It is when they spot the sign that guests looking for their Airbnb in Jerusalem start wondering if they are in the right place. “This road leads to a Palestinian village,” it reads. “The entrance for Israeli citizens is dangerous”.
The stereotype of the Holy City they had in mind – the bazaars, the churches, a mix of cultures and religions – is nowhere to be seen. Instead, here they are in a one-road suburb lined with chicken stores and wedding halls – featuring glass walls and golden-hued lights. The view over the valley is blocked by a wall covered in graffiti. This is Abu Dis, a small Arab-only town five kilometres east of Jerusalem’s city centre.
Guests are supposed to end up in a cosy Airbnb owned by a retired scholar of gender studies, Fadwa, and her family – her younger sisters and 92-year-old mother. On the Airbnb listing, the owner touts the advantages of a holiday far from Jerusalem’s most touristy areas: “The living cost in Abu Dis is much cheaper than the city Center.”
But the house’s location has its disadvantages as well. After booking, prospective guests receive a message with more detailed directions from the host. “On Google Maps, the house appears [within] walking distance to City Center of the old City, but because there is the separation wall between Israeli side and the Palestinian part of Jerusalem, the guests have to get the bus around the wall to reach our house in Abu Dis,” Fadwa’s message reads. The detour, she explains, takes 45 to 60 minutes.
And Airbnb guests are not the only ones confused about Jerusalem’s geography. On January 28, US president Donald Trump and Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu announced the so-called “Deal of the Century”, a joint plan to put an end to the 70-year-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In his speech, Trump announced that the capital of the future Palestinian state would be in East Jerusalem.
Many were surprised by the announcement, which seemed to be in direct contradiction of Israel’s longstanding position that Jerusalem should be its undivided capital. The bemusement did not last long: Netanyahu swiftly explained that what Trump actually meant was that the capital would be Abu Dis. The small town, barely visible on maps, would become a capital city.
What makes Abu Dis so hard to grasp for travellers in the era of the sharing economy is that it doesn’t really exist in the digital world. Google Maps is unable to show the six-metre-high, 708-kilometre-long Israeli West Bank barrier – a structure steeped in controversy for cutting across neighbourhoods in Palestinian territory, including through Abu Dis, which until 20 years ago was a suburb of East Jerusalem. That’s why guests staying at Fadwa’s Airbnb need to rely on homemade directions explaining which bus they need to take, at what stop to get off – ask the driver, Fadwa advises – when to turn left, and how to spot a local restaurant near the destination. “Nobody ever got lost,” Fadwa says.
It gets more difficult when guests decide to drive there, especially if they are using Google Maps or Waze (an Israeli app that Google acquired in 2013). These are the navigation apps of choice for 90 per cent of the world, yet they are totally oblivious to the restrictions imposed by the Israeli army in the West Bank. Hence the confusing Airbnb anomaly.
These restrictions include a complicated system of rules granting or forbidding access to certain roads depending on the driver’s nationality. Streets subjected to this regime are classified in four categories: completely prohibited (only for Israeli citizens), partially prohibited (Palestinians allowed only with special permits), restricted (Palestinians allowed but access subjected to checkpoints) or Palestinian-only (Israelis driving on those commit an offence under the Israeli law). Google Maps struggles to provide directions that include the latter kind of streets.
The Arab Centre for Social Media Advancement has accused Google of “mapping segregation”, especially as it offers navigation routes that go through Israeli settlements and are therefore forbidden to the majority of Palestinians. Google says that the issue has nothing to do with Middle-Eastern politics: “We’re always working to provide a more comprehensive map for our users,” the company says in a statement. “When data sources that we’re unaware of are brought to our attention, we look to see if they’re of sufficient quality to add to the map”.
According to Google, its map data comes from a combination of third-party providers and public sources. The problem in the West Bank is a lack of infrastructures on the ground and fewer official and authoritative sources providing data to update Google Maps.
