The popular travel application, Booking, will soon begin marking almost all Jewish-owned accommodations in Judea and Samaria under a travel warning, Channel 13 News reported.
The application will warn users who plan to go to tourism businesses in Judea and Samaria that "a visit to the area may be accompanied by an increased risk to safety and human rights or other risks to the local community and guests."
Former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said that "Booking should be ashamed of its ignorance and hypocrisy. Judea and Samaria is the heart of our homeland, the heart of all of us, and you [the residents of Judea and Samaria] are in my heart, you are the activists who fight against this abysmal hypocrisy, kudos to you."
Tourism Minister Yoel Razvozov was quick to condemn the decision and said that "a business company will not determine for us what is the territory of Israel and what is not. I will convene the management of the Ministry of Tourism urgently to determine steps to deal with the decision."
The left-wing organization Yesh Din said in response to the words of the Minister of Tourism: "It cannot be that the Minister of Tourism does not know what the territory of the State of Israel is and what it doesn't."
The Breaking the Silence organization stated: "Once again, Israel is learning that there are consequences for its actions and that the world takes responsibility and does not bow its head to the occupation. It is important for every Israeli to understand - Booking's decision to mark accommodation in the occupied territories is a direct result of Israel's policy. The minimum that a public international company should do is to inform its users that where they are coming, millions of people live under a military regime where severe human rights violations occur every day. If Razvozov wants to fight the marking of places to stay in the territories, he had better start by presenting a plan to end the occupation."
Booking.com stated: "Our mission at Booking.com is to make it easier for everyone to experience the world. In accordance with this mission, we try to ensure that our customers have information in order to make decisions about destinations they are considering traveling to. Certain areas of the world affected by conflict may cause greater risk to travelers and therefore we provide our customers with information that helps them make decisions and encourage them to check their government's official travel guidelines as part of the decision-making process."