The Maldives has announced an impending ban on Israeli passport holders, a bigoted policy that will hurt the very people it intends to help, harm the critical tourism industry, and place the hypocrisy of the Maldives on full display.
Maldives Announces Ban On Israeli Passport Holders
First, the facts. Mohamed Muizzu, the President of the Maldives has “resolved to impose a ban on Israeli passports.” It is not clear when this policy will go into effect or whether there will be any exceptions to it.
The reason given for the ban is rising public anger in the predominantly Muslim nation over Israel’s war in Gaza.
While only about 11,000 travelers entered the Maldives in 2023 with Israeli passports (about 0.6% of total visitors), Jewish travelers from around the world visit the South Asian archipelagic state.
Israel has urged its citizens to avoid travel to the Maldives and return home if currently there:
“For Israeli citizens staying in the country, it is recommended to consider leaving, since if they fall into distress for any reason, it will be difficult for us to help.”
Now, let’s look at the foolishness of this policy.
Will Resorts Revolt?
Let me start with an observation: 30% of the Maldivian economy is driven by tourism. I run a luxury boutique travel consultancy and advise many American Jewish travelers on flights and hotels to the Maldives each year. I’d imagine those travelers will take their money elsewhere…I certainly would (and will)…even if the ban does not technically fall upon them or me.
The Maldives is sinking anyway, but until that happens I have a feeling that resorts are already lobbying President Muizzu to reconsider his ban. My guess? It won’t ever go into effect, though the damage has already been done.
The Apartheid And Hypocrisy Of The Maldives
Another observation: if there is any country that truly engages in apartheid it is the Maldives and other Muslim-majority nations that treat women as second-class citizens in both a de jure and de facto manner.
Bill Maher lays out the issue nicely:
I wish the well-meaning students who genuinely feel that the women of Gaza are under siege from Israel would actually stand up for the women of Gaza by condemning the government that renders them chattels.
The War in Gaza is complicated in that civilians in Gaza are used as human shields, but the issue becomes clearer for me as the war progresses: Hamas must be eliminated for there to be any chance of peace in Gaza. Other civilized nations would not tolerate an enemy force launching rockets into its territory: Israel is held to a double standard that no other nation is.
It was not possible for a cease-fire to allow Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan to reconstitute, even though it meant hundreds of thousands of women and children died. There is no “right” policy in war. There is only “bad” policy and “even worse” policy. Yes, I weep for the citizens of Gaza too. But an even worse outcome would be to allow Hamas to rebuild and reconstitute.
As for hypocrisy, it is so rich that the Maldives–which has no religious freedom and forces all citizens to be Sunni Muslims–censors the internet and prohibits alcohol for its citizens but allows its resorts to be enclaves of debauchery…all for the money. I mock the Maldives for its “convictions of convenience” and how we can all see that President Muizzu’s pandering to his ignorant political base and Mainland China has direct parallels with so many other nations.
Did The Maldives Not Learn From The India Debacle?
India is geographically close to the Maldives and the world’s most populous nation. Last year, Indians were the largest group of tourists by nationality that visited the Maldives.
But in January, three Maldivian junior ministers made public comments against Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling him a:
- clown
- terrorist
- puppet of Israel
(on social media)
The backlash was swift and intense. Many Indians canceled their vacation plans in the Maldives. Future bookings dropped precipitously.
The government of Maldives had to issue a groveling apology.
Did the Maldives learn nothing from that unforced error?
This Is Not Unique To Maldives
Did you know that 10 other Muslim-majority countries also ban Israeli passport holders, including:
- Algeria
- Bangladesh
- Brunei
- Iran
- Kuwait
- Lebanon
- Libya
- Pakistan
- Syria
- Yemen
I’ve been to most of these countries and it really is a shame – if they met and interacted with Israelis, many of their prejudices against the State of Israel would quickly evaporate.
I am against travel bans because I think they hurt the people they intend to help and that person-to-person diplomacy is fundamental in promoting understanding and world peace.
CONCLUSION
The Maldives has announced new travel restrictions against Israeli passport holders. Although these have not yet gone into effect, I predict there will be many Jewish travelers (as well as Christians, Muslims, and nonbelievers of conscience) who will forgo travel to the Maldives as a result of this ban (even if it never goes into effect). There is a difference between nations that have banned Israel for decades and the Maldives, which plans to ban Israel now for engaging in self-defense against an enemy who practices apartheid and unequivocally advocates for genocide against Israeli Jews.
image: St. Regis Maldives
So , Mal-a-la-tete restricted itself , and no one wanted to go there anyway .
Oh, it’s a beautiful country –
https://liveandletsfly.com/park-hyatt-maldives-review/
But shame on its bigoted government.
It’s one of the most sought-after destinations, so jokes on you!
Brilliant post, Matthew. I would imagine as well that the 30% number as to Tourism is low when you factor in all the suppliers, contractors, construction teams etc that survive off hotels.
Talk about biting the band that feeds you.
Will a drop in 0.6% of total visitors really affect the industry that much? Especially given that many of them probably have dual citizenships and can visit the Maldives under their other passports.
Aaron, many people have a conscience. They’re not going to visit the Maldives even if they could get in.
