Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) threatened Airbnb with sanctions on Tuesday if the company doesn’t end its policy to de-list from Israeli homes in Judea and Samaria.
DeSantis said at a press conference that Florida has a “moral obligation” to oppose Airbnb’s policy, which he decried as anti-Semitic.
“Airbnb claims it’s a company of inclusion and yet this policy only affects Jews who have homes on the West Bank,” DeSantis said. “It doesn’t appear to apply to anyone else on the face of the earth.”
DeSantis added that his administration would investigate Airbnb to see if it violates state law, which would result in the company being blacklisted by the state. If this were the case, then “the state would not invest its pension fund in the company if it goes public” and “municipalities might also not be able to enter into contracts with Airbnb,” according to WCJT.
“That would not be good, if you’re already on Florida’s hit list before you even got off the ground,” DeSantis said.
In the meantime, DeSantis has already barred state workers from using Airbnb for work purposes.
“BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement] is nothing more than a cloak for anti-Semitism,” DeSantis said, “and as long as I’m governor, BDS will be DOA (dead on arrival).”
DeSantis also announced that that he would ensure that Jewish day schools would receive at least $2 million in state funding in order to have proper security in light of the October shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and said that his first trip to a foreign country as governor would be to Israel.
Airbnb spokesperson Dan Breit responded to DeSantis by saying, “Airbnb has unequivocally rejected the BDS movement and we remain deeply committed to our more than 20,000 hosts in Israel.”
“We have worked with the Florida State Board of Administration on this matter, we remain committed to the more than 45,000 Airbnb hosts in Florida who share their homes with over 4.5 million visitors, and we’ll continue to do all we can to support our community,” Breit said.
Israeli-American Coalition (IAC) for Action chairman Shawn Evenhaim praised DeSantis’ “strong leadership” on the matter.
“He has positioned Florida as a leader, at a time when many states around the country have begun the process of evaluating Airbnb’s discriminatory new policy,” Evenhaim said. “As the anti-Semitic BDS Movement continues to pressure companies into adopting discriminatory practices, states have a responsibility to protect their interests by enforcing their anti-BDS laws.”
