Corporations have colonial instincts; they see the land that has bred my bloodline as nothing but real estate. Image by Oberon Copeland.

It seems like just yesterday, I was on my school’s campus having meetings with administrators, voicing demands to cut ties with Israel. Whether that was cancelling their study abroad trip to Israel or divesting from zionist institutions, the movement to boycott Israel was alive and well years ago – before October 7th, 2023.

Because, as we all know, the occupation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine has been going on for over seven decades, and calls to protest the harrowing actions of Israel have been ongoing for years. However, sometimes it felt like I was screaming into a very scary, very endless void when I would talk about Palestine. I grew up telling the kids at school that I was from Jordan, because every time I said Palestine, I was met with a confused face and a, “What is that?”

When I grew up and learned more about the resilient yet heartbreaking history of my land, every time I tried to talk to someone who wasn’t Muslim or Arab about it, I would be met with the same expressions. The ethnic cleansing of Palestinians has been happening all these years, and just now, are people willing to glance at the bloody history of Palestine – and the ways to free the land that has been shackled in chains for my whole life and beyond.

While the world was sleeping on Palestine, many organizers weren’t. The Boycott, Divest, Sanctions movement has been a trailblazer in committing to civil disobedience against Israel. One of its targets, Airbnb, even submitted to it in 2018, five years before October 7th. Airbnb has long been listing vacation rentals on illegal settlements in the West Bank and has faced heat for it time and time again. So much so, that they removed all their listings in the West Bank in 2018, but reinstated them once threatened legally by the same settlers who rented these properties out.

Airbnb responded to the pressure and calls from the BDS movement because what they allow to happen is a major crime against humanity. Uplifting and supporting the theft of Palestinian land by illegal settlers on illegal settlements is a war crime under international law. Under Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, it is clearly stated that the occupier should not deport the original civilian population of the land they occupy. Obviously, Israel has never cared much for international law, and neither has the world in holding it accountable for breaking it.

Because of that, Israel has used the act of illegally creating settlements and bringing in foreigners to settle in them as a part of its annexation plan of the West Bank for decades. Israel is blatant in its genocide in Gaza, it was flagrant with its colonization of 48’ territories, but the annexation of the West Bank has been a less scrutinized avenue for Israel to occupy all of Palestine. The stealing of Palestinian land to give over to the white colonizers is an age-old tactic to push the Indigenous population out.

What has exacerbated Israel’s process of illegal annexation has always been corporate profit throughout the decades. In the British colonial period, it was organizations like the Jewish National Fund that were buying and selling Palestinian land for the ultimate gain of zionist occupation that was to come in 1948. Now, we have modern-day companies like Airbnb that allow settlers to capitalize off of the stolen Palestinian land – land that is illegally occupied under the guise of international law.

That’s a pretty big charge to have under your belt as one of the leading home-sharing companies in the world. Along with engaging in a very illegal system, it allows the Israeli government to impose more restrictions and limit more resources on the Palestinian people to shift all that over to their growing settlements. It provides for the economy of tourism to fund the Palestinian occupation and also to serve as a tool of propaganda. Personally, I don’t know how anyone can go into the West Bank and think that anything about the conditions there is normal. But, the glamorized portrayal of these settlements with fancy homes is definitely a propaganda ploy that many fall into.

That’s why Airbnb is a legitimate BDS target, and it has been one for a long time. Calls for Airbnb to remove its listings in the West Bank have been made for almost a decade, especially here at CODEPINK. Although Airbnb may not be actively listening to the Palestinians when we say this is actively hurting us, they must surely listen to the lawsuits that are popping up against them. The Global Legal Action Network just recently announced a trans-Atlantic lawsuit against Airbnb for a multitude of reasons, one of them being their complicity in Israeli violence. You can read more here.

I think the intersections between Airbnb and the occupation of my homeland really point to a larger issue for me: companies have been and continue to be profiteers off of Palestinian genocide. I learned this in college with divestment work, and I learn it now, when companies like Airbnb are renting out properties that should belong to one of my Palestinian kin. Corporations have colonial instincts; they see the land that has bred my bloodline as nothing but real estate. Nothing but somewhere they can sell and make into aesthetic property rental.

Palestine is not a colonial or capitalistic venture for anyone or anything. I’d never allow my land to be exploited as a “beachside resort” or “country cottage”, and neither should anyone who proclaims themselves as Pro-Palestine. I urge you to look further into the actions we have against Airbnb and how to make it clear that people will not sit and watch the commodification of their land.

The post Housing Ethnic Cleansing: How Airbnb Legitimizes Occupation appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

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