Airbnb is emotionally invested in boycotting Jews in the West Bank - by William A. Jacobson

...That fig leaf may do more harm than good to Airbnb’s legal defenses, because only in the West Bank does Airbnb distinguish between home owners based on religion or ethnicity. If Airbnb was delisting all homes in the West Bank, that would be one thing, but instead it is delisting only Jewish homes.

William A. Jacobson..
Legal Insurrection..
28 January '19..

In November, Airbnb announced that it would delist Jewish homes, and only Jewish homes, in Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”).

As I explained at the time, the delisting nominally referred to homes in Settlements, but in the West Bank that is the only place Jews can purchase or rent homes because of Palestinian laws and threats against any Palestinian who rents or sells land to Jews:

The area was ethnically cleansed of Jews by the Jordanians after Jordan captured the area in Israel’s War of Independence. The 1949 Armistice Line was where the fighting stopped, and left many historically Jewish areas, including the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, in Jordanian hands. Israel recaptured the area in 1967.

Israeli Jews in those areas live in settlements because the regular housing market is not available. Palestinians are forbidden by the Palestinian Authority and terrorist groups, often under threat of death, from selling or renting to Jews. And given the long history of violence, including stabbings and shootings, directed towards Jews in those areas, it would be too dangerous.

The West Bank is disputed territory. For a history of why the settlements are not illegal and the area is not illegally occupied, see our prior posts.

The campaign against Airbnb was led by groups like the extremist U.S. Campaign for Palestinian rights, the misleadingly named “Jewish Voice for Peace,” and Code Pink. The obsessive-compulsive anti-Zionist Ariel Gold of Code Pink even disrupted Airbnb meetings.

The anti-Israel Human Rights Watch, which is leading a UN effort to blacklist companies doing business in the West Bank, was about to come out with a report slamming Airbnb, according to an HRW executive.

Airbnb has capitulated. It will boycott Jews living in the West Bank. While it couches its language referring to “settlements,’ that is just another way of saying Jews because Jews only can live in “settlements” in the West Bank.

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