Airbnb...is this article true???? Please assure me this is a misunderstanding...

[Karin36]

AirBNB Goes Anti-Semitic

On Monday, AirBNB, the home-rental company that is often used by tourists to rent apartments in locations around the globe, announced that it would not allow Jewish settlements to be listed in Judea and Samaria. AirBNB stated:

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.

This is the sheerest form of corporate anti-Semitism in recent memory. Not only did AirBNB specifically target “Israeli settlements,” according to Professor Eugene Kontorovich of George Mason Law, they’ve announced that they will only disallow listings in Israeli settlements when those listings are owned by Jews. In other words, if a Jew owns an apartment in East Jerusalem, that won’t be allowed for listing; if an Arab owns an apartment in the same neighborhood, it’s fine for listing.

This is absurd. As Dr. Michael Oren points out, AirBNB lists apartments in Turkish-occupied Cyprus, the Moroccan-occupied Sahara, Chinese-occupied Tibet and Russian-occupied Crimea. Not only that, but AirBNB allows listings in a wide variety of countries without any democratic rights and with wildly discriminatory policies.

Judea and Samaria are disputed territories, not “occupied” territories. Israel controls those territories thanks to repeated refusal by Arab states that repeatedly declared war on Israel to accept any peace deal. Radical Muslim anti-Semites and their left-wing apologists insist not only that these territories be turned over to the terrorist Palestinian Authority for control, but that Jews evacuate those territories entirely, making them Judenrein. Remember, this AirBNB policy isn’t targeting the Israeli government — it’s targeting Jews themselves for living in areas under international dispute.

Leaders of the BDS movement are explicitly anti-Semitic, calling openly for the end of Israel’s existence. The very notion of labeling Jewish products from particular areas for boycott is reminiscent of Nazi policy directed against Jews. As Alan Dershowitz writes:

The boycott against Israel and its Jewish supporters (to many Palestinians, all of Israel is one big "settlement"; just look at any map of Palestine) began before any "occupation" or "settlements" and picked up steam just as Israel offered to end the "occupation" and settlements as part of a two-state solution that the Palestinians rejected. BDS is not a protest against Israel's policies. It is a protest against Israel's very existence.

Still, the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement (BDS) is gaining serious steam on the mainstream Left these days thanks to the intersectional notion that Jews rank high on the hierarchy of privilege. Such thinking allows anti-Semitism to thrive across the world, and particularly in the Middle East. AirBNB’s latest move is simply the best evidence yet that the intersectional Leftist ideology has invaded the corporate world, and that anti-Semitism is perfectly acceptable among otherwise “woke” actors on the Left.

This article can be found on The Daily Wire...somehow I can't embed the link...

[Christopher592]

This decision by Airbnb is targeted specifically at Jews. The idea that this area should be Judenrein, free of Jews, is rank anti-semitism. The dispute over who controls this area politically is irrelevant.

[Habeeb1]

I would like to express support for Airbnb's decision to withdraw from operations in Israeli colonies [aka settlements] in the occupied Palestinian Lands. It is in no way anti-Semitic as alleged in your post Karin.

The decision to withdraw from operations is both ethical and in line with International Law and consensus. Israeli settlers, who are exclusively and without exception Jewish, have no legal or moral right to live in the Palestinian Lands via military occupation. And Israel has no legal claim over the occupied Palestinian Lands. This is clearly set out in UN Resolution 242, which calls for Israel to withdraw its military from the territories conquered in 1967.

The anti-Semitic claim is unfounded and malicious, seeking to obscure the true reasons for objecting to trading links with illegal Israeli settlers. These settlers are, as a matter of fact, all Jewish and are there by choice in the full knowledge that their presence can only be maintained through military force, and not through legality or consensus by either the indigenous Palestinians or the international community. The anti-Semitic smear is an easy and by now much weaponized term in an attempt to counter the legitimate basis for ethical actions against Israel's flouting of international law.

The reasons Palestinians cannot be included in the boycott is that they have a right to be in the land, since they originate from it. Settlers, by definition, do not, and can only exist there by dint of illegal military occupation and force.

The BDS - Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions - movement is gathering momentum and succeeding because both the moral and legal arguments against the 52 year occupation can no longer be ignored by decent individuals. Included in the support for the BDS movement are also many Jews. The anti-Semitic claim fails for this and the above stated reasons.

Congratulations to Airbnb for this brave step that will inevitably and regrettably attract unfair condemnation as that displayed here. But it has done the right thing. As with the south African boycott and sanctions movement against Apartheid, the BDS movement seeking to end Israeli occupation and discrimination is a righteous endeavour. 

