“Pro-Palestinian” anti-Semites at the United Nations are so determined to smear Israel that they’re even willing to hurt Palestinians to do so.
That’s the real takeaway from the blacklist Turtle Bay released on Wednesday of 112 companies that do business with Israeli settlements in the West Bank. These firms, the UN Human Rights Council says, have “raised particular human-rights concerns” — simply because they provide services to these areas.
It’s a bizarre rationale, but it’s even nuttier since, as a Palestinian Media Watch report makes clear, Palestinians who work for these companies themselves may be hurt by the resulting boycotts.
And get this: Palestinians often prefer to work for Israeli companies, because they offer “better working conditions” than Palestinian ones, PMW notes: Wages are four times higher, and workers get the same health benefits, sick leave and vacation time as Israelis.
The anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement always ignores these inconvenient facts. Now, “if the UN’s new BDS-flavored efforts lead to a larger boycott of these businesses, eventually they may have to let go of employees,” including Palestinians, PMW observes.
Publishing the list could also hurt other non-Israelis, specifically the 18 international companies not based in Israel: Motorola, General Mills, Airbnb and others.
By the way, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights notes that the list has no legal status.
Indeed, it stands on no legal principle, either: The Human Rights Council, which ordered it, has never voiced complaints about firms in any other “occupied” area. Even the UN’s own legal adviser in 2002 said firms in occupied Western Sahara prompted no human-rights issues.
Singling out Israel wasn’t meant to help Palestinians or protect human rights — it’s just another bid to hurt the Jewish state. It’s hard to think of a more apt word for that than anti-Semitism.