Airbnb sparks controversy by removing listings in the occupied West Bank from its website

Online rental service Airbnb ​has said it will remove from its website all homes in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The US firm said it made the decision because settlements were "at the core of the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians".

Airbnb said that while domestic law permitted it to "engage in business" in the occupied Palestinian Territories, "many in the global community have stated that companies should not do business here because they believe companies should not profit on lands where people have been displaced".

"We concluded that we should remove listings in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank that are at the core of the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians."

Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.

The move was welcomed by Palestinian organisations but condemned by Israel's tourism minister Yariv Levin as "the most wretched of wretched capitulations to the boycott efforts".

Levin said he would support any legal action brought by settlers against Airbnb in US courts.

Secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation Saeb Erekat said: "While we believe that this is an initial positive step, it would have been crucial for Airbnb to follow the position of international law that Israel is the occupying power and that Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, are illegal and constitute war crimes."

Human Rights Watch welcomed the move on Twitter, saying it was an important recognition that such listings "can't square with its [Airbnb's] human rights responsibilities".

For 2 years, @hrw has spoken with @Airbnb about their brokering of rentals in illegal Israeli settlements. Today, a breakthrough. pic.twitter.com/W6VTuDDXB9

— Human Rights Watch (@hrw) November 19, 2018

But Jewish human rights organisation the Simon Wiesenthal Center urged its members and fellow Jews to   boycott Airbnb.

“This is double standard anti-Semitism pure and simple. Nowhere else on the planet has Airbnb stopped making its service available in disputed territories, except Judea and Samaria,” said two of its leading Rabbis.

Around 140 Israeli settlements have been built since Israeli occupied the West Bank after the six-day war between Israel and the Arab nations of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in 1967.