TEL AVIV - 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 subsidising vacations for their workers to Turkey during the Passover holiday next April, the next major holiday season in Israel 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 Tel Aviv from annual joint military exercises.
Ties between the strategic allies began to sour in January when Turkey strongly condemned Israel's 22-day war against the Israeli-besieged Gaza Strip, launched on December 27 and killed 1,400 Palestinians, mainly civilians and a third of whom children.
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