For many people flying from Singapore to Sydney, the flight can take as little as seven hours or so. But not if you are Benjamin Netanyahu. In the Israeli prime minister’s case, it can take more than 11 hours.
As you can see in the map below, created using data from FlightAware, the Israeli leader took an unusual detour when travelling from Singapore to Australia overnight. The Guardian newspaper also confirmed this unusual route with Netanyahu’s delegation.
This detour added several hours to his journey.
Netanyahu’s plane wasn’t taking the scenic route by choice. Instead, the carrier – El Al, Israel’s national airline – was deliberately avoiding the airspace of Indonesia.
Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim population. Like other Muslim-majority nations, the country has no formal diplomatic relations with Israel because of the latter’s conflict with Palestinians. Some implications of this are well known – Israeli passport holders are refused entry to a number of Muslim-majority nations, except in special circumstances, though Israeli citizens are permitted access to Indonesia on tourist visas.
Read the full article by Adam Taylor at the Sydney Morning Herald.