Heathrow Staff Are Allowed to Wear Palestine Flag Badges
Bosses at Heathrow Airport have told an angry Jewish passenger that staff are permitted to wear badges displaying the Palestinian flag to show their proficiency in Arabic. The Mail has the story.
On May 26th, a Jewish passenger had his bag pulled for an extra security check by a female worker wearing one of the badges.
And while staff at the airport aren’t allowed to wear political or religious items, the passenger was told the badge was an exception to this rule.
This is because it was used to “indicate an employee speaks a particular language or dialect from a certain region”, according to the Telegraph.
This comes after the Home Office professional standards unit began an investigation into a complaint that Heathrow Border Force staff “harassed” Israeli passengers arriving in the U.K.
Passengers complained that they were targeted after staff noticed the Israeli flag on their luggage and were “shunted” into a separate room.
When passengers asked why they were being treated differently, staff reportedly told them that as customs officials they could do whatever they wanted.
After the passenger complained about the flag badge, Heathrow’s passenger customer support department replied: “If a person speaks a language or dialect from a certain region as a secondary/tertiary language, a flag representing the region or country would be present which is provided by Heathrow.” …
But a spokesperson from U.K. Lawyers for Israel told the newspaper that passengers would assume staff were Palestine supporters amid the conflict in Gaza.
They said it creates an “intimidating, hostile and offensive environment for Jews and Israel supporters”. …
The Home Office is now investigating the incident as staff wearing political badges is in contravention of both the airport’s uniform policy and the Equality Act 2010.
Worth reading in full.
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Lol, yeah, cos “Palestine” is the only area in the world where people speak Arabic.
Maybe badges with “I speak Arabic” written on them in, er, Arabic, were out of stock? Or are they saying that Arabic speakers can’t read and need a picture instead? What are they, some kind of racists?
I wonder if the issue is that lots of their staff have strong opinions on “Palestine” and they are taking the path of least resistance.
Customer service never made the claim the mail put into its headline. The actual statement was
If a person speaks a language or dialect from a certain region as a secondary/tertiary language, a flag representing the region or country would be present which is provided by Heathrow.
The flag is used to be more easily identifiable from a distance.
That’s completely generic and may or may not refer to the so-called flag of Palestine.
Does that include the Star of David – I wonder?
The policy statement suggests that an employee speaking Hebrew would be wearing such a badge.
Or…lots of their staff have strong opinions on “Palestine” and they are
taking the path of least resistance.keen to ignite trouble.
Well in that case I think patriotic staff should run an experiment and turn up at work wearing these shoes and see how long they last, haha…
https://x.com/kingkapoor72/status/1807424610016587889/photo/1
Love that Mogs.👍
How could management allow inflammatory badges but disallow patriotic shoes?
A new letter to add – PLGBTQ++
And a new flag as it’s Pride Month
Its the path of least existence.
Well it certainly would be if your chosen path was carrying that thing down the High Street in Gaza. You’d be taking compulsory flying lessons.😨
And it would be just one trial lesson.
Wouldn’t the flag of Saudi Arabia be more appropriate, it being quite distinctive and having an Arabic inscription on it, and from the most powerful of the Arab Countries?
Or the flag of the Arab League?
At the end of the day;
At the end of a dismal day of depressing downbeat stories I have nothing to say, only to suggest that on this Sunday evening you might like to to listen to this you tube clip;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pigh8VHr-ZE
That made my eyes water.
Thank you for the link that’s beautiful.
This story still seems to be passenger lugagge checked by customs officials
and this is still about a flight of the Israeli air line (El Al) from the main airport of Israel (Ben Gurion), hence, it’s extremely likely that a majority of the majority of passengers who weren’t checked were Jews as well.
That’s a very good point, RW.
But regarding the point of this article, namely that employees at Heathrow are permitted to wear a badge of the Palestinian flag…:
We all know what the beliefs of those employees are. And it’s got nothing to do with the Arabic language.
The justification given by Heathrow Airport’s management is Müll.
Don’t you know how customer service works? That’s done by hired nones¹ working from a script. Someone contacted them and complained about “something related to a flag” and hence, the outcome was generic answer for “flag stuff” coming from this script. According to the Home Office which also received a complaint, Heathrow Employees aren’t allowed to wear “political badges” and this is being investigated. It’s entirely possible that the flag story has been made up by some guy who was pissed off because he was chosen for a customs spot check. People do stuff like this. The Gil Ofarim story would come to mind here². ¹ For non-entities. The typical customer services person makes AI look positively human. ² An Israeli/ German singer who raised a mighty stink about him having been anti-semitically abused by an employee of a German hotel some years ago because he was wearing a star of David around his neck. Problem: As both witnesses and CCTV confirmed, he was really just pissed off that he had been told to wait in line and wasn’t wearing anything around his neck on this occasion. This came to light in court because his victim, ie, the employee he… Read more »
If staff are wearing “Free Palestine” badges that does not indicate to me that they speak Arabic. It does indicate a certain political allegiance and in a workplace environment I would find that offensive, which is clearly how it is intended.
The head honcho of Heathrow needs pulling in for a quiet word and a copy of his P45 and a reminder to get his house in order.
At this rate Heathrow will soon be employing trainee suicide bombers on the grounds that they are providing ‘work experience.’
If staff are wearing “Free Palestine” badges that does not indicate to me that they speak Arabic.
The caption for the photo the Daily Müll¹ has chosen to use for this article reads
A stock image of a protester wearing a Free Palestine badge during a demonstration
ie, that’s not at all related to the article, it just supposed to fool casual onlookers.
¹ German for rubbish.
I have never seen airport staff wearing flag badges to indicate they speak a certain language. Has anyone else?
This is a diabolical DISGRACE. ——-Where are all the HATE CRIME LAWYERS NOW?
How long would it take for someone to complain about the Union Jack being offensive!
Oh and obviously there is rife Anti Semitism at play, but once again nothing is done it seems its ok for Heathrow to offend the Jewish people that move through the Airport.
Heathrow is a ghastly cesspit to be avoided wherever possible.
These badges show a huge security risk at Heathrow. These people obviously support TERRORISM as a means to an end.
Can they also wear Swastika badges to show the speak German or for that matter Hindi – Swastika being a symbol of Hinduism?