Meta profits as ads promote illegal Israeli settlements in West Bank

Facebook has platformed more than 100 paid advertisements promoting illegal settlements and far-right settler activity in the occupied West Bank, an media investigation has found, raising concerns that the social media giant is profiting from content that may violate international law.

Among the advertisements identified were also calls for the demolition of Palestinian homes, schools, and playgrounds, as well as fundraising appeals for Israeli military units operating in Gaza.

Facebook’s parent company Meta told media that any advertisements that ran on its platforms were reviewed by the company. While it admitted that some of the advertisements had since been removed for “violating our social issues, elections, and politics policies”, it did not specify whether the promotion of illegal settlements built on stolen Palestinian land breached those standards.

Legal experts told media that Meta could be complicit in violations of international law by approving, accepting payment, and publishing these advertisements. Brian Leishman, an MP in the United Kingdom parliament, described the findings as “extremely concerning”.

At least 52 paid advertisements from Israeli real estate companies were found promoting property sales in settlements across the occupied West Bank, targeting buyers from across Israel as well as some users in the UK and the United States. These advertisements were first published in March 2024, and many remain active on Facebook.

“We have robust processes and teams to review ads, and our ad review system is designed to review ads before they go live,” Meta told media. “This system relies primarily on automated technology to apply our Advertising Standards to the millions of ads that run across our apps, while relying on our teams to build and train these systems, and in some cases, to manually review ads.”

Among the advertisements identified by media were at least four promoting property sales in the illegal Israeli settlement of Ariel, 20km (12 miles) east of the Green Line in the occupied West Bank. The listings, written in Hebrew and targeting Israeli Facebook users, were paid for by a Facebook page called “Ramat Aderet”, which describes itself as offering “penthouses for a perfect quality of life”.