Booking.Com Used To List Jerusalem As ‘Israeli Settlement’

Image by jane eisner

By JTA July 31, 2018

AMSTERDAM (JTA) — The online travel reservation service Booking.com amended its definition of the city of Jerusalem as an “Israeli settlement” following a critical query from a Belgian Jewish newspaper.

The Amsterdam-based company acted on Tuesday, a day after Michael Freilich, editor in chief of the Joods Actueel newspaper in Antwerp, asked the firm about its characterization of the capital city, he said.

“I thought it was a hoax until I checked it out and saw it with my own eyes,” Freilich said of his verification of a tip by one of his readers.

Booking.com has not responded to Joods Actueel’s query, Freilich said, but fixed the subject of his query within a few hours of his sending the email. Jerusalem is now shown as being in Israel on Booking.com.

Most of the world’s countries do not recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, even with the U.S. recognition in December. However, Israeli sovereignty in the western part of the city is internationally recognized. Israel’s control over the eastern part, which the Jewish state annexed in the 1980s, is disputed and seen as illegal by many countries and international organizations, including the European Union and the United Nations.

Founded in the Netherlands in 1996, Booking.com now offers more than 28 million reported listings in more than 138,000 destinations in 229 countries and territories worldwide. More than 1.5 million room nights are reserved daily on the platform, according to the firm.

Alyssa Fisher is a news writer at the Forward. Email her at [email protected], or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO