Jerusalem:Â One host, Moriyah, lists the location of her bed-and-breakfast on Airbnb, the home rental site, as Biblical Shiloh, Israel.
It sleeps up to 12 guests for under $US140 ($190) a night. It has a hot tub. And the area around it offers hikes and springs, workshops and holistic treatments.
What the listing does not make clear is that this B&B, named “Peace of the Valley” lies in a Jewish settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Most of the world considers the settlements, built on land Israel captured in the 1967 war, to be a violation of international law. Even Israeli authorities have deemed illegal some of the unauthorised outposts where Airbnb accommodations can be found.
Now, Airbnb, long under pressure from Palestinian officials, anti-settlement advocates and human rights groups to end its West Bank settlement listings, has announced it will do just that.
“We are most certainly not the experts when it comes to the historical disputes in this region,” the company said in a news release. “Our team has wrestled with this issue and we have struggled to come up with the right approach.”
In the end, the company said it would remove about 200 listings in West Bank settlements that “are at the core of the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians.”
Read the article by Isabel Kershner in The Sydney Morning Herald.