Heathrow officials responding to a complaint about security staff wearing Palestine flag badges claimed that employees wore them to let travellers know they spoke Arabic.
While travelling on May 26, a Jewish passenger questioned why a member of staff was allowed to wear the divisive political badge after he had his bag pulled for a second security check by a female employee wearing a Palestinian flag badge.
Despite the passenger being told that staff were not allowed to wear religious or political items, they were informed the Palestine flag did not breach rules because it was issued to “indicate an employee speaks a particular language or dialect from a certain region”.
Heathrow’s passenger customer support department responded to the passenger’s complaint saying: “We can confirm that no nationality, religious or political items can be worn by any Heathrow staff whilst present on duty as part of our uniform standards.”
“The exception is that 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.
“This is not a compulsory requirement to display this information and is at the staff member’s discretion, so that foreign travellers may know who to approach should it be easier to communicate in their own language. The flag is used to be more easily identifiable from a distance than for the language to be written in script.”
Caroline Turner, director UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) said the explanation “defies belief”, adding that people would assume the staff were Palestine supporters amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza following Hamas’ Oct 7 attack.
Ms Turner said: “This explanation defies belief. Any passenger seeing the security staff member wearing a Palestinian flag would assume that it was there to indicate his or her support for a state for Palestinians, or for Hamas’ actions, and it may also indicate his or her antipathy to Jews and Israelis.”
She added: “The effect of the security staff wearing the flag is to create an intimidating, hostile, and offensive environment for Jews and Israel supporters.”
The explanation is also at odds with that of Heathrow’s director of services, who had previously written to UKLFI saying “wearing any non-approved badges did not form part of our standards/policy”. UKLFI has written to query this explanation.
Illegal under the Equality Act
At Stansted Airport, an Israeli passenger travelling to Greece on Jan 17 noticed a female member of the security staff wearing a Palestine flag badge.
When he asked to speak to a manager about the badge, he was told by the manager “they are a private company and they are allowed to wear anything they like”.
UKLFI said it had written to Stansted Airport to query this policy. According to UKLFI, the policy constitutes harassment against Israeli and Jewish passengers, and is illegal under the Equality Act 2010. UKLFI has received no response.
It comes after the Home Office professional standards unit started investigating a complaint that Heathrow Border Force staff “harassed” Israeli passengers arriving in the UK.
Passengers on an El Al flight from Ben Gurion to Heathrow Airport in London on June 9 were asked to undergo extra checks after a customs official discovered one of the passengers had an Israeli flag, according to UKLFI.
It is claimed a customs official noticed an Israeli flag on a passenger’s luggage and the whole group was taken into a separate room, where their luggage was scanned.
Those passengers complained that they felt “harassed” and were subjected to “degrading treatment” because they were either Jewish or Israeli.
UKLFI has written to the Home Office complaining that the treatment was in breach of the Equality Act.
In response, the Home Office replied that it was treating the complaint “seriously” and had ordered a review of the incident.
A Heathrow Airport spokesman said: “Everyone should feel safe and welcome at Heathrow. We have guidance on what colleagues can wear at work, if that guidance is not followed we will ensure those items are removed immediately.”
Stansted Airport was contacted by The Telegraph for comment.