Italian hotel manager rejects Israeli couple's reservation, accusing Israeli people of 'genocide'

Clouds hang over the snow-covered Dolomites mountains near Bolzano, in northern Italian province of South Tyrol, Italy, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2021. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

ROME, Italy -

The manager of a small hotel in northern Italy refused a reservation made by an Israeli couple, accusing Israeli people of being “responsible for genocide,” a Jewish organization in Venice reported on Thursday.

The couple had booked two nights for the beginning of November at the Hotel Garni Ongaro in Selva di Cadore, a mountain village surrounded by the Dolomites, using the Booking.com online reservation platform.

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A day before their departure, they received a message from the hotel’s staff: “Good morning. We inform you that the Israeli people as those responsible for genocide are not welcome customers in our structure.”

The hotel manager then invited the tourists to cancel their reservation, adding they “would be happy to grant free cancellation.” The manager has since closed his Facebook profile, and he wasn't immediately available for comment.

“I feel infinite sadness for the ignorance shown by certain people,” said Dario Calimani, the president of the Jewish Community of Venice. “When you don’t agree with what Israel does, you spread hatred against all Israelis.”

The incident caught the attention of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, which has confirmed they were investigating the matter. In addition, steps have been taken to ask Booking.com to remove the hotel from their platform. An email seeking comment was sent by The Associated Press to Booking.com.

The Veneto region governor, Luca Zaia, dubbed the incident as “extremely serious.”

“I feel deeply disturbed and I’m shocked by what has happened,” he said. “Veneto must guarantee its doors are open to all.”

The incident came as cases of antisemitism in Italy, including expressions of racism and discrimination against Jews, have been increasing over the past year amid the war in Gaza.

Last month, a mural depicting a survivor of last year’s Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel, which killed around 1,200 people in Israel, was vandalized in Milan.

Incidents of antisemitism have increased to about 80 or 90 a week in the last year, from about 30 a week before, according to the Antisemitism Observatory in Milan.

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Word of the hotel incident came on the same day that former hostages held by Hamas in Gaza and their relatives met at the Vatican with Pope Francis.

Sharone Lifshitz, whose father remains a hostage after her mother was freed last year, responded to a request for comment, saying it was wrong to consider all Israelis as agents of the Israeli government, just as it would be wrong to consider all Americans as agents of the U.S. government. The tendency to do that, she added, was a sign of antisemitism.

“Not all people agree with the current government of Italy, and yet I don’t think the people of Italy traveling the world would be subjected personally as individuals to the actions of their government,” she said.

“The government of Israel does many things that I personally and absolutely and categorically don’t agree with as an individual … and yet we are taken as agents of our government," she said. “I think antisemitism and the inability of many people to separate individuals from the state seems to be very much connected to the people of Israel and to Jewish people.”

Nicole Winfield contributed to this report.