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 Remove Israel from website, airline told 

MPs are threatening to take action unless Israel's name is removed from Gulf Air's website among a list of countries under its frequent flyers services.

The parliamentary Palestinian Support Committee plans to send a letter to the airline on Sunday demanding answers.

Under the scheme, passengers from any nationality can apply for frequent flyers membership stating their country of origin.

Committee chairman Nasser Al Fadhala said that the airline had been alerted previously on the issue, but they never responded.

He was speaking following a meeting held by the parliamentary committee yesterday.

"We don't normalise ties in any possible way with Israel and the inclusion of Israel as one of the countries, in which its citizens are allowed to benefit from the scheme, implies the opposite," he said.

"Bahrain is a country that refuses to accept any normalisation with Israel, especially with the Palestinians being evicted from their homes, tortured and killed."

Mr Al Fadhala said Finance Minister Shaikh Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Khalifa, who is responsible for Gulf Air under Mumtalakat, was not responding.

"Gulf Air and officials behind it will pay the price heavily if they insist on not having Israel's name removed," he said.

"We plan to start using our monitoring tools, which will certainly enable us to reach the bottom of this issue.

"The minister is not responding, but maybe if we take a tougher approach, he will take action, or else we will force him to do so."

A Gulf Air spokesman said the reference to Israel on the website was merely in a dropdown menu so passengers registering for the frequent flyers offer could enter where they live.

"In fact, we have a number Israel-based Arabs in our programme already and it would be a pity to deny future passengers the opportunity to join our programme," he said.

Meanwhile, the committee also discussed a letter by Industry and Commerce Minister Dr Hassan Fakhro at its meeting yesterday in regard to invitations by the Bahrain Exhibition and Convention Authority to Israeli firms to come to the country a few months ago.

"The letter is weak and doesn't detail the steps and procedures the authority is planning to take to ensure that this never happens again," said Mr Al Fadhala.

"The now closed Israeli Products Office will open again and at the moment we are negotiating with 13 civil societies to help us in our quest to fulfil this demand, which a lot of people are asking for in the country."

Mr Al Fadhala also sent a request for an urgent meeting to Foreign Minister Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa for the next committee meeting over statements that he was calling for a new organisation that includes Muslim and Arab countries besides Israel.




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