Booking.com: We applaud your warning on settlement listings and ask you to go even farther

Glenn Fogel, CEO of Booking.com

Booking.com plans to add a “warning” to listings in West Bank settlements that identifies the area as “occupied” and warns "visiting the area may be accompanied by an increased risk to safety and human rights, or other risks to the local community and visitors.”

While this is only a first step, they are already under pressure from the Israeli government to reverse their decision.

Booking.com is still finalizing the exact language of the “warning,” so it is critical that they hear from you now to ensure the final text is not watered down and de-politicized.

The next few weeks will not be easy. The Israeli Minister of Tourism Yoel Razvozov has threatened: "A business will not dictate to us what area is Israel and what area isn't. We intend to act with all the means at our disposal to reverse this decision."

At the same time we show our support, we also need to push them to go farther. Amnesty International has demanded that they remove settlement properties altogether from their platform “to comply with their responsibilities to uphold international humanitarian law and respect human rights.” We know it’s long past time for Booking.com and similar platforms to heed the call from Palestinians and human rights groups to stop profiting off of stolen Palestinian land.

Still, every time a company takes a small step to extract themselves from the settlement enterprise, it’s an opportunity to show the strength of our movement. Israeli officials like Yoel Razvozov and their supporters will try to use this moment to punish these companies and make an example of them. We need to make sure they also see the support they have from people of conscience around the world.

We, our collective movement for justice, are a key factor in stopping settlement expansion.

Join us to tell Booking.com to stand strong against pressure and to stop facilitating tourism on stolen Palestinian land.


To: Glenn Fogel, CEO of Booking.com
From: [Your Name]

We applaud Booking.com’s decision to add a “warning” to listings in the occupied West Bank acknowledging the illegal Israeli occupation and “risks to safety and human rights.” We urge you to not bow to pressure from the apartheid Israeli regime, and to add the warning label to properties in East Jerusalem.

Your decision to add a warning to listings in the illegally occupied West Bank is a good first step. However, as believers in universal human rights and the safety of all people, we demand that Booking.com heed calls from Palestinians and human rights groups like Amnesty International to delist properties hosted by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank and end your company’s complicity in the Israeli settlement enterprise that is destroying Palestinian lives.

Al-Haq, an independent Palestinian non-governmental human rights organization, has published multiple reports on the economic exploitation of Palestinian land and resources in the West Bank for settlement tourism.

The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights make clear that companies have a responsibility to respect international humanitarian law. We urge you stand strong against pressure from the Israeli regime that is determined to continue to violently steal and annex Palestinian lands. You have the power to stop fueling the violation of Palestinian human rights by delisting properties on stolen Palestinian land that benefit the settlement enterprise that is destroying Palestinian lives.