Which ‘Occupied Territories’ Are Still Available on Airbnb? Northern Cyprus, Western Sahara, Tibet ... by Ben Cohen

...Further north, in the coastal town of Girne, more than 300 properties were shown as available, with an equivalent number in Famagusta — ironically the port city from where the ships of the 2010 “Freedom Flotilla” to the “occupied” Gaza Strip, sponsored by a leading Turkish Islamist organization, began their journey.

Ben Cohen..
Algemenier..
20 November '18..

Travelers looking for a vacation on the wrong side of an internationally-recognized “Green Line” needn’t fret now that global rentals agency Airbnb is boycotting properties in Israeli communities in the West Bank — they can use Airbnb’s services in the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” instead.

A Tuesday morning search of Airbnb’s listings for a last-minute Thanksgiving holiday vacation showed the availability of more than 1,000 apartments and villas in Northern Cyprus — a Greek territory invaded and occupied by Turkey in July 1974, in a brutal war inflicted by Ankara on Greek and native Turkish Cypriots alike.

More than 150,000 Greek Cypriots were driven from their homes during ethnic cleansing operations carried out by Turkish forces. Hundreds of Greek women were raped by Turkish soldiers, in what one Greek writer called “one of the darkest and most agonizingly painful aspects” of the 1974 invasion. Following the invasion, Turkey consolidated its hold over 40 percent of the island of Cyprus — but its satellite republic continues to be regarded by the entire international community as “occupied territory.”

For now, though, residents of Northern Cyprus — including thousands of Turkish “settlers” who moved to the island from mainland Turkey after 1974 — can freely advertise their properties on Airbnb.

In the Turkish part of Nicosia — known as the world’s last divided capital because of the physical, UN-supervised “Green Line” that cuts the city in half — 78 properties were displayed by Airbnb as available for rent between Nov. 23-30. Further north, in the coastal town of Girne, more than 300 properties were shown as available, with an equivalent number in Famagusta — ironically the port city from where the ships of the 2010 “Freedom Flotilla” to the “occupied” Gaza Strip, sponsored by a leading Turkish Islamist organization, began their journey.

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