The thirty-six-hour economic sanction against Israel by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ended  at 11:45 p.m. last night (July 23), or 6:45 a.m. Israel Summer Time. At that hour, the FAA rescinded its ban on all travel to and from David Ben-Gurion Airport by U.S.-flag airliners. This happened only after a United States Senator called the FAA and their Obama administration masters on their true motives.

Text of the FAA rescission

Business Insider has the text of what the FAA said last night:

Before making this decision, the FAA worked with its U.S. government counterparts to assess the security situation in Israel and carefully reviewed both significant new information and measures the Government of Israel is taking to mitigate potential risks to civil aviation.

The FAA’s primary mission and interest are the protection of people traveling on U.S. airlines. The agency will continue to closely monitor the very fluid situation around Ben Gurion Airport and will take additional actions, as necessary.

The FAA did not say what “new information” it had, or what “measures the Government of Israel is taking.” The FAA knows, or ought to know, the second part. In two English words: Iron Dome.

And the “new information”? The FAA will never admit what that was. It likely came not from the executive branch, but from the legislative. Specifically, from the office of one angry United States Senator.

Senator Cruz issues an ultimatum

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas; see his online office) yesterday sent out this press release. He asked directly:

Did President Obama Just Launch an Economic Boycott of Israel?

Cruz laid out three damning facts:

1. The FAA flight ban,
2. The giving away of $47 million to Gaza, which is to say to HAMAS (Islamic Resistance Movement), and
3. Earlier threats (back in February) of economic sanctions from none other than Secretary of State John F. Kerry.

Remember what Ian Fleming said about coincidence:

Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, and the third time it’s enemy action.

Cruz bluntly asked five more questions:

• Was this decision a political decision driven by the White House?
• If the FAA’s decision was based on airline safety, why was Israel singled out, when flights would be permitted into Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen?
• What was the FAA’s ‘safety’ analysis that led to prohibiting flights to Israel, while still permitting flights to Ukraine—where a commercial airline flight was just shot down with a BUK missile?
• What specific communications occurred between the FAA and the White House?  And the State Department?  Why were any such communications necessary, if this was purely about airline safety?
• Was this a safety issue, or was it using a federal regulatory agency to punish Israel to try to force them to comply with Secretary Kerry’s demand that Israel stop their military effort to take out Hamas’s rocket capacity?

Cruz answered his fifth question: the FAA

launch[ed] an economic boycott on Israel,…to try to force our ally to comply with [Obama’s] foreign-policy demands.

Later, Cruz went further. He placed his Senatorial hold on several nominations for positions at the State Department.

until the Obama Administration answers questions about its unprecedented decision to cancel flights to Israel, while at the same time announcing continuing aid that will be funneled to the terrorist organization, Hamas.

There is your “new information”! Of course Michael Bloomberg had already said:

The flight restrictions are a mistake that hands Hamas an undeserved victory and should be lifted immediately.

And after saying that, he flew to Israel on an El Al flight. And to compound the sardonic gesture, the Israeli aircraft had this name on its nose: Sderot. The name of the most-abused town in southern Israel, where children have fifteen seconds’ warning to take shelter from incoming rockets. You can read the name in the video below.

But as before, the best advice CNAV can give to Israel is: just win, baby. Before the FAA takes another lame pretext to do this again.

Related:

Israel cut off from air?

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