Airbnb’s business practices in the West Bank have long been in the spotlight, prompting criticism from human rights campaigners. We can now reveal that the firm has lobbied the Scottish Government 52 times since 2018.
The residents of Umm al-Khair in the West Bank were already reeling from the loss of community leader and English teacher Awdah Hathaleen. Now they are fighting a mass demolition order on their homes. Human rights organisations say it’s become a symbol of the struggles of life under occupation.
The Aquaculture Stewardship Council monitors standards at Scottish fish farms to help consumers choose “environmentally and socially responsible” farmed seafood. But it showcased a farm that had breached its rules on sea lice 11 times.
Airbnb’s business practices in the West Bank have long been in the spotlight, prompting criticism from human rights campaigners. We can now reveal that the firm has lobbied the Scottish Government 52 times since 2018.
“Now is the moment to act,” Palestinian Ambassador Husam Zomlot urged the SNP faithful gathered in Aberdeen at the party’s conference back in October. He had been introduced by first minister John Swinney as a friend, as well as a guest speaker. To loud applause Zomlot demanded that Scotland “isolate the companies… that profit from occupation” and “the theft” of Palestinian land and resources.
The following day, the first minister did indeed act – but not in the way that Zomlot might have expected. Together with his deputy Kate Forbes, John Swinney met with a representative of Airbnb, which as of February 2025, listed hundreds of properties in the occupied West Bank.
Airbnb’s business practices in the Occupied Palestinian territories have long been in the spotlight. Back in 2016 Zomlot himself accused the company of “promoting stolen property and land” and now it is facing legal action for its business in Israel’s settlements.
Airbnb says it complies with local laws and donates the profits made for “a very number of properties” in the West Bank.
But in November 2018, following widespread international condemnation, the company announced its intention to remove its listings for Israeli settlements in the West Bank. This decision was reversed less than six months later to settle a class action lawsuit brought by Israeli lawyers on behalf of a number of settlers, claiming to be unfairly targeted by the US multinational.
Since then, Airbnb has dramatically increased its activity in Palestine’s West Bank while collecting a commission of up to 23 per cent on lettings. The platform listed 139 settlement properties in 2016 with this number increasing to 350 in 2025. United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese has accused Airbnb of “occupation tourism”.
Israeli settler violence has reached unprecedented levels. More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by settlers or Israeli Security Forces in the West Bank since October 2023.
In October 2025, as the Knesset approved preliminary plans for Israel to formally annex 82 per cent of the OPt, the UN recorded at least 264 attacks against Palestinians, the largest monthly total since records began in 2006.
Despite this, the lobbying register shows John Swinney and Kate Forbes had breakfast with Carl Thomson, a former Tory Councillor who now works as Airbnb UK’s public policy manager, the morning after Zomlot’s speech.
Later in the day, Thomson met Mairi McAllan MSP, cabinet secretary for housing, to outline “concerns” about plans for higher council tax premiums on short-term lets. That afternoon the SNP Conference passed a resolution heralding “the Scottish Government’s commitment to upholding international humanitarian law.”
In October 2024, a year into what is now described by experts and human rights organisations alike as a genocide in Gaza, Thomson lobbied Paul McLennan MSP at an SNP conference fringe event organised by the Short Term Accommodation Association (SSTA) – of which he is also a director.
The lobbying register also reveals that on 17 October 2023, ten days after the Hamas attack on Israel, then first minister Humza Yousaf and his special advisor also met with Thomson.
In total, The Ferret found that Airbnb has lobbied the Scottish Government 52 times since April 2018. Between April 2018 and August 2019, the company was meeting with Scottish Government ministers and MSPs at least once a month as it sought to resist short-term let regulation. Lobbying is a regular part of the democratic process for both companies and charities.
Karin Goodwin
“Airbnb is profiting from Israel’s economy of genocide — and our politicians are lending them legitimacy,” said a spokesperson for the Stop The War Coalition in Scotland. “Scots will expect better of the SNP, which has talked the talk on the question of Palestinian liberation.
They added: “The Ferret’s findings are further evidence that, much like John Swinney’s support for rearmament, the Scottish Government’s rhetoric does not match reality. If the first minister’s apparent support for BDS was genuine, he would challenge Airbnb’s complicity.”
Launched in 2005 and inspired by the international campaign against South African apartheid, the BDS (Boycott Divestment and Sanctions) Movement is a Palestinian-led initiative which urges “action to pressure Israel to comply with international law”.
In September this year, the Scottish Parliament passed a Scottish Green Party amendment which commanded the Scottish Government “immediately impose a package of boycotts, divestment and sanctions targeted at the state of Israel and at companies complicit in its military operations and its occupation of Palestine.”
Airbnb, which lists around 30,000 properties in Scotland, has been a permanent fixture on the UN’s database of firms profiting from illegal Israeli settlements since its creation in 2016. In total it generated more than £8bn in global revenue in the last year.
In June 2025, the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) lodged a case against Airbnb’s subsidiaries in Ireland and the UK, as well as its San Francisco-based parent company, accusing them of complicity in violations of international and domestic law.
Glasgow University rector Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah – a British-Palestinian war surgeon who practised in Gaza between October and December 2023 – said the most recent Airbnb meetings were an example of Scottish Government “lip service”.
“Despite their rhetoric,” he added, “the Scottish Government is failing to implement real policies that put real pressure on Israel to end its genocide of the Palestinians.”
Labour MP Brian Leishman, who recently visited the West Bank, said: “The politicians at the heart of both the UK and Scottish governments want the British people to be ignorant to the fact that our country encourages this colonisation of Palestine and its people by our continued economic and trading agreements with Netanyahu and his regime.
He claimed that governments meeting “with multinational companies that fund the genocide in Gaza”, as well as “the persecution” of people in the West Bank showed “a degree of complicity in crimes against humanity”.
Airbnb’s lobbying also extends south of the border. This year the company attended the annual conference of each major political party, including Labour and Reform as well as joining the SSTA conference in Blackpool in late October.
Commenting on Swinney, Forbes and McAllan’s meetings with Airbnb, an SNP spokesperson said: “Ministers routinely engage with businesses from a broad range of sectors with interests in Scotland, and this engagement with the First Minister and Deputy First Minister took place at an SNP business event, which was open to many organisations.
“The SNP and Scottish Government has been consistent in calling for an end to the genocide in Gaza and for the full recognition of a Palestinian state.”
A spokesperson for Airbnb told the Ferret that “Airbnb operates in compliance with applicable local laws. Since 2019, Airbnb’s policy has been to donate all profits generated from the very small number of bookings in the entire West Bank.”
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Featured photo credit: iStock and rglinsky
The residents of Umm al-Khair in the West Bank were already reeling from the loss of community leader and English teacher Awdah Hathaleen. Now they are fighting a mass demolition order on their homes. Human rights organisations say it’s become a symbol of the struggles of life under occupation.
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