[Elliot29]

This is only righteous to the misinformed.

The term Fakestinian never even existed prior to the 1967 6-day war.  Why were there no cries for Fakestinian independence when Jordan and Egypt controlled these territories?  Because these were nomadic arabs that never had a claim to the land and had no interest or ability to form a country and certainly not one as great as Israel which is the only democracy in the Middle East!

My parents were kicked out of Egypt in the mid 1950s along with 850,000 other Jews.  What do you think are our chances of getting our homes and property back from these Arab countries?!  We Jews moved on and started another country of our own.  After all we learned from NAZI Germany and complicit Europe that we were not wanted or appreciated there!  Now after being kicked out and murdered the UN does not get to decide for us on Israel's destiny.

So now misinformed AirBNB bows down to pressure from BDS and it will be their loss of loyal partners and customers!

[Nigel86]

"We Jews moved..."

OK, let's be clear... those Jews who are Zionist moved to Israel. Don't tar all Jews with being the extreme fascists of Zionism. Many Jews reject and stand against that anachronistic ideology typical of early 20th Century fascist movements. Thanks to those Jews who speak the truth, Palestinians have a powerful ally, with whom they would willingly live in peace together. Your way is one of continued conflict. 

Note: Europeans persecuted Jews, not Palestinians. Yet Palestinians paid and still pay the price. 

"... the UN does not get to decide for us on Israel's destiny."

Without the UN Israel would not exist. Remember? Or are you beginning to fall for your own misinformation? That's the danger in changing reality. 

[Sarah977]

@Nigel86  Not exactly. The state of Israel was created after the Holocaust because of the world's collective guilt and the fact that anti-semitism is alive and well and Jews weren't welcomed into other countries with open arms. So many European Jews who escaped the ovens went to Israel when it was created, looking for safety, it had nothing to do with being Zionist. These were the original immigrant Israelis. 

[Rivka6]

Israel's creation had zip to do with the Holocaust. The Balfour Declaration and the San Remo conference long before the Holocaust. They just recognised the obviously historically verifiable truth that the Jewish people are the indigeonous people on the land. And Jews refused alternatives because only a return to the real homeland would attract followers. If it wasn't true, the Wakf would not be busy destroying Jewish archaelogical finds on the Temple Mount and elsewhere. The reason is the same as the Taliban destroying the ancient Bhuddas: insecurity over being a rather recent development. A people invented in 1964 cannot otherwise claim to supercede a people with physical evidence of 3,000 of continual presence.

[Nigel86]

The genocide of the Holocaust gave the final impetus to Zionism for the creation of a state. But Zionists had been working towards creating a state since the Basil conference in 1897. 

If we were to debate this point, one woud need to say that however terrible the Holocaust, it cannot be right to give an innocent people's land as compensation. If anything, part of Germany should have been carved out for a Jewish state. Palestine was chosen however,  because Zionists had already been colonising it since the turn of the 20th century.

[Elliot29]

Only someone truly ignorant in history could possibly deny that the Jews have had a presence in the land of Israel for thousands of years.  Zionism is simply the movement that supports the Jewish right to their homeland.  Seems like common sense to most rational folks.

European countries such as England, France and Spain have colononized  a far greater part of this world and we don't see AirBNB boycotting them.  

By the way a fact overlooked by most is that the country of Jordan which is run by a ruling class of kings is actually 75% Fakestinian (arabs that happen to live in the region).  So in reality they already have their own country but when they tried to control it the King Hussein of Jordan massacred them back in the early 70s.  It was known then as the Black September uprising.

Here's a clear fact:

Jordan did not exist until 1921 when Winston Churchill invented it. For the next 25 years, Britain dominated the nation’s affairs. Britain also created, trained, and led one of the region’s most effective armies, the Arab Legion. This force captured the eastern half of Jerusalem in the 1948 war, and much of what the UN had partitioned to be the Arab state.  In 1946, Transjordan formally became independent, and Abdullah, who the British had installed as the nation’s ruler, assumed the title of king. One of Abdullah’s goals was to create a Greater Syria. Toward that end, he annexed the area of Palestine he controlled and shortly thereafter renamed his country the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

Again, AirBNB has little knowledge of the history of the area and has made  a terribly misinformed decision to discriminate against Jewish AirBNB hosts. 

AirBNB should stay out of politics and stick with hospitality.

[Elliot29]

Nigel, you are clearly refusing to acknowledge that the Fakestinians have been offered at least 5 official opportunities to self determination.  They have chosen terrorism and hate just as many others have throughout history.  This time though Israel (Jews) are strong and not powerless as it appears you would like us to be.

