Booking.com weakens West Bank travel warning following Israeli demands

As has been reported in recent weeks, the online holiday rentals site, Booking.com, was planning to change the way it warns would-be customers about West Bank properties being located in Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. The Dutch travel agency – founded in 1996 and a popular go-to site for global lodgings – was set to usher in a warning that would have said, “Visiting the area may be accompanied by an increased risk to safety and human rights or other risks to the local community and visitors”. However, after considerable pressure from the Israeli government, Booking.com has caved and opted for a softened message that refers to potential travel into the West Bank as being “conflict-affected”, rather than “occupied”. [1]

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Over half a century of Zionist-state occupation Also read

Breaking: @bookingcom has added warnings to listings in conflict-affected areas, including the West Bank, a welcome step. But to stop contributing to grave rights abuse & apartheid, they should stop brokering rentals in unlawful settlements. @hrw comment https://t.co/u07tvLx9sm https://t.co/Zd9VjbCZZI pic.twitter.com/osdmqhau33
— Omar Shakir (@OmarSShakir) September 30, 2022

The new advisory message, which went live on Friday, 30 September, has been criticised by human rights campaigners for misrepresenting the true situation in the West Bank. Speaking to the Israeli Haaretz paper in September, the company said it had hoped that its customers would “…have the information needed in order to make decisions about destinations they wish to visit”. The Israeli leader, Yair Lapid, has commended the subtle but impactful changes in wording by saying that the efforts of the Israeli government were part of a policy “to maintain a constant political effort against false anti-Israel propaganda”. [1]

At the time that Booking.com announced its imminent advisory message to customers, the company had also said,

“Certain areas in the world affected by conflict may pose a greater risk to travellers, so we provide our customers with information to help make decisions and encourage them to check their government’s official travel guidelines as part of the decision-making process.” [1]

Over half a century of Zionist-state occupation

The West Bank has been occupied by ‘Israel’ since June of 1967, with the International Court of Justice affirming its status as being militarily occupied. In addition, ‘Israel’’s own supreme court agrees that the region is occupied (with the exception of East Jerusalem). As a result, the fact that Israeli government lobbying has led to a change in Booking.com’s approach regarding the West Bank is all the more absurd.

Booking.com is not the only travel agency that has faced opposition from ‘Israel’. While the introduction of a travel warning for the West Bank is positive news despite the Zionist state’s demands leading to a watered down message, it is worth drawing comparisons to Booking.com rival Airbnb, which has also had similar issues in the region. After the company removed or “delisted” all of its West Bank listings in November 2018, it backtracked less than six months later. At the time, Airbnb cited the aggressive step taken by lawyers to initiate a class suit on behalf of various Israeli property ‘owners’ in its reversal decision in April 2019. [2]