300 Jews headed to Israel rally in DC stranded by bus drivers allegedly staging 'malicious' sick out

After bus drivers staged what is being called “a deliberate and malicious walk-off,’’ hundreds of Jews who were planning on attending Tuesday’s pro-Israel rally in Washington DC were left stranded at the airport.

The walk-off left approximately 300 people from a chartered flight from Detroit on the tarmac at Dulles Airport for 11 hours. They were eventually turned around and sent home, having missed the entire event.

The group was on one of three planes chartered by the Jewish Federation of Detroit, which also booked the buses to take the 900 participants to the National Mall.

Jewish Federation spokesperson David Kurzman reported at a press conference on Thursday that several of the buses failed to meet the plane when it landed at 10:30 am local time because the drivers, after learning where the passengers were going, organized a “mass sick out” to stop Jews from attending the pro-Israel event.

Kurzman added, “In the way that this action prevented proud Jewish Americans from exercising their freedom to speak, protest, assemble, and gather today at the nation’s capital, that to me was a malicious act. It was an act targeting the Jewish community as far as their participation in this rally.”

According to The New York Post, chartered flights cannot leave the tarmac without pre-organized vehicular transportation, and as a result, the passengers were forced back onto the plane, were forced to wait for the others who did make it to the rally to return, and missed the entire historic event.

Brooke Goldstein, a human rights lawyer and founder of The Lawfare Project, exclusively told The Post. “Any company that so blatantly refuses to provide services to Jewish people engages in unlawful discrimination,” noting that the company could face legal action. 

“The scale of what allegedly happened to these Jewish people is outrageous; on a day when hundreds of thousands of allies gathered to spread a message of unity with, and support for, the Jewish community, and to demand the release of hostages taken by barbaric terrorists, we see firsthand the discrimination that Jewish people face on a daily basis in the United States.”

Kurzman said the bus company did everything possible to help the stranded passengers, but failed because of limited staff as a result of the walk-off. “They were wonderful and cooperative. It was just an unfortunate logistical snafu that they had no control over.”

Passengers made the best of the circumstances and stood on the tarmac waving Israeli flags and singing “Am Yisrael Chai (The people of Israel live)” before they were forced to wait on the plane for their fellow travelers to return.

The Detroit group wasn’t the only one headed to the pro-Israel rally to be ditched by bus drivers Tuesday.

News 12 reported a similar incident in Westport, Connecticut, as hundreds of passengers were also stranded by a transportation company that claimed there had been a scheduling error.

The group climbed into 38 cars and made the 280-mile trip to be part of the approximately 290,000 people who attended the rally.