UN to Blacklist Israeli Firms Operating Beyond Green Line

The Fellowship  |  January 10, 2017

In recent weeks, the United Nations has ramped up its already continuous and ridiculous anti-Israel assaults, best illustrated by its latest resolution against the Jewish state. But that resolution was not the end of its attempts to attack Israel. Israel Hayom’s Yair Altman reports on a U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) plan to blacklist Israeli companies in the West Bank this March:

The move reportedly aims to bar the presence of any Israeli company beyond the Green Line. If adopted, the list could deem even private security firms protecting Israelis in Judea and Samaria from terrorist organizations, as illegal.

The list is said to be the brainchild of known BDS activist Richard Falk, formerly the U.N.’s special rapporteur on Palestinian human rights. Falk first came up with the idea for the blacklist six years ago, while in office, and he has been strongly advocating for it ever since, this time with the support of several Arab U.N. members.

In an effort to thwart this initiative, NGO Monitor, a watchdog group that promotes greater transparency among foreign-funded Israeli nongovernmental organizations, has recently sent the Human Rights Council a position paper explaining that such a list would be a violation of international law and the UNHRC’s own guidelines against discrimination based on national origin, arguing that as no such blacklists exist for any other conflict zone in the world, it would in effect be targeting Jewish-owned businesses.

“The U.N. Human Rights Council discriminates against Israel by applying double standards to international law,” the position paper noted.

“The list may also harm companies conducting business with Israel, which is consistent with the ultimate goal of [the BDS movement], which is isolating and attacking the State of Israel and undermine the Jewish people’s right to self-determination…”