BDS-1000 Dossier: Agoda

Key Findings

• Economic: Agoda’s parent Booking Holdings acquired Israeli ad-tech startup Qlika in 2014, seeding a small Ramat Gan R&D office (Agoda International Israel Ltd, ~11–50 employees) that performs pricing/algorithmic work, with no evidence of Agoda-branded factories, real estate, or financial exposure in Israel/OPT beyond this footprint.¹²
• Settlements: Settlement-property listings in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Golan Heights are consistently and repeatedly attributed by Who Profits, AFSC Investigate, Amnesty International, and Follow the Money to the sibling brand Booking.com, not to Agoda’s own platform or inventory.³⁴⁵
• Governance: Agoda CEO Omri Morgenshtern is an Israeli national and Talpiot-program graduate who co-founded Qlika before its acquisition by Priceline; no evidence identifies continued reservist ties, defence-industry board seats, or public statements on the conflict by him.⁶⁷⁸
• Not found: No public evidence identified of any military-sector contracting, defence-technology relationship, or dual-use product nexus involving Agoda in either the Military or Digital domains, both of which score 0.00.

Target Profile

Key Facts:

• Agoda maintains a registered Israeli subsidiary, Agoda International Israel Ltd, in Ramat Gan (company number 515196830).⁹¹⁰
• Agoda’s Tel Aviv/Ramat Gan office originated from the 2014 acquisition of Israeli ad-tech startup Qlika ($15–20 million).¹¹¹
• Agoda uses Wiz, an Israeli-founded (Google-acquired) cloud security vendor, for cloud security posture management.
• Agoda itself is not named in Who Profits, AFSC Investigate, Amnesty International, OHCHR, or Follow the Money settlement-listing documentation; all such findings attach to sibling brand Booking.com.³⁴¹²

Executive Summary

Agoda is a Singapore-headquartered online travel agency, wholly owned by US-domiciled Booking Holdings Inc., operating in a corporate family that also includes Booking.com, Priceline, Kayak, OpenTable, and Rentalcars.com. The documented Israel/Palestine nexus attaching to Agoda is narrow and largely indirect, flowing chiefly through two channels: (1) a small Israel-based R&D office rooted in the 2014 acquisition of Qlika, an Israeli ad-tech startup, and (2) reputational association - via shared corporate ownership - with sibling brand Booking.com’s documented settlement-property listings in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Golan Heights.

The strongest documented vectors sit in the economic and political domains. Agoda’s Israel presence consists of a Ramat Gan office (Agoda International Israel Ltd, 11–50 employees) performing pricing, bidding, and anomaly-detection engineering work - a legitimate but modest commercial R&D footprint, not a sales or settlement-facing operation.²¹³⁹ Agoda’s CEO since 2022, Omri Morgenshtern, is an Israeli national and IDF Talpiot program graduate who co-founded Qlika before its acquisition, giving the company an executive-level Israeli-military-educational tie, though no post-appointment defence-industry, reservist, or advocacy activity by him is documented.⁶⁷⁸ Across four audits, the recurring and load-bearing finding is that settlement-property listings - the central allegation driving BDS-oriented campaigns against “Agoda” - are consistently and specifically attributed by independent monitors (Who Profits, AFSC Investigate, Amnesty International, Follow the Money) to the Booking.com platform and its own Israeli subsidiary, not to Agoda’s inventory.³⁴⁵¹² Boycott-target lists that name Agoda do so on a group/brand-association basis rather than by documenting Agoda-specific settlement transactions.¹⁴¹⁵¹⁶

What is not supported by evidence is substantial. No public evidence identified of any Israeli defence, military, or security-force contracting relationship involving Agoda; no dual-use products, heavy machinery, munitions, or defence-supply-chain integration; no participation in Project Nimbus or comparable state-cloud initiatives; no surveillance, biometric, or intelligence-linked technology provision; and no Agoda-specific corporate statement, lobbying spend, or donation directed toward Israeli military, settlement, or advocacy organizations. The Military and Digital domains accordingly score 0.00 across all sub-metrics, reflecting a comprehensive absence of findings rather than exculpatory rebuttal of specific allegations.

The resulting BDS-1000 score of 381 (Tier D, Moderate) reflects a profile dominated by economic exposure (Agoda’s own small acquisition-driven Israel R&D footprint, scored high on directness/proximity as a direct corporate operation) and comparatively lower but still probative political exposure (executive-level Israeli-military-educational ties, and reputational spillover from a corporate sibling’s contested settlement conduct), set against a complete absence of military or digital nexus findings.

