Booking.com has allowed seized Palestinian land in the West Bank to be posted for rent on its website. Dutch prosecutors are now considering a complaint against the company’s alleged profiteering from war crimes. On 19 July 2024, the ICJ ruled that Israel’s presence in the Palestinian occupied territories is “unlawful” and called on it to end the occupation of Palestinian lands as “rapidly as possible.”
David Deegan
2 August 2024
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Booking.com is a Dutch company whose online reservation service enables users to book hotels and houses across the world. Based on its extremely successful formula, over 600 million rooms are reserved annually. The Chief Executive Officer, Glenn D. Fogel, writes on his LinkedIn page that “Our company was founded on the belief that technology would forever change the face of travel.” But regardless of the effectiveness of the technology, the company still needs properties to list.
In 2022, Booking.com relocated its UK head office to the former site of Manchester’s Granada Television Studios, famous for the creation of the UK’s longest-running soap opera “Coronation Street”. They spent 80 million GBP refurbishing the property they had taken over. But Booking.com is no stranger to dealing with properties previously belonging to others.
In November 2023, SOMO (Netherlands-based Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations), along with The European Legal Support Center (ELSC), Al-Haq (an independent Palestinian non-governmental human rights organization), and The Rights Forum (an NGO established by former Dutch Prime Minister Andreas van Agt, which describes itself as a “knowledge center on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” and lobbies the Dutch government and the EU to promote Palestinian rights), filed a criminal complaint with the Dutch Public Prosecutor. The complaint argues that the revenues Booking.com acquires from renting out properties in settlements within Occupied Palestinian Territory are proceeds of criminal activities.
To date, the complaint has not been resolved, and the story behind it only began to be public knowledge in May 2024 when Dutch prosecutors confirmed to various media outlets that the complaint had been received. Spokesperson for the Dutch National Public Prosecutor’s Office Brechje van de Moosdijk said that prosecutors were studying the complaint, but could not give a timeline for a decision on possible further steps.
SOMO asserts that the Booking.com website listed up to 70 properties in illegally occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank between 2021 and 2023, and that revenues acquired from renting out those properties are “proceeds of criminal activities”, thereby are violating the Dutch anti-money laundering rules by profiting from these listings in illegal Israeli settlements.
Most countries, including the Netherlands, deem the settlements built on land captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war as illegal, and the settlers’ presence remains one of the fundamental issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
On 19 July 2024 the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the UN’s top court, agreed with the Dutch position and ruled that Israel’s presence in the Palestinian occupied territories is “unlawful”. The court called on Israel to end its unlawful occupation which includes the building and expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In the non-binding opinion, the court called on Israel to end its annexation and imposition of permanent control over Palestinian lands and to halt ist discriminatory policies against Palestinians in the state of Israel and noted with “grave concern” the expansion of Israel’s unlawful settlements.
Earlier in 2024, Israeli settlement watchdog, Peace Now, reported a record year for Israeli settlements, with new approvals for residential units in the Jordan Valley, and that the seized area size was the largest since the 1993 Oslo Accords, adding “2024 marks a peak in the extent of declarations of state land”. Approximately 700 000 Israeli settlers live in roughly 300 illegal settlements in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.
In a press release, May 2024, Daan de Grefte, ELSC legal officer, stated “These unlawful operations support a system of settler-colonialism and racial domination that amounts to apartheid, but companies profiting from those violations and facilitating them hardly face legal scrutiny. This is unacceptable and must stop.”
Lydia de Leeuw from SOMO added, “We have been working on this complaint for years, responding to calls of Palestinians who have seen their property being stolen to end up as profitable vacation homes for settlers on Booking.com,” adding “Efforts by human rights groups, activists, and even concerned employees within the company to warn the company about its operations in the occupied Palestinian Territory have been systematically ignored.”
Booking.com has denied the claims and said no existing laws prohibit them listing properties in Israeli settlements. A spokesperson for Booking.com added that “Legal action has been taken against other companies that have tried to withdraw their activities, and we would expect the same to happen in our case”. It remains to be seen if Booking.com will continue this line of argumentation after the ICJ opinion.
In 2022, Booking.com said it would introduce a warning for customers visiting listings in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. On 19 Sept 2022 Israel’s Tourism Minister, Yoel Razvozo wrote to Booking.com’s CEO, Glenn Fogel, condemning the company’s decision and stressing that this decision was wrong. He said “As the Minister of Tourism, and also as an Israeli citizen, I strongly condemn it. The labelling of the State of Israel as someone who violates rights is unacceptable and does not do justice to the residents of Judea and Samaria who live in coexistence, and whose source of livelihood relies on tourism. This is a biased and scandalous decision that may create unnecessary tension and destabilize the region. I call on the company to retract this decision.”
At the time of writing, if one searches on the Booking.com website for a property in the West Bank area, the following notice appears: “Please review any travel advisories provided by your government to make an informed decision about your stay in this area, which may be considered conflict-affected.” The notice makes no mention of the illegality of settlements or human rights concerns.
By acting as the broker for rental of vacation homes on land stolen from the indigenous Palestinian population, Booking.com profits from war crimes. CEO Glenn D. Fogel has a regular presence on social media and conference panels, including being keynote speaker for YJP (Young Jewish Professionals) Israel CEO Conference. In a recent LinkedIn post he said that “For me, leadership is much more about listening than it is telling,” adding “My senior advisors, my job is to make people feel heard and engage them in dialogue that will make us both better for it.”
But Mr. Fogel does not appear to be listening. Booking.com has continued to disregard the legal implications of its involvement in illegal Israeli settlements. Consequently, on 12 February 2020, The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights included Booking.com in a report listing 112 companies which benefit from and contribute to the creation, maintenance and expansion of these illegal settlements.
Despite being blacklisted by the UN and facing potential prosecution for money-laundering in the Netherlands, Booking.com pours profits from the homes snatched from displaced Palestinian families into an GBP 80 million office refurbishment. When looking at the cost of a holiday destination on Booking.com, do customers, and those who use the services of other organizations profiting from business operations in conflict zones, know the price those refugees have paid?
Airbnb, in comparison, having received similar calls from both Palestinian and international civil society groups for action, on 19 November 2018, announced the delisting of properties in the Israeli settlements in the West Bank from its website.
Will Booking.com continue to support Israel as it violates international law and human rights. It is not Israel that decides on what is legal under international law, but the ICJ and their recent opinion is clear in condemning Israel for its unlawful occupation of Palestinian lands. Booking.com has not only profited from illegal land seizures, but is complicit in a war crime.
Buyer beware – Caveat Emptor!
