NEW YORK – Just as the Christmas holidays was settling in and the American public had mentally checked out of an exhausting political season, the United States for the first time ever abstained rather than use its "veto" power on a United Nations resolution condemning Israeli settlements.
But that wasn't all the United Nations did that day. After condemning Israel's "occupation" of lost territory that they won back in 1967, the UN voted to fund constructing a blacklist of any businesses affiliated with Israel-owned entities – a resolution that passed in March 2016 with the support of growing anti-Israel “boycott, divestment, and sanctions” (BDS) movement.
The Israeli news source "Haaretz" described the original U.N. blacklist proposal in March 2016:
The UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution, initiated by the Palestinians, obligating the organization to draw up a list of all Israeli and international firms operating directly or indirectly in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.
The resolution was passed on Thursday night in Geneva, despite feverish efforts by the United States and several European countries to get the Palestinians to remove a contentious clause which calls for the compilation of a “black list” of companies. The resolution was supported by 32 countries, while 15 abstained. None opposed it.
On Thursday afternoon U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry telephoned Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in an attempt to block the resolution or at least soften its wording….
Particularly worrisome to Jerusalem is Article 17 of the resolution, in which the UNHRC asks the UN high commissioner for human rights “to produce a database of all business enterprises [both Israeli and international] involved in the activities in the settlements,” that would be updated once a year.
The activities detailed in the resolution are not just settlement construction but even the supply of construction materials or equipment, the supply of monitoring equipment for the separation barrier, the supply of equipment used in home demolitions, supplying security services or equipment to the settlements or supplying financial or banking services that aid the settlements, including loans and home mortgages.
The United Nations voted to provide $200,000 to fund the blacklist implementation immediately after the Israeli settlement condemnation passed the Security Council with the United States' help.
