Foreign Ministry in Halva Blitz

Israeli Foreign Ministry officials have been lobbying intensively to get halva back on the menu of Brussels Airlines, after an incident last week in which the airline appeared to bow to Palestinian pressure to remove the item.

Embassy officials in Brussels and Berlin embassies have been working “vigorously” to reverse the “scandalous decision to boycott the halva products served on their airplanes because of the place of manufacture,” in the Shomron, The Jerusalem Post quoted a ministry spokesman as saying.

The airline has strenuously denied the allegation, explaining that the decision to take the Achva halva off the menu was simply to due a supplier’s error, a spokesman saying it “wasn’t what we ordered.”

The Foreign Ministry did not seem to believe that, however. It reported a different version of the story, the airline blaming the removal to an “overzealous employee” who received a complaint about the halva and acted on his own.

The embassies in Berlin and Brussels were contacting major stockholders in both capitals regarding the boycott. Berlin entered the picture because the German national carrier, Lufthansa, is a stockholder.

Tourism Minister Yariv Levin threatened to have Air Brussels banned from Israel’s skies until it serves halva again. The airline, which operates multiple flights from European cities to Tel Aviv each week appeared anxious to settle the matter.