Jewish Israeli passengers force Arabs off Athens-Tel Aviv flight

A group of Jewish Israeli travelers forced the Greek national carrier Aegean Airways to take two Arab co-nationalists off a flight from Athens to Tel Aviv for fear that the pair could be terrorists.

During the incident on tuesday evening, the Israelis stood up and prevented the flight from taking off, the airline said.

“An initially small group of passengers very vocally and persistently asked for two other Israeli passengers to be checked for security issues,” Aegean said in a statement.

As the airport was about to close, the Arab passengers were offered a night in a hotel at the airline’s expense and were promised seats on a flight to Israel the following morning.

Some of the Israelis demanded that the Arabs’ luggage be checked as well, but that request was not met.