Israeli officials are condemning Booking.com’s recent decision to display a safety warning on its listings in the illegally-occupied West Bank.
The Illinois Investment Policy Board was created in 2015 under the guidance of pro-Israel ideologues to prevent the state pension from investing in companies that boycott Israel. However newly obtained emails show that board members see themselves having an even broader mission — “protecting Israeli sovereignty” in the West Bank.
Airbnb has caved into political and economic pressure from Israel, including a class action suit, following its earlier announced decision to pull out of illegal Israeli settlements. It has now declared it will continue doing business there.
A new Amnesty International report titled “Destination: Occupation” examines how Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia, and TripAdvisor are “contributing to, and profiting from, the maintenance, development and expansion of illegal settlements, which amount to war crimes under international criminal law.”
It has been very hard to understands what Airbnb’s actual policy concerning illegal Israeli settlement listings is. A statement in Hebrew was issued saying it halted the ban policy, and was later contradicted by another saying it had not changed, and that this is all “incredibly complex and emotional.”
Airbnb is denying claims by an Israeli minister that the company was going to reverse its November decision to remove listings in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. Tourism Minister Yariv Levin said in a Facebook post on Monday that following meetings with Israeli government officials, Airbnb would not be implementing its November decision.
Weeks after Airbnb’s landmark decision to pull out of Israeli settlements, Mondoweiss has learned that Airbnb is also currently preventing Palestinian hosts from listing their homes in the occupied West Bank. According to Airbnb customer service representatives in Israel and the United States any listings coming out of the West Bank are not currently being approved by the company — regardless if the listing is in a Palestinian city, or in an Israeli settlement.
Airbnb’s decision to pull listings in Israeli settlements has shed light on another service that offers listing in illegal colonies in the West Bank – Booking.com, which does not seem inclined to act similarly. It seeks to avoid a storm, which is surely coming anyway.
Echoing the Israeli government talking points, the ADL said that the Airbnb decision to end listings in the occupied West Bank was a capitulation to the anti-Semitic BDS campaign. Peter Beinart challenges the ADL to do its job and bear witness to the 51-year-old occupation that denies millions of Palestinians any freedom.
Airbnb’s pulling of listings in Israeli illegal settlements in the West Bank is highly selective. But Israeli leaders are viewing it as a total attack on Israel, and have plans to punish Airbnb. They are making the case for a comprehensive boycott of Israel as a whole, per the BDS campaign; for the government is utterly dedicated to the settlement enterprise.