Airbnb announced on Nov. 19 that they will no longer put up listings from Judea and Samaria on their website.
In a statement, the organization wrote that they had previously been operating in the area “as allowed by law.”
After talking to various legal experts, Airbnb decided to “remove listings in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank that are at the core of the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians.”
“This is a controversial issue,” the statement read. “There are many strong views as it relates to lands that have been the subject of historic and intense disputes between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank. Airbnb has deep respect for those views. Our hope is that someday sooner rather than later, a framework is put in place where the entire global community is aligned so there will be a resolution to this historic conflict and a clear path forward for everybody to follow.”
Oded Revivi, mayor of Efrat, told Reuters, “When they [Airbnb] make such a decision, they get involved with politics, which … is going to defeat the actual purpose of the enterprise itself,” pointing out that the company lauds itself for bringing people together.
Simon Wiesenthal Center Founder Rabbi Marvin Hier and Associate Dean Rabbi Abraham Cooper called Airbnb’s decision an act of “double standard anti-Semitism.”
“We take note that Airbnb has no problem doing business in the territory of the Palestinian Authority, which names schools and shopping centers in honor of mass murderers who have killed innocent civilians and have a ‘pay to slay’ policy when it comes to killing Jews,” Hier and Cooper said in a statement. “We don’t expect Airbnb to be geo-political experts, but today’s draconian and unjust move, which only empowers extremists and terrorists, merits only one response—taking our community’s business elsewhere.”
