Vivid must drop AirBNB sponsorship: Don’t light up the Opera House with apartheid!

We call on Vivid Sydney to drop AirBNB as a sponsor, due to the company’s well-documented violations of international law through its operations in illegal settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Already several artists have withdrawn from Vivid over this issue. We also call upon other artists and performers to boycott and withdraw from the Vivid festival if it is unwilling to drop AirBNB as a sponsor.

Sign the petition and call on Vivid Sydney to drop AirBNB as a sponsor.

By partnering with AirBNB, the NSW Government is displaying a blatant disregard for international law.

A recent investigation found that there are 321 AirBNB listings on Israeli settlements in the West Bank. These settlements are illegal under international law, and are a part of Israel’s project of expansion and violent occupation of Palestinian territory.

In July 2024 the UN's International Court of Justice ruled Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza illegal, saying that it was imposing measures that constituted racial segregation and apartheid. It advised member states not to recognise the occupation as legal, or to render aid or assistance in maintaining the occupation.

This imposes an obligation on the Australian government to impose sanctions on any companies or individuals involved in the illegal occupation and settlement of the area, according to the Australian Centre for International Justice.

The NSW Government’s partnership with AirBNB for Vivid flies in the face of this ruling. This goes against the NSW Government's own stated principles, in particular the principle of Trust to uphold the law, institutions of government and democratic principles.

AirBNB: War Crimes are not a tourist attraction!

AirBNB is listed in the OHCHR (UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights) database of companies linked to illegal settlement in the West Bank. It is also listed by the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement as a pressure target.

AirBNB announced in November 2018 it would remove about 200 listings in the occupied West Bank, and noted that a factor informing the decision was an evaluation of the listings as “contributing to existing human suffering”. But it shamefully reversed its decision.

AirBNB continues to operate in illegal settlements, and justifies this decision by donating its profits on listings in illegal settlements to aid organisations. But this is not good enough. It is an active participant in a tourism industry that serves Israel’s practice of claiming Palestinian territories as its own.

A 2019 Amnesty International report documented the Israeli government increasing its support for the tourism industry, focusing on settlements close to historical sites that highlight Jewish history, while downplaying historic sites that don’t fit this narrative. A Palestinian farmer living beside one such site said “Tourists coming here are brainwashed, they are lied to, they do not know this is our land”.

A spokesperson for Amnesty International UK has said “Any company doing business in Israel’s illegal settlements is enabling a war crime and helping to prop up Israel’s system of apartheid… War crimes are not a tourist attraction – Airbnb, Booking.com and the wider business community should immediately sever all links with Israel’s illegal occupation and ongoing annexation of Palestinian territory.”

NSW Government complicity

A disregard for social responsibility when it comes to Palestine is unfortunately not new for the current NSW Government led by Chris Minns. The Government was quick to light the Opera House in the colours of the Israel flag after October 7th 2023, but has taken no similar action to recognise the 60,000+ Palestinians killed by Israel over the last 18 months.

It is of a piece with the government’s outrageous use of anti-protest laws to quash Pro-Palestine demonstrations, and racist silencing of Pro-Palestine public servants.

Partnering with AirBNB represents yet another betrayal of social responsibility and the communities the NSW Government and the Vivid festival claim to serve.

If you are an artist, working in the arts industry or working on a project associated with Vivid, and you support this campaign, please get in touch with Stop the War on Palestine: @stopwaronpalestine on Instagram.