In 2017, the company managed to add data for the Jordan Valley – the same area that could be annexed to Israel if Trump’s proposed deal went through – thanks to third-party providers ORION-ME and GISrael. According to its website, the latter is “the largest civilian cartographic department in Israel”.
No equivalent reliable sources have been found for journeys in areas under the Palestinian Authority, such as Abu Dis. As a result, late check-ins at Fadwa’s Airbnb are so frequent that a young neighbour, called Mohammed, volunteers to wait for late guests. They usually get lost trying to drive their rental car from Tel Aviv airport to Fadwa’s house, with Google Maps search results returning an ominous: “Sorry, we could not calculate driving directions from ‘Ben Gurion Airport, 7015001, Israel’ to ‘أبو ديس’.” Doorob Navigator, a startup based in Ramallah, is trying to fill the void, showing realistic travel routes for Palestinian drivers based on the type of ID card they have. But few tourists know of the app’s existence.
Airbnb itself has gone through alternate cycles of backlash and praise: in November 2018, following pressure from Palestinian officials and international human rights groups, the company delisted properties in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank; less than six months – and several lawsuits – later, it reversed the policy, triggering Palestinian uproar and calls for a boycott.
“I still use it, because at least Airbnb recognises us as well,” jokes Fadwa. The tech platform enables her to earn a living in her old age. And, apart from the money, she has positive reasons for disregarding the boycott. “Tourism agencies are all Israeli – Airbnb is a powerful tool for us”. For all its flaws, Airbnb is compensating on a small scale for the disruption caused by occupation.
A month after she started using Airbnb, Fadwa had received guests from all over the world: some people came intentionally to stay in Palestine, others were surprised when they wound up in Abu Dis. One Australian couple, for example, had been relaxing under the orange trees in Fadwa’s garden when a clash between Israeli military forces and Palestinians suddenly kicked off just outside. They asked for a refund and left immediately. That taught Fadwa a lesson: “I have never intended to be political, but this is politics getting in my way. I don’t want my guests to feel deceived”. That’s why she warns on her Airbnb profile that “the IDF [Israeli Defence Force] shoot tear gas bombs make noise and bad smell takes place sometimes on Fridays late afternoon”, although she reassures guests that they will be safe at all times.
Fadwa’s listing can be considered a success, with maximum overall rating from 182 reviews, none of which is negative despite the circumstances. “Fadwa was an amazing host” one British guest wrote in a review. “[D]on't get discourage by Google Maps, staying at her place means experience real Palestinian life in Jerusalem”. A Russian guest confessed “I had doubts whether it is safe to come to Abu Dis on Israeli car, but there were not any problems, we felt safe both walking and driving on Palestinian territory. I highly recommend this accommodation”.
“I was looking for a cheap accommodation in Jerusalem, that’s how I ended up here,” says Christopher McCreanor, a South African pilgrim visiting the holy sites in Jerusalem. ”The reality of the checkpoints gets me very emotional. The humiliation of getting checked, seeing the young guys standing in front of the soldiers. I knew it, but living it is different.”
The lure of the so-called Deal of the Century is that towns like Abu Dis will be promised military withdrawal. Yet Israel would likely maintain control of the borders and protect settlements within the West Bank; the wall would become an official border, and bugs in Google Maps would still have to be fixed. Moreover, Trump’s proposed Palestinian state would lose East Jerusalem and the Old City forever. This connection used to generate 15 per cent of total income for the Palestinian economy before the wall was built, and it still provides for 80 per cent of its tourism business.
Most of Fadwa’s guests are treated to a free tour around Abu Dis by her neighbour Mohammed. He likes to finish with a view from the roof terrace of his grandmother’s house. Looking east, snipers can be seen keeping watch above Abu Dis. Towards the west, over the separation wall that cuts through the garden of the family home, you can see The Dome of The Rock. From there, the confusion of Google Maps and Airbnb fades away and, for one brief second, Jerusalem seems just a stone's throw away.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