Do you have any idea the spending power of Jewish Americans who are militant in their defense of Israel? Many of whom are a huge booking base for Maldives? They spend a LOT of money there. This will cross the line with them for sure. You need to understand that to ban Israelis is in fact sending a red flag to every Jew in the world. And to those with any conscience or sense that agree. Many will cancel or avoid.
If this was, say, Oman, whatever. Tourism does not feed their citizens. But the Maldives Government is basically taking a very large and poorly thought out gamble at trying to appease its hard line Muslims in a way that is going to eat away the one thing that holds this country together: Rich western travelers who are often Jewish. Not just Israeli.
Do you know how many Jewish people travel to countries where Israelis are banned from? To be honest I don’t think this is going to have quite the impact you think it might. Where are you getting these statistics on how big the percentage of Jewish people booking rooms in the Maldives is?
Are you saying countries should be bought and paid for instead of do what’s right? I applaud the leadership of the Maldives for not selling out.
I’m saying that radical leaning religious members of their “parliament” should not intimidate top leadership to bite the hand that feeds them. First it was Indians, now it’s Jews. Who else will they insult and ban before they realize that their hotels are emptying and the economy is taking a significant hit? If their goal is to eventually form a radical islamic nation that is a backwater like Yemen, go for it. But don’t expect you can have it both ways.
@David – do you also applaud the self destructive Maldives govt?
As an American, a self destructive govt hits close to home (ie our border issues being denied, weaponizing our judicial system, lack of deterrence/policy of appeasement with China,Russia,Iran etc etc. As a leader of the free world we have an extra responsibility. Isolationism won’t work.
Well said Stuart
For someone comfortable being a prostitute, money and material comfort can be the priority. But since I am not for sale and value more highly the rights of occupied peoples to self-determination and autonomy as a nation more than I value what it means for me financially, I would rather pay a price even as a political prisoner and economic outcast than be a prostitute for money and material comforts. Self-respect, dude. Self-respect.
There are many Jewish Americans who are militant in their opposition to the Netanyahu regime. Some are even willing to risk getting arrested to stand up against barbarism even when it comes from state actors. And that is even despite the best efforts of the right-wing Israeli regime and its fans to try to shift Jewish Americans into becoming and being more right-wing and to increasingly frighten and thereby encourage more Jewish migration to the parts of the Middle East under Israeli domination.
Let’s see what happens to the country’s foreign currency reserves — the vast majority coming from tourism receipts. But this move to boycott/divest/sanction the Maldives will likely be a drop in the bucket given everything else going on with its economy that already pose a challenge to its foreign currency holdings and its need to pay its import tabs. Either way, most of its primary markets’ customer segments won’t really care about an anti-Netanyahu message; and those potential tourists who care will be replaced by people from parts of Europe and Asia where Netanyahu is not all that popular and vacation and vacation photos trump politics.
israel isn’t feeding anyone, it’s a burden that doesn’t deserve to exist. Also, nobody cares what you think.
Thank you for publicly standing up against this and doing the right thing. The internet is a pretty horrid place right now, so to stick your head above the parapet in this way is to be admired.
Thank you. You are welcome for that.
The ban is not on religious grounds. American Jews are not affected. The ban is a statement against the government of Israel and the passports it issues.
Quite a few countries have bans.
China bans its citizens from traveling to Taiwan for tourist purposes.
The U.S. bans its citizens from traveling to North Korea.
Malaysia does not allow Israeli citizens to enter without approval from a certain government ministry, which is in addition to a visa.
Georgia bans the entry of Taiwan passport holders.
… quite a few bans
The fact remains. Hamas is bad. Israel uses collective punishment and doesn’t mind flattening Gaza. The current Israeli prime minister is firmly against a 2 state compromise. He wants everything for Israel.
Gaza and West Bank refugees should be compensated for land seized in 1948. The 1948 borders should be respected but not even the 1967 borders are.
Both sides have blood on their hands. A bunch of hot heads.
“Collective punishment” is such a weasel statement. Israel has no way to only kill Hamas terrorists when they are embedded with civilians. How do you believe Israel can eradicate Hamas any differently or more effectively?
So it’s perfectly ok to massacre 20,000+ women, children and elderly along with terrorist. Then why not drop an a-bomb and get rid all of them at once.
Yes, it is acceptable
This never would have happened had Hamas not done what they did in Oct 6.
In fact, Israel should not be offering any quarter to anyone in Gaza, until Gaza announced their unconditional surrender
You must be one of those ignorant types who believes history started on Oct 7th.
I am not Derek. I am derek.
Collective punishment is not a weasel statement. Israel does it. In a way, I don’t blame them. In the Middle East, there is no such thing as the Geneva Convention. Kill anyone for any reason and give lip service to the Geneva Convention.
Israel decided to do things its way. It could have tried a less bloody strategy. That might have been to secure southern Gaza and destroy all the tunnels to Egypt. Hamas would then have no way to resupply its rockets.
They don’t want the nuclear fallout and the land to be uninhabitable like Chernobyl. Otherwise someone likely would have done just that and then there would be claims that it was done without formal authorization and by a rogue lone-wolf. It’s the kind of play I would expect from a Putin type who wants Ukraine but not the people on it who want their right to self-determination and autonomy as a unitary, contiguous sovereign nation-state respected.
