Columbia University's Airbnb, Biden and Blinken Connection Revisited

Between Oct. 7, 2023 and late November 2025,at least over 65,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip from ongoing Israeli war machine attacks on the Gaza Strip; and hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza have even been killed by the U.S. government-armed IDF since the Trump administration claimed that a "ceasefire" had been agreed to by the IDF. In addition, tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians have also been wounded by IDF attacks in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023.


And, as the American Friends Service Committee website notes, “Airbnb is a U.S.-based company that owns and operates the world's largest online marketplace for lodging, vacation rentals, and tourist activities” that “lists rental properties in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Golan Heights.”


As of 2022, according to Who Profits, Airbnb listed “properties in at least 56 illegal settlements in the West Bank and in at least 18 illegal settlements in the Golan Heights, but identified “these properties as located in Israel rather than in occupied territories.”


According to the American Friends Service Committee website:


“In 2018, Airbnb announced that it would delist properties in the occupied West Bank but continue to allow listings in the occupied Golan Heights and East Jerusalem. A few months later, in 2019, after facing backlash from the Israeli government… Airbnb reversed its decision and decided to keep these listings. As a result, Airbnb was included on the 2020 United Nations database of companies doing business in the occupied Palestinian territory…By labeling the location of these properties as Israel, the company also normalizes the illegal occupation of Palestinian land and misleads its customers by obscuring the fact that their payments support the settlement industry…At least 88 of Airbnb's settlement listings were built either on land that Israel designated `state land’" or on land that Israel acknowledged was privately owned by Palestinians….”


A May 3, 2019 article that was posted on the calcalist.com website also observed:


“Following backlash over an announced ban of listings in Israeli settlements, Airbnb highlights the company’s commitment to Israel. `Airbnb has and will continue to have a significant investment in Israel,’ a company spokesperson said in an email sent to Calcalist Monday. Over the last five years, Airbnb has invested more than $20 million in its activities in Israel, according to the statement…”


The same article noted that in December 2018, Airbnb had “sent a delegation of senior executives headed by the company’s” then-Head of Global Policy and Public Affairs, Chris Lehane, “to Israel following pressure by the Israeli government” which “met with Israeli Tourism Minister Yariv Levin;” and “a spokesperson for the ministry told Calcalist in a message that at the end of the meeting, a representative of Airbnb said the company’s policy of removing settlement listings” would “not be implemented in practice.”


Yet the husband of Columbia University President Claire Shipman, a former Director of Communications for then-U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden named Jay Carney, has been Airbnb’s current Global Head of Policy and Communications in recent years. As a press release, titled “Jay Carney joins Airbnb as Global Head of Policy and Communication” that was posted on July 22, 2022 on the Airbnb website announced:


“Key Takeaways


“Jay Carney is the Senior Vice President of Global Corporate Affairs at Amazon and former White House Press Secretary for President Barack Obama.


“Jay will start at Airbnb in September, reporting to co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky. He will be based in Washington, DC.”


In 2024, according to the Airbnb website:


“Jay Carney leads Airbnb’s Global Policy, Communications, and Crisis Management teams. He also oversees Airbnb’s 21st Century Company team, which develops key initiatives…and partnership initiatives.


“Prior to joining Airbnb, Jay established and led Amazon’s Global Corporate Affairs organization for seven years…He joined Amazon from the White House, where he served as press secretary to President Obama from 2011 to 2014 and, before that, as director of communications for then-Vice President Joe Biden. Prior to entering government, Jay spent 20 years at TIME magazine…Jay…is also a member of Yale’s University Council.”


A March 2002 article by Shira J. Boss that’s posted on the Columbia College Today website noted that when Columbia University President Shipman (who, when previously occupying the Columbia University Board of Trustees Co-chairperson position, authorized Gates Foundation Board Member and Columbia University's then-president Shafik to invite NYPD cops to invade Columbia’s campus, arrest student protesters and occupy Columbia’s campus until May 17, 2024 and, after being herself later named to replace Shafik as Columbia's current president, also invited NYPD cops to arrest student protesters on Columbia's campus in 2025) “relocated to Washington after finishing at [Columbia University’s] SIPA [School of International and Public Affairs] in mid-1994,” the later Director of Communications for then-VP Biden “went out of his way to help Shipman get acclimated.”


And as the same article observed in 2002, “they were married…in 1999;” and “the two have never been directly competitive,” (although the Columbia University President's husband has been a member of Yale’s University Council; and Yale University is one of the other Ivy League universities that the Columbia University claims it is purportedly competing with?).


The husband of Columbia University President Shipman has also, historically, been a longtime friend of former Biden administration Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, who expressed support for the IDF’s post-Oct. 7, 2023 military attack on people in Gaza which has claimed the lives of so many Palestinian civilians (including journalists), in violation of international law and the Nuremberg Accords. As an April 6, 2023 post by Eleanor Hawkins on the Axios.com website recalled:


“…Carney…was open to new opportunities when longtime friend — now secretary of state — Tony Blinken encouraged him to join then-Vice President-elect Biden's communications team. Carney spent 3½ years as White House press secretary under President Obama — before making the jump into corporate America as Amazon's senior vice president of global corporate affairs, reporting directly to founder and CEO Bezos.”


And according to the same April 2023 Axios website post by Eleanor Hawkins, Columbia President Shipman’s husband, historically, served “as the lead singer of a `very proudly terrible’ rock band he formed alongside Blinken.”


And on May 18, 2023, Columbia University’s website posted a press release which stated the following:


“Claire Shipman is a journalist, author, and public speaker….Her next book, The Power Code, is focused on women and power and comes out in June 2023. Katty Kay of the BBC has been her co-author on all five books.


“…Shipman joined CNN, where she worked for a decade. She…served as White House Correspondent. In 1994, she received a graduate degree in international affairs from Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs.


“Shipman later moved to NBC News, where she was a White House correspondent. From there, she went on to work at ABC News for 15 years as the senior national correspondent for Good Morning America…. In 2022, she was the guest speaker for SIPA’s special reception for graduates of the classes of 2020 and 2021.”


Yet as a 2011 article posted on the website of the Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting [FAIR] media watchdog group’s website, historically, recalled:


“On April 26 [2003], ABC‘s World News Tonight led with a major scoop. Anchor Claire Shipman announced at the top of the broadcast, `U.S. troops discover chemical agents, missiles, and what could be a mobile laboratory in Iraq. An ABC News exclusive.” But ABC‘s “exclusive,” as it turns out, appears to be false.


But still, as Howard Fineman observed, historically, in a Jan. 27, 2011 article that was posted on the Huffington Post website, “there are few better-connected couples in the Washington media and social scene than” Airbnb Global Head of Policy and Communication “Carney and” Columbia University President “Shipman.”


And, not surprisingly, then-Columbia University Trustee Shipman led a number of panel discussions at the AIPAC lobbying group’s March 2018 national conference.