Israel boycotts Turkish coffee, vacations

JERUSALEM (AFP) - A large Israeli cafe chain has decided to stop selling Turkish coffee and plans are afoot to boycott Turkish resorts in the wake of increased tensions between the two allies, officials said Sunday.

"We have decided for the time being to stop selling 'Istanbul coffee' -- our Turkish coffee blend, and we shall keep doing it until matters improve," Michael Steg, director of marketing for the Ilan coffee shop chain, told the Ynet news website.

"We believe anyone can be active in his own way and this is our small and symbolic way of doing that," he said.

Meanwhile, Yossi Levy, a senior official with Israel's national carrier ElAl, told Army Radio his employee association and those of several other major Israeli businesses plan to stop subsidizing vacations for their workers to Turkey during the Passover holiday next April, the next major holiday season in the Jewish state during which up to 80,000 Israelis are expected to visit Turkish resorts.

The boycott moves come as a response to a Turkish state television series that began airing last week that depicts Israeli soldiers deliberately killing Palestinian children, the latest incident to sour relations between Israel and Ankara.

Tensions between Israel and Turkey have risen over the past week after Ankara excluded the Jewish state from annual joint military exercises, prompting a rebuke from the United States.

Ties between the strategic allies began to sour in January when Turkey strongly condemned Israel's 22-day war in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, launched on December 27 in response to rocket fire from the Palestinian territory.