By ending the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza?
What about ath?ll the non-Hamas people who were killed by Israel in both Gaza and the West Bank before Oct 7th?
All of Hamas are terrorists, but not all terrorists are Hamas. There are many other Islamist terrorists groups, and you know that.
Terrorist is a made up word of an oppressor who uses it to belittle anyone actually standing up to tyranny and genocide. Israel is committing genocide just like Jews have been doing for thousands of years which is why they’ve been kicked out of every country they moved to until they bought politicians in the West.
“All of Hamas are terrorists, but not all terrorists are Hamas. There are many other Islamist terrorists groups, and you know that.”
Which proves what exactly? That even before Oct 7th, there were no innocent civilian deaths in both Gaza and the West Bank at all? What a dumb couple of statements you made.
Also, not everyone in Hamas is a terrorist, it has it’s own armed wing.
There are indeed other unIslamic Islamist identity terrorists. There are also other terrorists in the lands under Israeli rule — such as a those who are supporters of the now-deceased terrorist Rabbi Meir Kahane and his violent ideology. Some of those Judaist terrorists are senior Israeli government officials and many others of them are or were in the IDF and support anti-Palestinian terrorism inside and outside of their official roles.
Israel has killed upwards of 2000 Palestinian children who were nowhere near Hamas. Strange how those kids didnt deserve to live
“Collective Punishment”
This is from BBC today:
On Wednesday morning, the military said troops backed by air strikes had begun an operation against “terrorists and terrorist infrastructure above and below ground”.
Residents reported intense bombardment and the charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said at least 70 dead people – the majority women and children – had been brought to a local hospital since Tuesday.
MSF said its medical team on the ground had described the situation at Deir al-Balah’s al-Aqsa hospital – one of the only remaining functional health facilities in central Gaza – as “apocalyptic”.
The charity said women and children made up the majority of the 70 dead people and 300 wounded, brought to hospital over the past 24 hours, and that many patients were suffering from severe burns, shrapnel wounds, fractures and other traumatic injuries.
“The odour of blood when I entered the emergency room [this morning] was just overwhelming. People are lying on the floor. People are lying outside… bodies being brought in white plastic bags. The families standing over them and praying,” MSF medical referent Karin Huster said in an audio message.
Thank you for justifying israel’s genocide, I want to see you say that with a straight face when you see what is going on in Gaza… there are many families just like yours dying and starving, in the middle of the rubble. You don’t deserve your life and family, and I hope you and your family end up like those in Gaza since you like israhell so much.
The blood of Hamas is on the hands of every dead woman and child in Gaza.
@Derek “Hamas is bad”. You think so, killing innocent women,children and babies while Live streaming for the world to see. The building there terrorist network within the everyday lives of people that want nothing to do with them…but somehow you want to blame Israel for trying to destroy them. Nonetheless they have suckered you in. I wonder what you’d think if your wife, mother or children were a victim and you lived within close proximity to them?
Israel doesn’t mind killing 30,000 innocent civilians. They don’t mind starving people. They don’t mind refusing to recognize Gaza’s right to exist but claims the whole territory as its own.
It’s true that Hamas refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist but Israel does the same thing refusing to recognize Palestine’s right to exist, even within the 1948 borders that created Israel.
A bunch of hot heads that don’t mind killing people. You can argue that one set of hot heads is worse.
“starving people”. Only UNRWA and HRW could come up with such blatant lies and state them with a straight face. The numbers prove otherwise.
Palestine never existed and will not exist since all they want is no Israel, not yes Palestine, judging by all the deals they said no to, and their actions. Stop gaslighting Jews and stop infantilizing Arabs for their bad decisions.
Stop gaslighting the world into believing Israel is a perpetual victim. And claiming UNWRA is making things up. It isn’t. Palestine has existed, as much as you may try to deny that it doesn’t. Stop it with the idiotic hasbara playbook. For a person calling themselves Common Sense, you don’t have much of it.
No honey, they said no because israel doesn’t deserve to exist
What you accuse Hamas of doing is what Israel does. It’s a common thing for Jews to accuse others of doing exactly what they are doing and because they own and control the media, institutions, and the government, it’s impossible to criticize them or call them out on it. Israelis have raped, murdered, and kidnapped 1 million Palestinians over 70 years. Hamas exists because Israel is evil. Palestinians are 100% justified in taking any action to fight for their existence.
There’s a word for you and it ain’t pretty. Just had to clean all the vomit off.
He’s of the “white Christian nationalist” mentality, but of the sort which prioritizes hating Jewish peoples a bit more than hating “brown”, “black” and Muslim peoples.
The European and American neo-Nazis and their crypto fellow travelers are split into whether to prioritize their hatred more against Jews or more against “brown” and “black” people. Most of them nowadays hate Muslims and “brown” and “black” non-Jews more than they hate Jews or Israelis.
