Airbnb to remove listings in Israel's West Bank settlements

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

WORLD NEWS NOVEMBER 19, 2018 / 11:00 AM / UPDATED 6 HOURS AGO

Airbnb to remove listings in Israel's West Bank settlements

Dan Williams
4 MIN READ

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Home-renting company Airbnb Inc <AirBnB Inc> said on Monday it would remove listings in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, a move Israel called a “wretched capitulation” to boycotters and Palestinians hailed as a step towards peace.

The decision, affecting some 200 listings, would take effect in the coming days, Airbnb said.

Israel captured the West Bank in a 1967 war. Its settlements there are considered illegal by most world powers.

Palestinians deem the settlements, and the military presence needed to protect them, to be obstacles to their goal of establishing a state. Israel disputes this.

“We concluded that we should remove listings in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank that are at the core of the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians,” Airbnb said on its website.

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Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-airbnb/airbnb-to-remove-listings-in-israels-west-bank-settlements-idUSKCN1NO1WA

[Mosby]

1. Dumb move.

They opened up a pandora's box.

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Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan said he planned to speak with senior US officials to see if the move violated American laws against Israeli boycotts that exist in 25 out of 50 states.

“Anti-Israel boycott organizations do not distinguish between the State of Israel and Judea and Samaria. As far as they are concerned, and have openly declared, the entire State of Israel has no right to exist,” Erdan said.

“National conflicts exist all over the world,” he said, so Airbnb “will have to explain why they specifically, and uniquely, chose to implement this political and discriminatory decision in the case of citizens of the State of Israel,” Erdan said.

Former Israeli Ambassador to the US MK Michael Oren said, “Airbnb blacklists Jewish apartments in Judea and Samaria – not Palestinian apartments, not apartments in Turkish occupied Cyprus, not in Moroccan occupied Sahara, not in Tibet or the Crimea.
“Airbnb’s policy is the very definition of antisemitism. No one should use its services,” Oren added.

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Legal expert Eugene Kontorovich said that the decision had nothing to do with a moral stance.

“This is not about disputed territories, as Airbnb has listings in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara, Turkish-occupied Cyprus, and more. So it is only Jewish properties in the Jewish homeland that are banned.” Kontorovich is Director of International Law at the Jerusalem-based Kohelet Policy Forum.

Efrat Council head and YESHA foreign envoy Oded Revivi said the decision went against the very essence of the company’s open-door global understanding of the importance of a platform that allows people to cross borders and meet each other.

https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Airbnb-to-stop-operating-in-West-Bank-settlements-572276