Palestinians have welcomed the publication of the United Nation’s blacklist of businesses that operate in Jewish areas over the pre-1967 lines, in east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Golan Heights, saying they intend to take legal action against companies listed in the report published by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Palestinian officials in Ramallah said the move was an “appropriate response” by the international community to the policies of the Israeli government and the US administration. “This is a serious blow to [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and the Trump administration,” the officials said. “On the other hand, it’s a major victory for Palestinian diplomacy and all those who are opposed to Israel’s policy of settlement construction.” Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh praised the UN move as a “step towards exposing settlements and attempts to legalize them.” He called on the companies listed in the report to immediately close their offices and branches in “illegal settlements, whose existence violates international laws and UN resolutions.” The PA, Shtayyeh said, “will pursue the companies mentioned in the report legally through international legal institutions and courts for their participation in violating human rights.” The PA will also demand compensation from these companies, he added. Shtayyeh said that the PA government was prepared to study the possibility of transferring the businesses to Palestinians cities and villages “if their managers wish to correct their deeds.” PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi said she “welcomed this positive and overdue step.” In a statement published on Wednesday, Ashrawi said that “publishing the UN database on businesses implicated in the illegal activities of Israel’s settlement regime is an important step towards accountability and respect for Palestinian human rights.” The database, she said, “is the product of a thorough examination of the facts. It exposes companies implicated in grave breaches of the law and Palestinian rights regardless of nationality or ethnic and religious background.” PLO Secretary-General Saeb Erekat thanked the UN Human Rights Commissioner Michelle Bachelet “for fulfilling the mandate given by the UN Human Rights Council in 2016 to prepare and release this database.” Erekat said that the announcement “enhances and consolidates the credibility of the Human Rights Council and international organizations in the face of the fierce attack and the intense pressure that the Trump administration places on these institutions to impede the implementation of its legal and humanitarian mandate.” Erekat called on all companies to “end their complicity in the denial of our alienable right to self-determination.” The database, he added, “is the first concrete step towards holding Israel accountable for its illegal colonial-settlement enterprise in over half a century and should serve as a reminder to the international community on the importance of strengthening the tools to implement international law.” The PA’s ruling Fatah faction also welcomed the report and said it would “strengthen the international anti-settlement front.” Fatah spokesman Jamal Nazzal called on the European Union countries to endorse the database “so that everyone would know the identity of those who violate international law.” The Palestine National Council, the legislative body of the PLO, said that the publication of the UN database was “a direct response to attempts s to legalize annexation and occupation, which were endorsed by the Deal of the Century,” reference to US President Donald Trump’s recently unveiled plan for Mideast peace. The council called on all governments linked to companies listed in the UN report to “assume their legal and moral responsibilities by closing the businesses located in settlements.”
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