IPFS

Israel Reacts to UN Blacklist

Written by Subject: Israel

Israel Reacts to UN Blacklist

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)

On Wednesday, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) published names of 112 companies with ties to illegal Israeli settlements.

Corporate America made the list, names released the tip of the iceberg. 

Over 2,500 US companies operate in Israel, according to the Commerce Department, a who's who of dominant US enterprises.

Many more US and other foreign firms aid Israel's settlement project indirectly as well as directly by making the OHCHR list.

It identified 321 companies operating in the settlements earlier, listing only 112 of them, the true number multiples higher.

Heavy US/Israel pressure prevented earlier release of the OHCHR's list.

Netanyahu responded as expected, slamming the UN Human Rights Council and OHCHR as "biased," adding:

They're "trying to blacken Israel's name. We reject any such attempt in the strongest terms and with disgust."

"If anyone boycotts us, we'll boycott them" — whining like a whimpering child caught with his or her hand in the cookie jar before mealtime. 

The Jewish state self-blackens itself daily by apartheid viciousness far worse than South Africa's, as well as utter contempt for international laws, norms and standards.

The Global BDS Movement for Freedom, Justice and Equality said the following in response to the released UN database:

"We welcome this long-delayed UN list of complicit companies." 

"Some major firms involved with illegal settlements are not in the database and must be added." 

"All these companies must be held to account."

Companies complicit in Israel's illegal settlement enterprise (directly or indirectly) are guilty of "war crime(s) under international law." 

"Upholding international law is the one appropriate response to attempts by authoritarian and far-right regimes, led by the Trump White House and Israel's extremist government, to undermine human rights and the rule of law and enforce domination by the most powerful instead."

"(W)e view…this database as a first significant and concrete step by any UN entity towards holding to account Israeli and international corporations that enable and profit from Israel's grave violations of Palestinian rights."

"We call on continued grassroots and civil society pressure on OHCHR to comply with the Human Rights Council Resolution 31/36 by resisting political pressure, whether from the US, European states or Israel, and committing to constantly updating the public list."

"It is high time for all public institutions, city councils, churches, trade unions, cultural organizations, universities, investment funds, and others to stop contracting, procuring from or investing in any of the companies on the UN list of shame, to avoid complicity in Israel's settlement enterprise."

"The BDS movement for Palestinian rights will continue our peaceful struggle, supported by people of conscience worldwide, for freedom, justice, equality and for ending all complicity in Israel's decades-old regime of military occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid."

Israel responded to release of the OHCHR database by suspending ties to the UN body, a symbolic action of no significance.

Netanyahu regime foreign minister Israel Katz falsely accused the UN Human Rights Council and OHCHR of "pursuing an anti-Israel stance," adding:

"The UN human rights commissioner has become a partner and tool of the boycott movement."

BDS activism is the most effective initiative against Israeli ruthlessness by targeting its economy, urging foreign companies to divest from and boycott the Jewish state.

Israel's foreign ministry urged governors of US states where American firms on the UN blacklist operate to condemn the list.

Right-wing Israeli president Rivlin called the UN database a "shameful initiative reminiscent of dark periods in our history" — disgracefully comparing a truth-telling UN database to the Jewish holocaust.

Palestinians face Israeli "dark periods" daily, its repressive boot brutalizing them, denying their fundamental rights, holding them hostage to its viciousness.

The vast majority of Israeli officials, including Knesset members, are right-wing extremists, things much the same in the US.

Israeli settlements flagrantly breach Fourth Geneva, Security Council resolutions, and other international law. 

There's no ambiguity about it. Yet the world community has done nothing to hold Israel accountable for its high crimes since establishment of the Jewish state in 1948.

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My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

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