejects any form of discrimination without exception.”

The crew had acted “exclusively in response to behavior that compromised the integrity of the flight as well as the safety of passengers and the operation as a whole,” Vueling wrote.

It claimed that the children had tampered with emergency equipment, ignored safety instructions, interrupted the mandatory safety demonstration at the start of the flight, and generally demonstrated “aggressive behavior,” which they continued even after disembarking.

After the statement was released, Puente wrote on X, “Will the patriots stand with Vueling? Will the law enforcement forces stand with air safety? Will the xenophobes be with the Spanish company? Or will they all stand united behind the Israeli brats?”

Yad Vashem Spain, the country’s branch of Israel’s World Holocaust Remembrance Center, immediately charged Puente with Jew hatred.

“They are French Jews. Europeans,” the group responded on the social media platform. “Mr. Oscar Puente, confusing religious identity with a foreign nationality is antisemitism. While thousands of Jewish families under threat flee Europe each year, a public official is expected to show respect and not incite hatred.”

The French foreign minister immediately got involved, calling Vueling’s CEO Wednesday “to express his deep concern about the removal of a group of young French Jews from one of the company’s planes,” the Foreign Ministry said.

“An explanation has been requested, in particular to determine whether these French nationals were subjected to discrimination on the grounds of their religion.”

The Kinneret Club told Agence France-Presse Thursday that it would file a complaint against the carrier “for physical and psychological violence and discrimination on the basis of religion,” including “aggravating circumstances,” as some of the children were “under 15 years of age.”