Timeline of Relevant Events

Corporate Overview

Agoda operates as a wholly owned subsidiary within the Booking Holdings Inc. portfolio, alongside Booking.com, Priceline, Kayak, OpenTable, and Rentalcars.com. Agoda itself was founded independently in Thailand in 2005 and acquired by Priceline in 2007, with no Israel-linked founding history. Its Israel-facing presence is limited to a single operational subsidiary, Agoda International Israel Ltd (company number 515196830), located at Abba Hillel Silver Rd 12, Ramat Gan, and reported by Glassdoor to have 11–50 employees.¹³⁹¹⁰ This entity traces directly to the 2014 acquisition of Qlika, an Israeli ad-tech/“micro-marketing” startup, whose approximately ten-person founding team - including future Agoda CEO Omri Morgenshtern and future Chief Product Officer Ittai Chorev - joined Agoda’s Asia-led business.¹

Critically, the audits distinguish Agoda from its sibling brand Booking.com, which maintains a separate, distinct Israeli-registered subsidiary - “Booking.com Israel Online Hotel Reservations Ltd” (Tel Aviv-Jaffa) - that is the entity named in settlement-monitoring databases for listing properties in West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Golan Heights settlements. Agoda does not appear by name in any of the OHCHR, Who Profits, AFSC, Human Rights Watch, or Amnesty International materials reviewed across the four audits.

Domain Summaries

Military: Military

Mechanism of Involvement

No public evidence identified of Agoda or Booking Holdings appearing in Israeli Ministry of Defense, IDF, Israel Prison Service, or Israel Border Police contracting records, SIBAT defence-export directories, or defence exhibition catalogues. Agoda’s business - a consumer/B2B online travel booking platform - has no ruggedised, tactical, or military-specification product variant, and no machinery, vehicle, or construction-equipment manufacturing activity that could intersect with heavy-machinery or infrastructure scrutiny. A June 2024 PAX Netherlands report on companies arming Israel, reviewed in full, does not name Agoda or Booking Holdings among manufacturers, financiers, or supply-chain participants.

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

The company’s strongest defence in this domain is the comprehensive absence of findings across every sub-category examined: direct contracting, dual-use products, heavy machinery, defence-supply-chain integration, logistical sustainment, and munitions/strategic-platform involvement. Civil-society scrutiny sources (Who Profits, AFSC Investigate, Amnesty, OHCHR) attach findings to the parent brand Booking.com rather than Agoda, and none of the reviewed sources allege military or security-force procurement involving either entity. Regulatory and legal matters identified (Dutch criminal complaint, French lawsuit, Proposal 6 shareholder resolution) concern settlement property listings under the Booking.com brand, not defence trade or military export controls.

Named Entities and Evidence Map

CEO Omri Morgenshtern is a Talpiot program graduate, but no source documents any post-military-service defence-industry directorship, equity stake in an Israeli defence prime, reservist-fund donation, or public co-belligerency statement by him. Booking Holdings director James M. Guyette held a general aerospace-industry executive role (Rolls-Royce North America) but has no documented Israeli defence-sector tie.

Digital: Digital

Mechanism of Involvement

Agoda is a verified customer of Wiz, the Israeli-founded cloud security company (acquired by Google in 2025), using its Cloud Security Posture Management capabilities across AWS and Google Cloud environments for vulnerability remediation and compliance support. Agoda’s Tel Aviv-based Data Science team works on pricing, bidding, and anomaly-detection algorithms supporting the core travel-booking business - a general-purpose commercial application. Agoda’s core infrastructure is otherwise a self-built private cloud (Kubernetes-based “Fleet,” HPE servers, VAST storage, Akamai CDN), with no Israeli-origin infrastructure or networking hardware identified.

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

No public evidence identified of Agoda using Israeli-origin surveillance, biometric, facial-recognition, or predictive-policing technology; no data centre in Israel; no participation in Project Nimbus; no defence, intelligence, or law-enforcement technology relationships; and no AI/ML systems trained on surveillance-derived data. This represents one of the most comprehensively negative findings across all four domains, with the Wiz vendor relationship being explicitly a commercial cybersecurity service rather than a security-state or military application.

Named Entities and Evidence Map

Agoda CISO Yaron Slutzky, a former Cellcom (Israeli telecom) CISO, is quoted endorsing the Wiz relationship. CEO Morgenshtern’s Talpiot background is noted as an educational rather than commercial-technology tie; no documented Unit 8200 affiliation exists for him.

Economic: Economic

Mechanism of Involvement

Agoda’s parent (then Priceline.com Inc.) acquired Israeli startup Qlika in March 2014 for a reported $15–20 million, establishing what is now Agoda International Israel Ltd in Ramat Gan.^111171819 This R&D office performs machine-learning, algorithmic-bidding, and anomaly-detection work supporting Agoda’s global platform, with a reported headcount of 11–50 employees.²¹³ As a wholly owned subsidiary, any profits generated by this office would flow outward to Agoda’s Singapore headquarters and ultimately to Booking Holdings in the US - an inference from corporate structure rather than a disclosed repatriation figure.

