Booking.com to flag properties as occupied for listings in Palestine

• 

Booking.com, an online travel reservation platform, announced plans to add a warning to all Israeli-occupied properties in the West Bank within the next few days, indicating that "visiting the area may be accompanied by an increased risk to safety and human rights or other risks to the local community and visitors."

The English-version warning will also refer to the properties as occupied, according to the report conducted by the television program Hatzinor, and the company has reportedly considered making the same amendments for properties located in the eastern part of Jerusalem.

Although the exact wording of the statement has not been settled, it is obvious that it will be shared throughout all of Booking.com's channels, not only the Hebrew version.

Failing to list any actual violation of human rights against Palestinians, the company's website was more concerned with its clients' welfare, wherever they may choose to travel, even if it is occupied and usurped land. "Our goal is to make it easier for every person to experience the world," the booking platform's statement read, adding that "in accordance with this goal, we are attempting to ensure that our clients have the information needed in order to make decisions about destinations they wish to visit," even if they are occupied or experience daily infringements on human rights. 

Booking.com further added that "certain areas in the world affected by conflict may pose a greater risk to travelers, so we provide our customers with information to help make decisions and encourage them to check their government's official travel guidelines as part of the decision-making process."

Following Booking.com's decision, the Israeli Tourism Ministry convened an urgent meeting and, according to Yoel Razvozov, the Ministry decided to exert political pressure on the company and communicate with it directly in an effort to get the decision overturned. The Ministry also announced that it will take into account a marketing effort designed to draw visitors to the designated regions.

In a statement, Razvozov stated that "a business will not dictate to us what area is Israel and what area isn't," noting that "we intend to act with all the means at our disposal to reverse this decision."

Whitewashing human rights

When it comes to human rights violations that Palestinians face daily, from 1948 until today, as a result of the Israeli settler colonial presence on its occupied territories, Booking.com could be whitewashing human rights by simply adding a warning message. 

Razvozov finds that a mere statement and warning by a company that profits from the Palestinian people's usurped houses and land and threatens the occupation's notion of identifying Israeli "territory" is further proof of the fragility of the settler colonial regime and its illegal occupation of the entirety of Palestine.

With or without a message, Booking.com continues to make a profit from settler colonialism in Palestine and enhance and promote its being, which in and by itself, is a violation of Palestinian rights.

The use of Israeli services in the occupied Palestinian territory, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, including rental homes and hotels in illegal settlements and attractions in areas where Palestinian residents have been forcibly expelled, falls primarily on Booking.com, as well as four other digital travel companies: Tripadvisor, Airbnb, and the Expedia Group.

Furthermore, all four businesses are listed on the so-called UN database of businesses that have a significant detrimental effect on the human rights of Palestinians residing in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.

It is significant to note that seldom, if ever, are travelers informed that booking stays and tourism in these locations enhance the occupation's sustainability and profitability.

Investigative reports on the operations of digital tourist firms have been released by Who Profits and human rights organizations, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, pushing them to stop providing goods and services linked to illegal settlements. Amnesty International believes that Booking.com is the primary supporter of tourism to illegal settlements.

Read more: Haaretz: "Israel" concealing archives of Nakba civilian killings