The Israeli Tourist Was Out of Line. But So Was the Internet.
My viral TikTok, the backlash, and the uncomfortable truths we don’t want to see in ourselves.
On the back of last week’s popular post, Far Doesn't Mean Free: The Invisible Cost of Living Abroad — an entry into ‘s essay competition that asked us to think about border privilege, I’ve had a direct experience with the topic. And in today’s post, I dive in headfirst.
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The first time I watched the video, my skin crawled.
A white Israeli woman in a café in Thailand, refusing to take off her shoes — and then, somehow, doubling down with the now-infamous line: “My money built your country.”
I winced. I flinched. I felt an immediate wave of protectiveness rise in me — not toward her, but toward Thailand. Toward this island in Thailand I’ve called home for 15 years.
Koh Phangan has a long, complicated relationship with Israeli travellers. Back in the day, many came straight after their compulsory military service, using their post-army payouts to backpack across Asia — and Koh Phangan was always a stop. They helped shape the early full moon party culture and, in some ways, the entire backpacking scene here. But in recent years, it’s shifted. It’s not just backpackers anymore. Israeli families are arriving in droves — many fleeing the war back home, seeking peace and palm trees.
And in that moment, watching her words slice through the soft familiarity of this place, it hit something raw.
The video was triggering. It pressed on something that's been quietly heating for years — that simmering sense that the island is becoming an extension of somewhere else, that entitlement is creeping in where humility used to live.
It wasn’t just what she said. It was the way she said it — like the rules didn’t apply to her, like the culture didn’t matter.
The clip exploded on local forums. People were furious — understandably so. But soon, the fury started to metastasize. Screenshots of her social media profile began to circulate. People were trying to figure out who she was, where she lived, whether she was a tourist or someone who had moved here more permanently.
And I found myself wondering: is she really as arrogant as she came across? Or was this just a bad moment? Even if she is that arrogant — does she deserve to be chased down, exposed, and shamed to the point of no return?
I’ve seen the tide turn against people before. I’ve felt it crash against me too. And I know how fast righteous anger can morph into something darker.
That’s why I made the TikTok.
Not to defend her.
But to ask — as calmly as I could — where exactly is this heading?
What Happened — And Why It Hit a Nerve
Here’s what happened — or at least, what we saw.
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A woman walks into a café on Koh Phangan. There’s an exchange about her shoes — the kind of exchange that happens often in Thailand, where removing your footwear before entering a home or certain businesses is a long-standing cultural norm.
She refuses.
Then, seated at a table, she delivers the line:
“My money built your country.”
And then — the wink.
Oof. It was the wink that did it. That small, smug gesture cracked the whole thing wide open. It made her look not just entitled, but gleefully so. Like she knew exactly how disrespectful she was being — and didn’t care. Even seated, the energy was all downward — looking down on the staff, the space, the culture.
That brief clip swept through the island’s forums like a lit match. Koh Phangan Conscious Community — our local Facebook board with over 77,000 members — blew up. The original posts have since been removed, but for a brief window, they were everywhere.
And yet, we only saw one angle.
In a later comment, the woman claimed the video had been taken out of context — and that there was “violence” directed toward her off-camera. Whether that’s true or not, we don’t know. But the video didn’t go viral because of its fairness or balance. It went viral because it was visceral.
Because that wink — and the entitlement it represented — was like a match dropped into a room full of dry kindling.
And interestingly, it was the Israeli community itself who seemed the most publicly furious. Which makes sense. Many of them know there’s a perception problem — one they feel deeply conflicted about. There’s already a reputation: loud, entitled, culturally tone-deaf. Not always fair. Not always untrue. But always present.
So when this woman — whether tourist or long-termer, it’s still unclear — winked her way through a moment of pure arrogance, it didn’t just look bad. It looked familiar. And unbearable.
She wasn’t just a woman anymore. She was a symbol.
And symbols are dangerous — because they flatten real people into ideas we can punish.
Why I Spoke Up
At first, I was just watching it all unfold — the video, the reactions, the ripple of fury echoing through the community forums. Some of it felt justified. Some of it felt performative. All of it felt hot.
But then I saw people posting screenshots of her social media accounts. Asking where exactly she was staying on the island.
And that’s when something shifted.
I stopped seeing “the rude Israeli tourist.” I started seeing a human being.
A woman who — yes — said something awful. But also a woman with a past, and a future. A woman who might have parents. Friends. Maybe even kids. A woman who, like every one of us, has had moments she isn’t proud of. Who may have said something reckless or cruel or clueless — and then had to live with the echo of it.
I don’t know her story. None of us do.
But I do know this: no one deserves to have their life destroyed over a moment of arrogance. No one deserves to become a public punching bag — not when the punishment so clearly outweighs the crime.
And the more I watched it unfold, the more I realised — this wasn’t really about her. This wasn’t just about a rude comment, or even just about shoes. It was about cultures clashing. About power and presence and who gets to take up space in places like this. About years of simmering tension, suddenly given a face and a target.
As a woman, I felt a particular sense of responsibility. Because when one of us is being dragged — when the crowd is calling for blood — it’s easy to stay quiet. To let her burn for her mistakes. To distance ourselves.
But sometimes, when we are our worst selves, that’s when we need each other the most.
That’s why I spoke up.
Not because she was right.
But because what was happening to her was wrong.
The Internet Mob & What It Revealed
After I posted my TikTok — a sixty-second video calmly questioning whether a rude comment warranted police involvement — the fury found a new target.
Me.
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I wasn’t expecting praise, but I did think people might get what I was saying. That maybe, just maybe, there was room for nuance. For someone to point out the obvious: that yes, her comment was awful — but no, it wasn’t a crime.