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

Agoda has no conventional physical supply chain, no product-origin labeling exposure, and no Agoda-specific settlement listings identified across Who Profits, AFSC Investigate, Human Rights Watch, or Amnesty materials - all such listings attach to sibling brand Booking.com. No public evidence identified of Agoda or Booking Holdings disclosed portfolio holdings in Israeli companies, sovereign bonds, or investment funds. At 11–50 employees, Agoda’s Israel office is small relative to major multinational R&D centers, and no source characterizes it as a “key employer” or “sector anchor” in Israel’s technology ecosystem.

Named Entities and Evidence Map

Qlika’s founders - Omri Morgenshtern (later Agoda CEO) and two Hebrew University classmates - are documented; the University of Manchester divested over £10 million in August 2020 from a portfolio including Booking.com (a distinct brand from Agoda). Booking Holdings’ Q4 2023 earnings noted room-nights growth “excluding business associated with Israel, which was significantly impacted by the war,” a group-level rather than Agoda-specific disclosure.

Political: Political

Mechanism of Involvement

Booking Holdings was named in the February 2020 UN OHCHR settlement-business database, with Agoda treated as covered by shared ownership rather than independent naming. Booking.com’s settlement-listing conduct - including a September 2022 “occupied territory” labeling policy reversed within days under Israeli government pressure - generated sustained NGO scrutiny (Amnesty’s “Destination: Occupation” campaign) and BDS-aligned boycott listings naming Agoda by ownership association. Legal escalation continues via the Dutch criminal-complaint track (unresolved Article 12 procedure as of April 2026) and Booking Holdings’ 2026 Proposal 6 shareholder resolution, which the board recommends rejecting.

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

No public evidence identified of any Agoda-branded (as distinct from Booking Holdings-branded) corporate statement on Israel-Palestine or October 2023; no Agoda-specific HR actions, disciplinary measures, or platform-labeling policy changes distinct from Booking.com’s; no lobbying spend line-item tied to Israel/Palestine policy; and no PAC contributions to AIPAC, FIDF, JNF/KKL, or comparable organizations by Agoda or Booking Holdings. NGO Monitor characterizes the underlying boycott campaign as “well-financed BDS” activity and disputes the significance of the claims.

Named Entities and Evidence Map

CEO Morgenshtern’s Talpiot background is documented, but no public evidence identified of his making statements on the Gaza war, IDF service beyond his educational track, or donations to Israeli military-welfare or settlement organizations. No public evidence identified of Booking Holdings board directors with documented defense-industry or settlement-organization ties in the proxy-filing snippets reviewed; full DEF 14A text access was not obtained, limiting completeness.

BDS-1000 Score (V4)

• V_MAX: 4.50 Avg_OTHERS: 0.39
• BRS Score: 381 Tier: D (Moderate)

V_MAX is driven entirely by the Economic domain, reflecting Agoda’s directly attributable (high-proximity, P=9.0) though moderate-scale (M=4.5) Israel-based R&D operation stemming from the 2014 Qlika acquisition. Political contributes a secondary but comparatively minor score, reflecting high-impact-category allegations (I=6.5, largely reputational/executive-tie in nature) tempered by low proximity and magnitude once Booking.com-specific settlement conduct is excluded from Agoda’s direct attribution. The complete absence of findings in Military and Digital holds Avg_OTHERS low, producing a Tier D (Moderate) classification under the scale-free, evidence-only methodology: each domain score is the product of Impact (activity type), Magnitude (scale), and Proximity (directness), computed strictly from verified audit findings rather than inferred or aggregated corporate-group conduct.

Methodology Note

• Scores derive exclusively from the four domain audits (Military, Digital, Economic, Political); no claim in this dossier extends beyond what those audits document.
• Each domain score is scale-free: I (Impact) reflects the category/type of activity, M (Magnitude) reflects documented scale, and P (Proximity) reflects directness of the company’s involvement versus indirect or group-level attribution.
• Temporal rule: divested, exited, or reversed operations (e.g., Booking.com’s 2022 labeling-policy reversal) are treated as mitigating rather than aggravating factors and are noted as such in context.
• Entity attribution follows a no-transitive-guilt standard: findings specific to sibling brand Booking.com or parent Booking Holdings are reported as such and are not imputed to Agoda absent independent evidence naming Agoda itself.
• Settlement-adjacent commercial activity, where independently documented, is treated as dual-relevant to both Economic and Political; here, because Agoda itself is not named in settlement-listing sources, this dual-counting applies to the parent/sibling brand context rather than to Agoda’s own conduct.
• “No public evidence identified” is used throughout, per the source audits, wherever searches returned no relevant findings - this phrasing is preserved verbatim rather than converted into an affirmative negative claim.