The biggest lesson from the @Airbnb episode? Ignore @Amnesty's attempts at blackmail - by Elder of Ziyon

Only Airbnb caved to the Amnesty campaign - and now only Airbnb is subject to the hate mail and controversy. Do the right thing to begin with and don't let others meddle with your business model. It seems obvious, and three out of the four companies targeted by Amnesty did exactly that. The fourth is paying a dear price for not following that rule.

Elder of Ziyon..
14 April '19..

Last week, Airbnb backtracked on its November decision to de-list Jewish-owned homes in Judea and Samaria, causing lots of headlines and a new lawsuit by Palestinian Arabs against them.

How could Airbnb have avoided the controversy? By not caving to the blackmail by Amnesty International to begin with.

(Yes, it is blackmail - claiming that their business model was illegal and that they would be subject to international law sanctions if they don't do what Amnesty demands.)

The original Amnesty report targeted Tripadvisor, Booking.com and Expedia, besides Airbnb. Those other three companies politely told Amnesty that they provide travel information to everyone about everywhere, that they are transparent about where the attractions are and that they don't think they are doing anything illegal, which is a polite way of telling Amnesty that they were wasting their time.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

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.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

Airbnb’s Lies Clearly Increase Its Legal Vulnerability - by Prof. Avi Bell

...It should be clear to everyone now that Airbnb has decided to respond to legal actions against and criticism of its new discriminatory policy not by withdrawing the policy but by digging in and defending the policy with a campaign of misdirection and falsehoods. The misinformation strategy is as difficult to understand as Airbnb’s decision to adopt the discriminatory policy in the first place. It is hard to see how Airbnb engenders good will or wins more business by violating the law and then lying about it. The only conceivable defense Airbnb can offer is no defense at all: its falsehoods have mostly been cleverly phrased evasions and misdirections rather than straightforward lies.

Prof. Avi Bell..
Times of Israel/Blog..
27 December '18..
Link: https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/airbnbs-lies-increase-its-legal-vulnerability/

For several hours last week, it seemed that Airbnb was abandoning its newly declared policy to ban West Bank Jews from its online short term rental service. On December 17, 2018, Senior Vice President Chris Lehane met with Israeli Minister of Tourism Yariv Levin, and at the conclusion of the meeting, according to Airbnb’s Israel representative, the two sides issued a joint statement that that “the new policy [against West Bank Jews] will not be implemented. Airbnb will continue the dialogue with the Israeli government on the issue.”

It didn’t last long. After several hours, a US spokesman for Airbnb claimed that the earlier December 17 statement had been “released in error,” and that Airbnb will press forward with its boycott of Jewish properties in Israeli-controlled areas of the West Bank. The later Airbnb statement emphasized that Chris Lehane was in Israel to help implement the discriminatory policy; as the statement put it, “Airbnb communicated that we are developing the tools needed to implement our [boycott] policy and that process includes continuing our dialogue with the Government of Israel and other stakeholders.”

This was hardly the first time Airbnb sowed confusion with its zigzagging pronouncements. From its very first announcement of its boycott on West Bank Jews on November 19, 2018, Airbnb has been reluctant to explain why it suddenly waded into the Arab-Israeli conflict with an act of illegal discrimination. Airbnb’s initial announcement claimed it was implementing a general policy regarding “listings in disputed regions,” but the only disputed region where Airbnb has decided to implement the policy is the West Bank, and the only listings it has decided to ban in the disputed West Bank are those in “Israeli settlements,” i.e., Jewish properties.