[News] Airbnb complicit in ‘plunder of Palestinian refugee properties’ says new report
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Tue Oct 29 11:35:28 EDT 2019
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20191029-airbnb-complicit-in-plunder-of-palestinian-refugee-properties-says-new-report/
Airbnb complicit in ‘plunder of Palestinian refugee properties’ says
new report
October 29, 2019
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Online accommodation and tourism giant Airbnb has been accused of
“complicity in the plunder of Palestinian refugee properties”, in a new
report published last week.
According to Who Profits
<https://whoprofits.org/updates/airbnbs-complicity-in-the-plunder-of-palestinian-refugee-properties/>,
an independent research centre focused on exposing corporate involvement
in the “ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestinian and Syrian lands”,
their new update sheds light on a “largely overlooked” dimension of
Airbnb’s “complicity”.
Taking the Old City of Yafa (Jaffa) as a case study, the new report
<https://whoprofits.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Profiting-through-Dispossession-Another-Side-of-AirBnbs-Complicity-English-1.pdf>
“aims to highlight the ways in which Israel confiscated and controlled
Palestinian properties, leading to their privatisation”.
“Israel has transformed properties into economic assets that benefit
both the state and private actors, thus undermining Palestinians’
legally enshrined Right of Return,” stated the research centre.
“Serving as a platform for showcasing the homes that once belonged to
Palestinians, Airbnb plays a role in strengthening the Israeli hold over
Palestinian refugee properties,” Who Profits added.
*READ: Palestinians call for NGOs to reject donations from Airbnb
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190517-palestinians-call-for-ngos-to-reject-donations-from-airbnb/>*
During the Nakba of 1948
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20170515-remembering-the-nakba/>,
more than 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes and lands
– property that was subsequently appropriated by the Israeli state
“through legal mechanisms that formalise their confiscation and turn
them into economic assets”, Who Profits explained.
According to the centre, this “privatisation” of refugee properties has
benefitted market actors and Jewish Israelis, “whilst further
threatening the possibility of Palestinians reclaiming ownership of
their properties in the future”.
In the case of Jaffa, what was once the largest Palestinian city was
almost entirely ethnically cleansed during the Nakba
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/specials/refugee_journey/nakba/>
(five per cent of its Palestinian residents remained post-1948). Today,
the Old City is one of the most popular sites in Israel for tourists,
where Airbnb lists more than 40 properties.
In its new report, Who Profit notes that “while the issue of listing
settlement properties [in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem] has
gained worldwide attention, the issue of listing refugee properties
‘abandoned’ in 1948 remains largely overlooked.”
*READ: Palestinians to sue Israel settlers in US court over Airbnb
listing
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190321-palestinians-to-sue-israel-settlers-in-us-court-over-airbnb-listing/>*
“The act of plundering and privatizing refugee properties by the Israeli
state, which started during the Nakba and continues to this day, has
transformed the refugee properties in Yafa into commodities that can now
be listed by hosts on platforms such as Airbnb,” the report concluded.
“In serving as a platform for these properties, as well as those in
settlements in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, Airbnb is profiting
from the ongoing dispossession of Palestinians.”
--
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415
863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20191029/4b9c59ca/attachment.htm>
More information about the News
mailing list