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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20191029-airbnb-complicit-in-plunder-of-palestinian-refugee-properties-says-new-report/">https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20191029-airbnb-complicit-in-plunder-of-palestinian-refugee-properties-says-new-report/</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Airbnb complicit in ‘plunder of
Palestinian refugee properties’ says new report</h1>
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<div class="reader-estimated-time">October 29, 2019<br>
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<p>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.</p>
<p>According to <a
href="https://whoprofits.org/updates/airbnbs-complicity-in-the-plunder-of-palestinian-refugee-properties/"
target="_blank">Who Profits</a>, 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”.</p>
<p>Taking the Old City of Yafa (Jaffa) as a case study,
the <a
href="https://whoprofits.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Profiting-through-Dispossession-Another-Side-of-AirBnbs-Complicity-English-1.pdf"
target="_blank">new report</a> “aims to highlight the
ways in which Israel confiscated and controlled
Palestinian properties, leading to their privatisation”.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p><strong>READ: <a
href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190517-palestinians-call-for-ngos-to-reject-donations-from-airbnb/">Palestinians
call for NGOs to reject donations from Airbnb</a></strong></p>
<p>During the <a
href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20170515-remembering-the-nakba/">Nakba
of 1948</a>, 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.</p>
<p>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”.</p>
<p>In the case of Jaffa, what was once the largest
Palestinian city was almost entirely ethnically cleansed
<a
href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/specials/refugee_journey/nakba/">during
the Nakba</a> (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.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p><strong>READ: <a
href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190321-palestinians-to-sue-israel-settlers-in-us-court-over-airbnb-listing/">Palestinians
to sue Israel settlers in US court over Airbnb
listing</a></strong></p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
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