Instead, the comment section lit up with fire and willful misinterpretation.
One person confidently declared, “She deserves to be deported. She disrespected the whole nation.”
Another said, “In Thailand, it doesn’t matter if it’s illegal. We don’t tolerate that behaviour.”
No one — not one commenter — engaged with the actual point I made. Which was: She didn’t break the law. So why are the Thai police looking for her?
That’s not an opinion. It’s a direct question aimed at the people claiming police were actively searching for her. It’s a fact that she didn’t break the law. The ‘defamation’ term being bandied about my comment section simply didn’t apply to this situation: defamation requires the naming of someone or a business — none of which happened in the video. If anything, ironically, the real defamation was what was happening to her.
But people weren’t interested in what I said — they were interested in what I must be.
Some saw me as an Israeli defending “my colonising people.” Others pegged me as a clueless American sticking up for entitled tourists. A few just thought I was stupid.
No one stopped to ask where I was actually coming from. No one asked why I might feel protective of this island, or of women, or of the idea that due process should matter — even when someone is awful.
I found that disturbing.
Because at the exact moment the U.S. is spiraling into authoritarianism — rounding people up, bypassing legal systems, deporting without trial — the internet was applauding the idea of someone getting kicked out of a country over a rude comment.
The irony was almost too much.
We rage against injustice until we find someone we don't like. And then we don’t want justice.
We want vengeance.
What This Reveals About Border Privilege
This wasn’t just about shoes. Or cafés. Or even one woman’s arrogance.
It was about something deeper — the slow build-up of frustration that happens when a place starts to feel unfamiliar to the people who’ve lived there the longest. When an influx of outsiders changes not only the landscape, but the energy. The rhythm. The unspoken codes of respect.
In Koh Phangan, that energy has been shifting for a while.
And we’re not alone. In Barcelona, locals have taken to the streets with water pistols, dousing tourists mid-meal and demanding, “Go home.” In the Canary Islands, residents are calling for limits on visitors, saying their towns have become unliveable. In Venice, Amsterdam, Lisbon — similar refrains. The messaging may vary, but the feeling is the same: we are at capacity.
People aren’t protesting travel. They’re protesting the erasure that comes with being outnumbered in your own neighbourhood — priced out, drowned out, and too often, talked down to.
This is what border privilege looks like from the other side.
Not just the freedom to move, but the assumption that you’ll be welcomed. The assumption that your money entitles you to shape the experience, dictate the mood, bend the culture to fit your preferences — and that if anyone objects, they’re being inhospitable or ungrateful.
And that’s the tension here.
It’s not inherently wrong to move abroad. Or to seek safety. Or to arrive in large numbers. But if you don’t understand how your presence alters the space — how your mere arrival can be felt as a disruption — then you’re not really arriving with care. You’re arriving with demand.
The woman in the video didn’t say anything new. But she said it plainly. With a smirk and a wink. And for many people on this island — Israeli, Thai, long-term foreigner — that was enough. Enough to tip the balance from quiet discomfort into open backlash.
And so, in the absence of meaningful discussion, the internet did what it does: it unleashed.
Not just on her — but on everything she represented.
What This Moment Asks of Us
By the time the comments slowed and the forum posts were taken down, what stayed with me wasn’t the video. It was the feeling of something fraying.
Not just tempers, or tolerance — but the fabric that holds people together in unfamiliar places. The delicate web of gestures and unspoken agreements that allow so many of us to live abroad in the first place. It doesn’t take much to strain it. One careless comment. One collective exhale of resentment. One bad day — caught on camera.
I keep thinking about the difference between consequence and collapse. About how quickly we go from that’s not okay to she should be jailed. About how easy it is to call for exile when we’ve stopped seeing the person behind the mistake.
Because underneath all the discourse about borders and belonging is a much older question: How do we live together when we are not the same?
Living abroad tests that question daily.
It requires something more than curiosity. It asks for restraint. For self-awareness. For the humility to know that we’re not just passing through people’s landscapes — we’re entering their memories, their livelihoods, their sense of safety.
And when we fail — which we all do, in small and sometimes spectacular ways — it asks us to return not with shame, or deflection, or denial, but with the willingness to listen. To repair.
But the work of repair can’t begin if we’re too busy destroying each other in the name of being right.
I’ve lived on this island long enough to know what it feels like when a place shifts under your feet. When something that once felt fluid becomes brittle. When the stories people tell about “us” and “them” start to harden. And I know that once that line sets in, it’s hard to soften it again.
This moment didn’t give me clarity. It gave me questions I’m still sitting with.
What does respect look like in a place that has become too crowded with longing? What does accountability look like without spectacle? How do we make space for both truth and mercy?
I don’t know. But I want to find out.
Because if we can’t learn to live with these questions — to sit with them, speak from them, and let them shape how we move — then we’re just going to keep circling the same fires. And the next time someone lights a match, we’ll burn down far more than a comment section.
If this piece made you pause — in frustration, recognition, or something in between — I’d love to hear what came up. You can leave a comment below or reply directly. This isn’t a debate. It’s a conversation.
Because the more honest we are about what it means to live abroad, the more likely we are to do it well.
Here are some past posts that also explore similar themes of migration and border privilege:
I feel that how people feel about Israel is involved in all this. She fits an image many people already had about what Israel means.
These are such important questions you are raising, and I applaud you for doing so. Taking the heat and standing by your values and principles in the face of a mob is scary and destabilising. @Based in Paris actually invited one of her online bullies to a virtual coffee to humanise herself, better understand him, and hopefully get him to tone down his attacks against her… he declined. It’s rough online, and as you say, a reflection of our shifting values and the decay of tolerance.