Jewish Companies on the Anti-Semitic U.N. Blacklist: “We’re Doing Nothing Wrong”
“We are not breaking any international law,” AHAVA CEO Ron Michael told The Jerusalem Post.
Some of the companies that may be on the UN Human Rights Council’s blacklist for their business dealings over the “pre-1967 armistice line” have rejected the organization’s charge that they are violating international human rights laws.
The companies include Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories, Motorola and Bezeq.
“I am certain that we are not breaking any international law,” Ahava CEO Ron Michael told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.
The head of the well-known cosmetics company that uses Dead Sea minerals spoke in advance of next month’s publication by the council of a database that is presumed will list upward of 150 companies from Israel and abroad.
The United States and Israel are working behind the scenes to sway the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, not to publish what they have dubbed the “blacklist.”
Zeid, a Hashemite prince and Jordanian diplomat, has sent warning letters to companies likely to appear on the list and has asked for their response. The Human Rights Council holds that such companies could be criminally complicit under international law.
While the proceedings and the contents of the list have not yet been published, names of the companies have been leaked to the media.
Michael noted that many of the companies have already been targeted by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, and their business dealings in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights are well known.
