Will UN will update ‘blacklist’ of Israeli businesses to boycott?

Former Israel Ambassador to the UN said that Michelle Bachelet, the commissioner in charge of updating the blacklist, “knows it doesn’t serve any purpose.”

By World Israel News Staff

The UN is slated to update its blacklist of Israeli businesses operating in Judea and Samaria in March, but news surrounding whether it will go through with the move is unclear.

The United Nations Human Rights Council mandated that the blacklist be updated annually, but last March, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said that the database report was not completed due to lack of funds.

The blacklist was released by the UN office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in 2020, and efforts to update it since have been pushed off due to delays and strong pushback by the Israeli government. After the list’s publication in 2020, Israel said it was cutting ties with OHCHR, the secretariat for the Human Rights Council, which Israel and the Trump administration both boycotted in 2018 due to severe anti-Israel bias.

Now, with the new US administration, the State Department won’t say if it will push for another delay, and while it opposes boycotting Israel, has since reengaged with the HRC.

Moreover, former Israel Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon told JNS, “We think she [Bachelet] had the ability to postpone the release of the blacklist. She knows it doesn’t serve any kind of positive purpose.”

The blacklist was created with the intent to establish a boycott against businesses operating in Jewish communities located in Judea and Samaria, the Golan Heights and eastern Jerusalem, but it does not hold any legal weight. No list has been created for any other global territorial dispute.

Included on the list are 112 entities, 94 of which are domiciled in Israel, with the rest located in the US., UK, France, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Thailand.