[News] Global Campaign Launched to Deactivate Airbnb

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://imemc.org/article/nakba-day-global-campaign-launched-to-deactivate-airbnb/ 



  Global Campaign Launched to Deactivate Airbnb

May 13, 2019
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A global coalition launched a campaign, today, against the international 
tourism company, Airbnb, for reversing its decision to delist properties 
in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, 
according to a press release.

WAFA reports that the coalition is asking people from around the world 
to deactivate their Airbnb accounts on Nakba Day, 15 May. So far, 
thousands of people across the world, from Chile to Indonesia, have 
answered the coalition’s call to action and have committed to 
#deactivateAirbnb.

Israeli settlements are considered war crimes, under international law. 
They are responsible for the displacement of Palestinians and the theft 
of their land. By doing business in these settlements, Airbnb and other 
international companies are contributing to the economic viability of 
settlements and are normalizing Israeli annexation of Palestinian land, 
said the press release.

Despite the intense documentation and scrutiny from prominent human 
rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty 
International, Airbnb is choosing to directly promote discrimination, 
oppression, and injustice – and failing to uphold its corporate 
responsibility to respect human rights, it said.

“It is time to end this culture of impunity that has allowed the 
occupation, oppression and dispossession of the Palestinian people to 
continue,” said Salem Barahmeh, executive director of the Palestine 
Institute for Public Diplomacy.

“International companies are complicit in perpetuating this injustice 
and must be held accountable. Through the #deactivateAirbnb campaign, 
people can choose whether to be complicit in supporting war crimes or 
ending them,” he added.

May 15 commemorates the expulsion of almost two thirds of the 
Palestinian population from their homes and land in 1948. The ‘Nakba’ 
<https://imemc.org/?s=nakba>, meaning ‘catastrophe’ in Arabic continues 
to this day, as Palestinians are forcibly expelled from their lands to 
make way for illegal settlements, which can then be advertised as 
vacation rentals by international companies.

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