There’s a word for you too, and it’s “moronic” or “freak”… guess you don’t have so much common sense tho after all!
lol, israel is worse, they also kill innocent civilians and babies and rape young women
From 1948 through 1967 Gaza was occupied by Egypt and West Bank by Jordan and nobody gave a damn. So what did you say about respecting borders?
Are there some countries’ passports that Israel bans from coming to Israel?
No nationalities are banned.
But visa is required for many.
The requirements for being granted a visa are not public, but I guess they’re slim to none for some counties (particularly those, like Iran and Pakistan, where the passport explicitly states that it’s valid everywhere except Israel).
Kuwait. Granted Kuwait does not even have any recognition for the Israelis at all. This is since 1948 and furthermore, if you either have an Israeli passport or have any record of travelling there is currently barred from even entering Kuwait. But that policy has been the same.
This doesn’t surprise me at all. Regardless of how one might try to justify Israel’s continued assault on Gaza, the reality is throughout the Muslim world, Israelis are not going to be very popular for a while.
Hamas aside, it’s undeniable that Palestinians have been persecuted and treated very much like 2nd class humans by the State of Israel. Supporting their cause seems natural, and making a statement like this probably makes a lot of Maldivian citizens happy. I think the impact on the overall tourism industry will be negligible.
I don’t think Israel is trying to win a popularity contest.
“Hamas aside” can’t say that my man.
The reason I said “Hamas aside” was I didn’t want someone to make a false equivalency to derail my point, which was that Palestinians have been treated poorly. I wasn’t trying to dismiss the evilness of Hamas as an organization.
It’s indeed not looking at a popularity contest strategy across the world. That is because Israel today is in a pickle of its own making and has ended up inclined to pursue an ethnic cleansing strategy because ethnic cleansing is the way for “Greater Israel” to both:
1) eliminate Hamas (and inappropriately-named “Islamic Jihad”) and such successor from being a thorn “within” for Israelis; and
2) avoid ending up remaining or becoming an apartheid state, a state whereby the trappings of democracy and equal civil rights are excluded for a substantial proportion of people under the state’s rule for the indefinite future.
This ethnic cleansing strategy is the way to consolidate Israel being a democratic Jewish state, and Netanyahu and his strategy supporters know just that and thus are rallying near and far to generate cover to do just that. If people aren’t willing to support a two-state solution on the lands Netanyahu sees as
“Greater Israel”, then they are either supporting an ethnic cleansing strategy or are apathetic to the suffering of “the other” We can all be better than that.
… and, yes, Hamas should surrender and return all the hostages from October 7th and should hav done so long ago. But Netanyahu doesn’t want that. Netanyahu wants several more months to move ahead the ethnic cleansing strategy so as to secure the future of an overwhelming Jewish majority across all of what he sees as “Greater Israel”.
In April of this year Hamas was willing to turn over all October 7th hostages and all related human remains in its reach and disband its armed wing in exchange for a permanent cease fire and immediate Israeli recognition of a sovereign Palestinian state inclusive of all of Gaza for starters. That was a deal not acceptable to a Netanyahu desperate to cling onto his immunity from prosecution by Israeli prosecutors. Qatar has realized there are no dividends to be yielded by trying to broker a peace deal involving one or more blatantly dishonest parties directly involved in the conflict and thus want to drop out of continued involvement in brokering an agreement. It looks like it will be Turkey that may replace Qatar.
It was never about the rights of Palestinians. It’s about the existence of Israel. Both Hamas and Israel agree on this. Those shouting “from the river to the sea” agree as well.
When Palestinians stop fighting for Israel’s elimination and start fighting for their human rights, peace will become a possibility.
Maybe if Palestinians werne’t living under a brutal and horrible occupation, they wouldn’t need to fight? Granted even when fighting for their human rights people accuse them of being antisemitic…
You seriously cannot be that dumb, Comrade Aaron
Unlike you, I know what I am talking about. But then, I expect nothing less from a vile racist and homophobic sock puppet like you.
They never flight for their human rights. They fought for the destruction of Israel. Hamad says this loud and clear. Time and again they teach Israel that freedom for Palestinians leads to death of Israelis.
Following the Israeli withdrawal fron Gaza in 2005, Gazans had more freedom than any other time since 1967. They used this freedom to launch Oct. 7th.
And yet you expect Israel to conclude that even more freedom would lead to peace. Why would anyone be so suicidal?
You are using the hasbara playbook of equating all Palestinians with Hamas, which is rather asinine of you. Hamas only came into existence is the late 80s and was supported by the Israeli government.
You comments about the withdrawl and freedom were bullsh*t. Israel withdrew it’s settlements from the Gaza strip but it controlled the land, sea, and air borders, as well as the electricity and water that Gazans could access. Not sure how you equate that with being free.
Israel is also expanding it’s settlement in the West Bank, which tells you all you need to know about how genuine Israel is regarding peace in the region and a 2 state solution.
9/2018- Muslim President Abdulla Yameen said the country’s religious leaders had complained that the sculpture represented idols, which are banned by Islam.
Police armed with pickaxes and power tools have destroyed the world’s first tidal gallery at a holiday resort in the Maldives after it was deemed “offensive to Islam”.
The gallery, at the Fairmont Maldives Sirru Fen Fushi, which opened in July, featured semi-submerged exhibits that disappeared and reappeared as the tide went in and out.
