Young Israeli travelers keep getting detained in Malaysia during layovers at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KUL) simply because of their nationality, it has been alleged, and apparently, it’s because they all relied on AI assistants to check whether it was safe to travel through Malaysia.
If they had instead checked official travel information provided by Israel’s National Security Council, they would have discovered that Malaysia is subject to a Level 4 High Threat advisory, which prohibits travel to the country.
The advisory not only recommends that Israelis don’t travel to Malaysia but also that they steer clear of even transiting through one of the country’s airports why traveling to another destination.
According to Ynet News, at least eight travelers have been detained at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in recent months after officials discovered their Israeli passports.
The most recent incident reportedly occurred on Wednesday when two Israeli men and two young Israeli women were detained as they attempted to transit through Malaysia to get to the Philippines.
The women claimed they had asked an AI assistant for travel advice as they tried to find a safe route to get to the Philippines from Thailand.
In some cases, Israelis have been swiftly deported back to the last country they were in, but in others, Israel’s embassy in Singapore has been forced to intervene to secure the release of the Israeli citizens.
“All those detained had not broken any law or committed any offense,” Ambassador Eliyahu Vered Hazan told Ynet. “The only reason for their detention was that they were Israeli.”
While the Embassy has managed to secure the release of detained Israelis thus far, Hazan said that this was not a given and urged Israeli citizens not to chance it, even if they have dual nationality and hold a passport from another country.
The National Security Council updated its travel advice for Malaysia after it noticed a “significant increase in hostility towards Israelis” in the country following Israel’s response to the October 7 terror attack.
Israel not only doesn’t have formal diplomatic relations with Malaysia, but it doesn’t even recognize the existence of Israel, so Israeli passport holders are generally not allowed to enter Malaysia.
In some cases, however, Israeli passport holders might get away with transiting airside from one flight to the next without going through Malaysian immigration controls, although this is very risky.
Although Malaysia doesn’t recognize Israel, it doesn’t have any specific law that bans Israeli citizens, like the so-called “Anti-Infiltration Laws” in Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Iraq.
