US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday said he is "outraged" by the UN's publication of a list of companies accused of violating Palestinian human rights by operating in Judea and Samaria settlements.
In a statement, Pompeo said the list supports a Palestinian-led boycott movement and delegitimizes Israel. He urged other countries to join the US in rejecting the effort.
"The United States has long opposed the creation or release of this database," Pompeo said. "Its publication only confirms the unrelenting anti-Israel bias so prevalent at the United Nations."
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The database, released Wednesday after years of delays, listed 112 companies that the UN human rights office said are complicit in rights violations by bolstering Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
The list is dominated by Israeli companies, including major banks, construction companies, supermarkets and gas stations. But it also includes a number of global brands, including American firms Airbnb, General Mills and Motorola Solutions.
The UN list does not impose any penalties on the companies or accuse them of acting illegally. Instead, it appears to be aimed at pressuring them into changing their business practices by drawing negative attention to their ties to a contentious Israeli policy.
Israel denounced the list and accused the UN rights office of collaborating with the boycott movement in compiling the names.
The BDS movement promotes boycotts, sanctions and divestment against Israel in a nonviolent campaign that it says is aimed at defending Palestinian rights.
Israel says the movement seeks the country's destruction and accuses it of anti-Semitism – a charge that BDS leaders vociferously reject.
Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle also condemned the blacklist issued by UN Human Rights Council.
"Instead of living up to its name, the UN Human Rights Council is intentionally calling for a boycott that overwhelmingly targets the world's only Jewish state," House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said. "Have we learned nothing from history?"
"These are companies that provide jobs to both Israelis and Palestinians, helping them to work together, which should be commended not reprimanded," he continued. "This blacklist does not advance peace negotiations, and in fact, retracts from the overarching goal of achieving long-term stability in the region."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said, "We are concerned that the UN Human Rights Council's announcement is not in furtherance of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."
This action is only further evidence that the … lead human-rights office in the United Nations is overly politicized and focusing a disproportionate amount of time and resources on Israel," said Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a statement.
In a statement, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said that "we are witnessing the takeover of the UN Human Rights Council by the discriminatory BDS movement, whose mission, as expressed plainly by its founders, is to effect a 'one-state solution' that eliminates Israel as a Jewish state. Efforts by BDS and other movements to single out the Jewish state and its people for boycotts or divestment mirror the kind of gross discrimination directed at Jewish people during some of history's darkest moments."
"The UN Human Rights Council's work has been hijacked by those bent on delegitimizing the Jewish state instead of doing the actual work of supporting justice and human rights around the world," he continued. "The companies, including American ones, being targeted by the Council today have done nothing to merit being called out in such a defamatory way. No country is perfect, including Israel, but what makes the BDS movement so insidious is that, at its heart, it seeks to undermine the right of Jews to live in a Jewish, democratic state in their ancestral homeland."
In a statement released by the Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) – the committee's ranking member – Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) and Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) called this move by the United Nations "abrupt and inappropriate" and "another anti-Israel stunt that will not further peace in the region."
"The Israeli-Palestinian conflict will not be solved as long as the UN is used as a forum to bash Israel," they said. "The purpose of such a list is clear: it is a how-to guide for international boycotts designed to pressure Israel to make concessions outside of direct negotiations with the Palestinians. The United States cannot allow this list to be operationalized to undermine our ally Israel."
The Republicans called for the House to pass the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, which would allow state and local governments the right to punish state or local contractors from engaging in boycotting Israel.
"The UN's blacklist gives Israel's enemies targets for violence and economic punishment. This is the anti-Semitic BDS movement at work. @RepLeeZeldin's bill formally recognizes these blacklists as BDS. Dems must allow a vote. The United States will always stand with Israel," tweeted House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.).
"The UN Human Rights Council ought to investigate the crimes of its own members instead of obsessing over the Jewish State. US federal & state governments should fully enforce existing anti-boycott laws to punish entities that comply with this blacklist," tweeted Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.).
"So shameful that the UN published this blacklist of companies in the West Bank. This name-and-shame strategy will do nothing to further peace & ignores economic benefits these businesses bring to Israelis & Palestinians. I stand w/ bipartisan majority in US House opposing BDS," tweeted Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.).
"I strongly oppose @UN's decision to publish a blacklist of businesses in the West Bank. It disregards how these companies help both the Israeli and Palestinian economies. And more importantly, it does nothing to advance peace. I stand firmly against the #BDS movement," tweeted Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.).
