A traveler flying from Seattle to Tel Aviv says she opened her checked suitcase after the trip and found a handwritten note inside that read, “F*** Israel.”
Noa Sabar Dvoskin, a 48-year-old Los Angeles native, was traveling last weekend with her three children on Alaska Airlines from Seattle to Los Angeles before connecting to an El Al flight bound for Tel Aviv. She discovered the note in her luggage while unpacking on Monday.
“I felt really scared and uneasy,” Dvoskin told JNS on Thursday.
After finding the message, Dvoskin searched through her suitcase to check whether anything had been damaged. She then photographed the note, which was written in capital letters and included the obscenity.
“I had a feeling of disgust,” she said. “It felt like something filthy.”
Alaska Airlines had not responded to JNS’s request for comment by press time.
The Seattle-based airline operates under a codeshare agreement with El Al.
Dvoskin, who relocated to Israel two years ago and had been vacationing in Seattle with her family, said she did not want her children, who range in age from 9 to 16, to see the note.
“I never thought about this kind of thing happening on an airline,” she said.
Dvoskin said she reported the incident to the airline, Los Angeles International Airport, the US Transportation Security Administration, the US Department of Homeland Security and the US embassy in Israel.
“What if the next time the same person puts an explosive in a suitcase when the opportunity arises,” asked the US-based StopAntisemitism NGO.
The incident comes six months after an El Al flight from Los Angeles to Tel Aviv was delayed after ground staff discovered “Free Palestine” stickers on airport equipment, prompting the flight to depart without passengers’ baggage amid security concerns that the luggage had been tampered with.
Law enforcement reviewed security camera footage and identified a third-party contractor employee who was subsequently fired.