One good tsunami should fix this issue once and for all…
“if there is any country that truly engages in apartheid”
Other than Israel, you mean…
“Hamas must be eliminated for there to be any chance of peace in Gaza.”
Or maybe try ending the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza for there to be peace?
“Other civilized nations would not tolerate an enemy force launching rockets into its territory: Israel is held to a double standard that no other nation is.”
That’s a bullsh*t statement. Israel is an occupying nation. When your people are being bombed, your land stolen, your travel restricted, you water controlled, you homes being bulldozed for people of another nation to build there own homes there or have you evicted if they want the house, have your farms burned down, etc, what would you do?
“if they met and interacted with Israelis, many of their prejudices against the State of Israel would quickly evaporate.”
Except it’s about the occupation, As long as that exists, what you are saying meaningless.
“I wish the well-meaning students who genuinely feel that the women of Gaza are under siege from Israel would actually stand up for the women of Gaza by condemning the government that renders them chattels.”
It is possible to do both. Maybe not in your myopic world, but it is possible.
“I am against travel bans because I think they hurt the people they intend to help and that person-to-person diplomacy is fundamental in promoting understanding and world peace.”
Yes, i am sure if all those countries that banned or limited Russian entering their countries, the war in Ukraine would end tomorrow.
The idea that Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the west bank would lead to peace is completely baseless, and contrary to all evidence.
When Palestinians say “end occupation” they mean end it from the river to the sea – i.e. end of Israel. Give them anything less and they’d keep on fighting. Don’t ask me – ask Hamas.
The 2005 withdrawl from Gaza led to the current war. Hamas used their (partial) freedom to kill Israelis. Withdrawal from the west bank would lead to much worse war.
So either you foolishly ignore the facts, or you actually want more war, hoping Israel would lose. Which is it?
“The idea that Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the west bank would lead to peace is completely baseless, and contrary to all evidence.”
So basically this your way of saying that Israel wants it all.
“When Palestinians say “end occupation” they mean end it from the river to the sea – i.e. end of Israel. Give them anything less and they’d keep on fighting. Don’t ask me – ask Hamas.”
Or ask Likud who say the same thing in their charter, right? That the river to the sea is only Israeli? But that isn’t wrong is it? And Likud speaks for all Israeli’s the way Hamas does for the Palestinians, right?
“The 2005 withdrawl from Gaza led to the current war. Hamas used their (partial) freedom to kill Israelis. Withdrawal from the west bank would lead to much worse war.”
No, Israel’s brutal occupation over many decades has led to this war. What partial freedom, btw?
“So either you foolishly ignore the facts, or you actually want more war, hoping Israel would lose. Which is it?”
Neither, but it seems in your myopic view a person who supports the Palestinian cause can’t want peace, can they? People like you only seem to have a limited choice for the Palestinians, keep living under a brutal apartheid occupation, leave, or die.
No, it’s basically his way to say that when Israel *did* withdraw from Gaza completely, both pulling the army out and forcefully vacating Jewish settlements in process, very shortly after Israel received indiscriminate rocket barrages on its cities from there, which never happened before.
And about Hamas. In 1992-1994 there was almost total belief in Israel itself that the peace has finally been reached, Israel was planning to withdraw from West Bank, Gaza and Golan Heights, Israeli army and Palestinian Authority forces were patrolling *together*… And then Hamas, which was relatively unknown organization, started blowing up buses full of civilians in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa
Israel forced the withdrawal of Israeli settlers in Gaza for a multitude of reasons — including so as to try to make things easier for itself. It was not done with a main intent to provide Palestinians with a sovereign, contiguous mutually-recognized state of their own.
Sadly, the Hamas mentality that said Israel would never want to see a sovereign and secure Palestinian state living in peace has become a sort of self-fulfilling prophesy delivered jointly by right-wing Israelis and right-wing Palestinians who are flip sides of the same coin in saying “I told you so” while wishing for the annihilation of “the other” on the lands they inhabit and/or want to inhabit.
It should be pointed out that Israel is a conscription state with most citizens having served or serving in the military. Even dual citizens who were born elsewhere are required to serve unless they can get an exemption. Nearly all 18 plus at the outdoor party on the border of the Gaza open air prison on October 7 were Israel soldiers or Israeli Reserve soldiers. They weren’t civilians.
Given that the Israeli Military commits atrocities, it’s fair and sensible to ban Israeli citizens from the Maldives. The Maldives can’t be bought and paid for like other countries who put money first over principle. It would be fair for Iraq and Afghanistan to do the same for U.S. soldiers but only a small percent of U.S. Citizens are or were in the military so it doesn’t make sense to ban U.S. citizens.
For as long as I have been a student of geopolitics, the Maldives has always been a “bought country” — bought mainly by playing along nicely with independent India but then sometimes breaking bread with others too to get some butter for the bread — or bread for the fish 😉 — or to try to push India to otherwise be better for it. But as the Maldives’ people saw what has happened with an increasingly fundamentalist India, they increasingly have looked to others. And as a way to deal with domestic popular discontent, it’s easier to play the foreign policy card to try to quell domestic critics than to deliver domestically to the critics with more meaningful change and improvements. An externalization of domestic challenges.