They forfeited their right to anything once they waged war and lost.  War is not a game.  Ask the good old Brits how they dealt in war in their history especially with Ireland, Germany and Argentina for starters

Bottom line is I could deliberate this with you until the cows come home and that is why this should never have been entered into by AirBNB which is supposed to be bringing people together rather than selectively discriminating against Jews in so called occupied territories.  There are many other occupied territories in the world and AirBNB decided to choose this small little sliver of land because Jews live in it.  What a coinsidence!

AirBNB should stick with hospitality and not it's version of biased politics.

[Melvyn3]

"Europeans persecuted Jews, not Palestinians. Yet Palestinians paid and still pay the price"

This is misguided nonsense.

Palestinians are not paying the price for the persecution of European Jewry. It's propaganda and nonsense.

Countries and peoples that support peace with Israel have peace with Israel. We have peace with Egypt and Jordan.

Israeli Arabs have more rights than the vast majority of Arabs throughout the middle east.

Many Palestinians have great lives, but if we assume you're talking about those who don't, they are paying the price for chosing violence, hatred, and war over peace. They are paying the price for shooting at a people with nowhere else to go. They are paying the price for educating their children that murder is righteous and killing Jews is a holy act.

Jews have been in the Middle East and in Israel specifically since long before Europeans were killing us.

[Melvyn3]

Nigel, I believe that your phrase "Palestinians paid the price" represents a misunderstanding of the last 100 years of the Middle East.

Today is the 29th November: the very day that the UN voted to partition the British mandate of Palestine. A piece in the Huffington Post uses your expression but from a more informed position:

"The Arab world opted for confrontation, not compromise. They gambled and lost. They paid a price, as have all defeated aggressors in history."

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-harris/november-29-a-significant_b_8671092.html

[Nigel86]

Elliot, do you need to be racist and insulting? Are you unable to bring yourself to write Palestinian?

Being respectful even towards those whom you think are your enemy is a strength. It is the first rule of struggle by the just. They do not need to defame their oppressor to make them appear wrong.

But it is because there is no justice in your fight that you need to sully those whom you have caused to sin against you.

[Elliot29]

They sin out of choice and they have no name in history until 53 years ago.  They are a fabrication of a people, country or governing body that never existed.  So yes, I cannot possibly lend them any credibility especially since their primary claim to fame is terrorism.  They were given Gaza and only use it as a terror rocket launching platform.  When they learn to love their children (who they cruely sacrifice as well as our own) more than they hate then there will be peace.  Until then they have done a great job of fooling those like you who have bought into their lies and propoganda.  

Again this is why this decision to discriminate against Jews should never have been made by AirBNB!  AirBNB should stay out of politics.

[Daniel1992]

The term "Palestinian" did, in fact, exist priot to the 1967 Six Day War.  Mandatory Palestine was created in 1920, after WWI, and people that lived there were considered Palestinian.  The primary religion was Islam, but there was definitely a mix of Jews, Christians, Baha'i, and others.  Jordan annexed the West Bank in 1948 and Egypt annexed Gaza the same year.  Israel was created in 1949 as a buffer between Jordan and Egypt, and was declared a Jewish state, as recompence for the Holocaust.  Israel then annexed Gaza and the West Bank in 1967.  Most of the world views the Israel annexation to be illegal, in the same vein as the Russian annexation of Crimea.

I'm not going to continue the conversation past this as I have family dotted across the Middle East who have first hand accounts as to the violence between Palestine and Israel, and my responses would be biased.

[Nigel86]

"Historical maps", even if they exist, provide no legitimacy. What matters is what is recognised by the international legal consensus. And the so-called Judea and Samaria are not.

"Historical scriptures": aside from being a rather nonsensical term, again, have no legitimacy. Whatever these scriptures say is true is a question of belief founded on unverifiable stories inspired by an unverifiable god. It would be useful to hear something from him on the matter. Perhaps he could leave a post here, Mike?

Zionist Jews received special treatment in the creation of Israel. The world carved out a country from another people's land. Though unjust, the boundaries were set clearly in Resolution 181, passed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1947, and as Chomsky says, those events can now be taken as given, up to 1967, and Israel exists. It is understandable that people feel indignant at the cheek of then going on to claim and seize more. This plays a major part in selecting Israel's violations of international law and human rights ahead of other states that have not benefited from such favoured treatment. It has nothing to do with hating Jews. It's the cheek of it. Moreover, the violations by Israel are long standing, grave, and ongoing, and have a global implication that other conflicts do not. On these counts alone it warrants the special attention it receives, and the by-now automatic smear of anti-Semitism whenever Israel is called to account for these violations is wearing thin.