The neighborhood of Ramot, established by Israeli settlers in 1972 to “thicken the area surrounding Jerusalem,” is a charming suburb with a “quiet, peaceful atmosphere,” according to CapitIL, an Israeli real estate company. From the description, homebuyers interested in Ramot could be forgiven for failing to understand its true history: As part of East Jerusalem, the area was invaded by the Israeli military during the Arab-Israeli War of 1967 (also known as the Six-Day War) and continues to be occupied by Israel today.
As East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip are all internationally recognized as belonging to a future Palestinian state, Ramot is an Israeli settlement on Palestinian land—one of 300 which the International Court of Justice has deemed illegal, yet which the Israeli government continues to expand with the help of real estate companies like CapitIL.
Despite the illicit nature of marketing property on occupied Palestinian land, CapitIL openly uses Eventbrite, a United States-based online events platform, in the course of its business. The Israeli real estate company’s use of the platform illustrates how United States tech companies are failing to meet their responsibilities under international law when it comes to the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine.
From 2021 to 2024, CapitIL organized 113 real estate events, mostly in the United States, through Eventbrite. The real estate agency used Eventbrite to register those interested in attending the events, which have stretched from New York to California, offering attendees information about purchasing property in Israel and East Jerusalem.
Some of CapitIL Real Estate's event listings on Eventbrite. The events market property on occupied Palestinian land.
Following the attack by Palestinian militants on Israel on October 7, CapitIL has framed its real estate events as a response to “the rise in antisemitism across the globe,” claiming that there is now “high demand from North America for potential [relocation to Israel].” Although Eventbrite’s Community Guidelines, Terms of Service, and Human Rights Statement would all presumably prohibit the use of the platform to undermine international law, CapitIL’s account appears to still be active.
Neither CapitIL nor Eventbrite responded to multiple requests for comment for this article.
Beyond Eventbrite’s own policies, the company also has a responsibility to abide by the United Nations’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, according to Marwa Fatafta, Middle East and North Africa policy and advocacy director at Access Now, an organization that advocates for digital rights. Fatafta says Eventbrite not only has the duty to monitor how users might be employing its platform to undermine international law, but to prevent them from doing so.
“The responsibility there is to ensure that the companies do their research, do their due diligence to identify what those risks are, and mitigate them,” says Fatafta. “And when we talk about a situation of genocide or armed conflict, then we’re talking about [a need for] even more heightened human rights due diligence.”
In addition to the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the United Nations also maintains a database of businesses involved in the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Although Eventbrite is not among the nearly 100 companies in this database, Fatafta believes the platform’s use by Israeli real estate companies to market property in the West Bank would meet its criteria, specifically for “the provision of services and utilities supporting the maintenance and existence of settlements.”
She also points to the recent opinion by the International Court of Justice reiterating the illegality of the Israeli settlements and obligating states “not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by the continued presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
“If you’re providing services to a group that is helping to maintain the illegal occupation and the expansion of illegal settlements, then they are involved in human rights abuses,” says Fatafta. “And the involvement here doesn’t mean that the company itself is responsible, but it can be involved through third parties.”
Despite international law deeming Israeli settlements illegal and obligating businesses to sever ties with settlers, many companies continue to carry out business as usual. Since the creation of the United Nations’s database on businesses operating in occupied Palestine in 2020, only fifteen businesses have ceased their relevant activity and been removed from the list. Among the ninety-seven that remain are many familiar U.S. tech companies such as Airbnb, Expedia, Motorola, and TripAdvisor.
Airbnb announced that it would remove properties in illegal Israeli settlements from the vacation rental platform in 2018—then backtracked the following year due to lawsuits accusing the company of discrimination.
However, with the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the tide may be turning. Since early October, Israeli forces have killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, including 16,000 children, according to the Ministries of Health in Gaza and the West Bank, as cited by Al Jazeera. The true toll of the war, obscured by the ongoing Israeli attacks and blockade, may top 330,000 deaths, according to estimates recently published in The Guardian.
In response to the genocide, companies doing business with Israeli settlements have come under renewed scrutiny. In 2022, Booking.com announced that it would be adding advisories to listings in Israeli settlements, describing them as “occupied territory” and warning of potential human rights abuses—but the Dutch company, which has a subsidiary in the United States, backed down after Israeli and other potential hosts filed a lawsuit. Since November, Booking.com has been in court in the Netherlands, accused of “laundering profits from Israeli war crimes in Palestine,” according to SOMO, a Dutch corporate watchdog group that filed the complaint.
As Dutch prosecutors continue to investigate Booking.com, Fatafta explains that even in a place like the United States, where the courts are unlikely to entertain legal action that would harm an embattled ally of the government like Israel, civil society has a role to play in curbing the complicity of tech companies, including Eventbrite.
“Unfortunately, when it comes to Palestine, and when it comes to the current context of the ongoing genocide, the impunity that Israel enjoys right now is also covering the asses of these companies,” Fatafta says. “The enforcement isn’t really in the courts. It’s more in civil society.”
“Civil society can investigate, document, point to, and advocate for change,” she continues. “When you expose a company’s entanglement in illegal activity, it makes civil society able to pressure them. They can also demand accountability . . . . It’s a form of momentum, not in a legal sense, but in terms of campaigning and advocacy. It can give individuals and communities an opportunity to choose to boycott. There are many ways in which people can exert pressure on companies to hold them accountable outside of the realm of legal action.”