Don’t necessarily disagree regarding the geopolitics and history of the Maldives but the atrocities and then the gas lighting committed by Israel is unique in that it has united most of the world against Israel and their backers. It might just be a case where all the chess pieces go out the window and the leadership does something nearly all agree with domestically and most people around the world, including many people in Europe and the U.S. whether right wing conservative or open border liberal, as well.
Probably the thing people on earth can most agree on is supporting Palestine. The bulk of China, Africa, Europe, South America, and etc. Probably 6 billion people.
I’m not surprised you don’t distinguish between a policy against a state (Israel) and against a nation (Jews). After all you run a luxury boutique travel consultancy but you call peanuts a „canapé” in your luxury reviews.
You’re thinking of the wrong blog, dear. Try reading what I actually wrote.
Matthew, it’s time to get the CCP and Russia bots under control. It’s futile to reason with propaganda.
Which ones?
Aaron. “David Arnett”, etc.
I don’t see comments in this blog article that are from CCP and Russian troll bots. I see views with which I disagree, but that alone is not sufficient to categorize a post as being from a Russian or CCP troll bot.
The world is full of all sorts of characters, and it’s only the immature and insecure who dare not realize or let others realize it is better to know which loathsome opinions and ideas are out there to be intelligently confronted than be ignorant and blind to the problems represented by the various loathsome opinions and ideas that are out there.
Oh, the irony of that comment…coming from you, of all people.
Indeed, as that call comes from “Common Sense” is who hoping Putin’s “useful idiot” beats Biden in November.
But you have no problem with the fact that Palestinians are not able to travel freely to and from their homeland and haven’t been able to do so for 76 years thanks to an oppressive third party regime controlling them?
Selective outrage is usually what identifies the biggest hypocrites and bigots. Many of them revealing themselves on this blog.
The “regime” controlling them is fighting for its survival. This is unhelpful “whataboutism” and neglects the historical contexts of both the wars waged against the Israeli state and the refusal of the Palestinian side to compromise in a way that would have led to statehood.
That is of course, at best a distortion of fact. The regime that is “fighting for its survival” (no, it isn’t) spent 76 years oppressing a group of people after being unilaterally imposed upon their land. A group of people whom you apparently believe never had a right to survival nor to fight for their survival after their home was forcibly occupied and taken away from them.
It is morally vacuous to suggest that the Israeli government has been some paragon of righteousness for 76 years. They have not.
I’m able to see this, and also see that Hamas aren’t good guys. Most of America needs to actually study the history, in full detail, before swallowing propaganda and spitting it back out as fact. I’m saddened to see good people get sucked into false rhetoric and lose all sense of humanity.
May you and yours never have to suffer through either a Holocaust or a Nakba.
Israel has a nuclear arsenal and a much bigger and more powerful security umbrella due to us. Israel has security guarantees and military capabilities that far exceed that of any country in the region or beyond which doesn’t have peaceful diplomatic relations with it. Israel is not a military underdog in its conflict with the Palestinians. Israel is not even an underdog against any and all countries which Israel has attacked militarily from the skies or the ground in the last 40 years. Nuclear-power Israel’s greatest long-term existential security threats are from “the within”, from Islamophobes having “too much success”, and from alienating itself from America’s more youthful and future youth population.
Not 76 years. From 1948 through 1967 Gaza was occupied by Egypt and West Bank by Jordan. I don’t think the term “Palestinians” even existed before 1967
Herzl himself was familiar with the words Palestine and Palestinians. Even back when he was looking at parts of sub-Saharan Africa to be subject to a carve out for a sovereign Jewish-majority homeland.
The term Palestine is known since Roman times. Palestinians, as a term for Arabs of Palestine, is much more recent.
Before 1948, anyone calling themselves Palestinian was most likely a Jew. Only in the 1970s the idea of Palestinians as a distinct ethnicity among Arabs became popular.
Palestinians was a term used in reference also to a subset of Arabs even before the 1970s.
Uri seems likely to continue to try to mislead others on this issue, but at least I won’t fall for Uri’s anti-historical propaganda. Now go back and even look at the founding of the PNC and PLO in the 1960s. Palestinians were born and the term use to refer to a subset of Arabs even well before the establishment of the PNC and PLO even in the 1960s.
You’re demonstrating the propaganda fueled misinformation right there. It’s shocking that someone might actually believe what you just wrote.
Exactly. But it’s out of the old propagandist playbook to rewrite history by trying to repeat a lie enough that enough people believe it enough of the time for the propagandist’s agenda to be not only implemented but also provided cover for its deliverables even after delivery of the deliverables. They say history is written by the winners, and indeed the story of history is that historiography shows that what is recorded and told is not always an accurate representation of history nor inclusive of the experience of the loser. That provides sufficient motivation for misanthropic propagandists to “spread the word” to mislead people — and it explains why Trump lies like he does in the face of truths that he finds to be inconvenient for his agenda.
While I agree that what the Maldives are doing is wrong, it’s not as though it was all that easy for people with Israeli passports to travel to Muslim controlled countries prior to October 7th (and vice versa to Israel).
