UN Human Rights Office Adds 61 Companies to Israel Blacklist

The United Nations' human rights office has added 61 companies to its blacklist of businesses operating in Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem, according to an annual report released on Friday. This brings the total number of companies on the Database of Business Enterprises to 214, with operations based in 11 countries.

The blacklist is maintained by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). Among the newly added companies are travel applications such as Airbnb, Booking.com, and Tripadvisor, alongside major operations like Motorola. Five entities were removed from the list since the previous year's publication.

The database, established in 2020 by a UN Human Rights Council resolution, aims to identify companies involved in activities in the specified territories. The Israeli mission to the UN in Geneva criticized the list, calling it a "distorted mechanism" created by a "flawed body with an automatic majority against Israel." The mission stated that the list was established solely to target Israel and has no equivalent for other disputed or occupied territories.

Companies identified on the list are those engaged in construction, surveillance, demolitions, and the destruction of agricultural land within Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem. The UN considers these areas to be occupied Palestinian territory, beyond the 1949 armistice lines.

UN human rights chief Volker Türk stated that the database serves as a "reminder to companies that they have human rights responsibilities" and that businesses "are expected to conduct due diligence to ensure that they do not become involved in human rights violations or abuses."

The companies on the list are from Canada, China, France, Germany, Israel, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The Israeli mission argued that the OHCHR's amplification of the database contributes to the "discriminatory treatment of Israel" and that deterring business in these territories may inadvertently lead to adverse human rights impacts, ultimately damaging the livelihoods of the populations the database ostensibly seeks to protect.