Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is accusing the U.S. State Department of having influenced U.S. airlines to suspend flights to Israel indefinitely.
“The Biden-Harris administration was lax in pursuing why some airlines will not fly to Israel,” Cruz said in a statement to Jewish Insider. “Indeed, they may have been worse than lax, and the State Department may have become inappropriately entangled in deliberations over safety and subverted the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration].”
He stated that “there have been allegations about antisemitic discrimination by airlines and that calls by unions not to fly to Israel were motivated solely by pro-Hamas activists.”
“These allegations are troubling, and, of course, American law prohibits American companies from participating in politically motivated boycotts of Israel,” he added.
Cruz, the incoming chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, said he “welcomes a full investigation of these issues” after more than a year of airlines refusing to resume regular service to the Jewish state.
American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines suspended flights to Israel with varying end dates, leaving El Al as the only company providing direct flights between the United States and Israel.
“One of the things that Iran is trying to accomplish is to isolate Israel economically. This is just another sign of that,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said as airlines began their cancellations of flights to Israel earlier this year.
Shmuel Zakai, head of the Israeli Civil Aviation Authority, called the flight cancellations “significant,” adding that the main reason for the cancellations was that “flight crews are deterred from coming to Israel.”
“Flights to Israel are safe,” he said, calling Israel’s airspace “absolutely safe.”