That said, comparing Hamas to Nazi Germany and Imperialist Japan is wildly off-base (at least in terms as a justification for Israel’s actions). They might be equally morally abhorrent, but Hamas does not pose an existential threat to Israel. The Nazis and Japan both had genocidal intent and the means to make their horrific intent reality. Hamas, especially at this point, only has genocidal intent, but will never have the means to make that reality. October 7th was the peak of what Hamas could do to Israel and even that could have been largely stopped if Israel had listened to concerns from the IDF that Hamas was planning such an attack and fortified their defenses in the region. Eradicating Hamas is probably not even possible and certainly not worth the growing humanitarian cost.
Finally, it’s high time we stop conflating Jewish people with Israel or using Israel as a metonym for Netanyahu’s government. Responses to the war in Gaza are an attack on the actions and choices made by Netanyahu’s government, which is not the same thing as Israelis or Israel the nation and certainly cannot reasonably be seen as an attack on Jewish people in general. Netanyahu does not represent the views of the Israeli people anymore than Hamas represents the voice of Gazans.
With utmost respect, I do believe Hamas poses an existential threat to Israel with the help of Iran. I also believe that Hamas shares the genocidal intetnt of the Nazis to eradicate Jews from the face of the Earth. Shouldn’t we take them at their word?
Doesn’t Israel pose an existential threat to Palestinians? Don’t Palestinians have the moral grounds and right to defend their existence against a group that aims to eradicate Palestinians from their homeland?
There is a reason why Jews have been heavily criticized for centuries and kicked out of so many countries. The only reason Western countries don’t do that anymore is because the politicians are bought and paid for by Jews to ignore the interests of their native populations.
A good example of how at root, no matter how they try to rationalize it, it’s all just the same antisemitic nonsense that antisemites have used to rationalize their hatred of Jews throughout the centuries. Instead of there being a Jewish conspiracy to poison the wells, or to destroy Germany and the Aryan race, it’s now to destroy Palestine and the Palestinians. Same as it ever was.
Who pushes open borders, lgbt, criminalization of speech, taxation, BLM, and etc in the West but not Israel? Who created and founded communism (Marx, Lenin, and Trotsky)? Who has murdered 1 million Palestinians in 70 years? Who declared war on Germany in 1932 via the World Jewish Congress?
If the shoe fits. Antisemitism just means not being bought and paid for by Israel.
Comrade,
Israel poses such a threat to the Palestinians that they allow them to become full citizens of Israel. Many military officers are Israeli Arabs
The vast majority of Palestinians in lands under Israeli domination are not entitled to Israeli citizenship and Israeli passports.
The ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in “Greater Israel” makes it more possible for there to be a democratic Jewish-supermajority state free of apartheid across all the lands currently subjected to the Netanyahu regime.
From a security paradigm, risk is assessed based on a matrix of motivation + opportunity + capabilities and expected outcome arising thereof. Even on October 6th, Hamas didn’t have the opportunity and capabilities to be an existential threat to the continuity of Israel’s existence as a state any more than OBL and Al-Qaeda were to the US’s existence as a state on September 10th, 2001. The difference is that Hamas’s attacks on October 7th were proportionally much worse for Israel than 9/11 for the US since Israel is a much smaller country, and that has in many ways made Israel even more extremely unhinged than the US was after 9/11.
Meanwhile, let us ignore all the comments made by the right wing of Israel’s government about eradicating the people in the Gaza strip…
Or ignore what is actively doing in the West Bank with the ongoing land stealing, home demolishing, killing, water stealing, illegal settlement expansion, hostage taking, etc. Sorry, I forgot, we won’t mention that because “it’s complicated”.
This is very well said and fortunately the world is filled with nicer and far more culturally enriching places to go than to an offshore island in the Maldives which might as well be anywhere else in the world cut off as they are from any real culture or civilization. The Maldives’ resorts truly have no sense of place and I will happily go elsewhere.
By the way, in addition to discrimination against Jews, Maldives also makes homosexuality illegal, does not allow Christian prayer or crucifixes, and treats Hindus poorly.
I’m sorry but it’s not that important.
11ooo travelers. Big deal
I’m the meantime, Christian zealots in the US are restricting the reproductive rights of millions of women
The Maldives aren’t worth worrying about. Let’s support women closer to home
Thank you for your support of women.
I’m sorry but it’s not that important.
11ooo travelers. Big deal
I’m the meantime, Christian zealots in the US are restricting the reproductive rights of millions of women
The Maldives aren’t worth worrying about. Let’s support women closer to home
I mean c’mom. The Texas republican party’s new platform wants to require bible indoctrination in schools…
Time to worry about issues closer to home
Israel is planning to have a de facto visa regime applicable for Americans and Europeans to visit Israel as tourists. That speaks volumes more and hits way more people than the Maldives prohibiting Israel passport use for entry to the Maldives.
I am rather confident that of the vast majority of Israelis who have previously visited the Maldives or who can easily afford to visit the Maldives resorts have an entitlement to a non-Israeli passport that can be used to enter the Maldives.
If Israel had a ban on dual-citizenship for Israeli citizens, then I would find this Maldives ban on ordinarily Israeli passport use to be more restrictive in impact than it will turn out to be.
How come you are not worried about LgBT and BLM indoctrination in schools being pushed by the left? How can you claim to care about women if they can’t even go to the bathroom without a male cross dresser being forced in under diversity laws.
Because I believe consenting adults should be able to have the kind of relationships with other consenting adults that heterosexual CIS couples have. Because I believe that discrimination and harm done to minorities for being minorities is not only just bad morality but also a risk to the liberty and freedoms of the general public and myself too.
Strong families and strong-minded thinking types know how to counter and not be susceptible to indoctrination of bad morality regardless of what state actors and non-state actors with bad morality try to push. Treating ethnic, religious and sexual minorities as co-equal citizens under the law Is good morality. Kids who come from minority households have just as much right to a normal family life being represented and respected in schools as anyone else. It’s simply good for liberty and freedom for all when the public isn’t terrified of the idea of non-CIS adults behaving as responsible adults and existing in society without having to hide their identity as a law-abiding person who harms no one.
The world’s Jewish community has been one of the best things for freedom and liberty since long before sliced bread, and it’s why so many “white Christian nationalist” types are antisemitic. If the right-wing Israeli community were representative of the entirety of the Jewish community, those kind of antisemites would perhaps stand together united with Israel and the Jewish communities as bigots have more in common with other bigots than they do with people systematically opposed to racism of all sorts.
Yes but civilised nations will kill thousands of children and expect there to be no repercussions.
Civilised nations will support Hamas over the years, but good imperialists will never mention that.
Netanyahu supported Hamas and even begged for Hamas to get materially funded. The Maldives has other problems, but materially funding anti-Israel and anti-Palestine terrorism hasn’t been one of the problems coming from the Maldives.
Yeah, Matt isnt going to mention that elephant in the room because it doesnt serve his twisted purposes.
I completely agree with you.
Matthew, my main argument against the notion that Israel cannot stop until Hamas is completely eradicated, is that the goal is impossible to meet. As civilian casualties increase, more Muslims in the region will become radicalized against Israel. So even though the leaders of Hamas may be eliminated, they will be replaced by others. If Israel’s goal is to prevent a recurrence of October 7, then they should not be indiscriminately causing civilian casualties, as that just increases the risk of future attacks.
Israel’s ultimate shield are the Palestinians when the majority of Palestinians feel they have finally been treated with justice and given a lasting and living peace by Israel. People are strategically stupid not to realize that the capability for WMD production and use is going to end up very much democratized and that there are implications when there are more angry people being generated than are disappearing.
Agree wholeheartedly. Islamic terrorism existed before Hamas and will continue to exist even if Hamas as an entity is destroyed, and they will target Israel with greater resolve if Israel continues to indiscriminately attack Gazan civilians.
Technically, it’s unIslamic terrorism that Islamist identity terrorists engage in — which in large part probably explains why the proportion of Muslims who engage in terrorist violence is so fortunately marginal as to be a statistically insignificant portion of Muslim populations. But any major growth in anger and alienation of a large pool of people for perceived injustices against an ethnic, national or religious group is anything but helpful from a security perspective. And that is both in regard to the security of Israel’s peoples regardless of religious denomination and in the world at large.
I would like to see an outright travel ban on holders of Israeli passports, they can spend the time reflecting carefully before the next election and then elect a sensible politician not a war criminal. Having done that they can have their travel rights restored.
And, if the US elects Trump, a convicted criminal, I’d do the same there too, an outright ban so all can stay at home in Trump land and enjoy it.
I am opposed to such approaches. Communal punishment is something to be opposed, and there are Israelis who are very much against the excesses of the Netanyahu regime and this war on the Palestinians.
Thanks Matthew
I mean…..Kuwait has NEVER OFFICIALLY RECOGNIZED ISRAEL AS A COUNTRY ever and that has been a long-standing policy. Even if Saudi normalizes relations just like UAE/Bahrain has, Kuwait will never ever recognize the Israel state due to the history in relation to the Nakbla in 1948. I mean they call the country the Zionist Entity out here.
Hmmm Matthew…Seems you didn’t care at all about how the Maldives treats anybody, given your travel there and your promotion of travel there, until this Israeli passport ban…Did you ever advise people of the moral compromises they’d be making by traveling there, or the socially regressive government policies they’d be supporting if they did? It only matters when your personal politics and morals are impacted, and it is convenient and self-serving to point out the hypocrisy? Maybe turn the mirror on yourself?
Yes, as a matter of fact I did:
https://liveandletsfly.com/amal-clooney-cautions-against-visiting-maldives/
https://liveandletsfly.com/maldives-alcohol-ban/
Any other questions?
Lol the only hypocrisy and “bigotry” is yours here.
You’re full of despicable hatred and should be ashamed.
While innocent Palestinians are being tortured and exterminated by israhell’s genocidal regime your biggest problem is that israelis cannot go on holiday to the Maldives?!?. Oh what a tragedy.. Are you seriously kidding me, like wtf come on. You’ve got to be joking.
Again, the blood of every death in that conflict is on Hamas and Iran.