The U.N. human rights office added 61 companies to its Israel-focused business blacklist Friday, a step Israeli diplomats call a one-sided smear with no equal anywhere else.
The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights released its annual update and expanded the database of firms tied to activities in Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem. Five entities came off the list since the prior publication. The roster now covers 214 companies based in 11 countries.
Reporting put major names on the expanded list, including Motorola and travel platforms Airbnb, Booking.com, and Tripadvisor. The firms span Canada, China, France, Germany, Israel, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Israel’s mission to the U.N. in Geneva rejected the whole apparatus as a political weapon aimed at the Jewish state alone.
Diplomats from the Israeli mission said the database was never a neutral human-rights project. They framed it as a singular instrument built to punish one country.
The Israeli mission stated:
"This is a distorted mechanism, created by a deeply flawed body with an automatic majority against Israel. It was established solely to persecute the Jewish state, with no equivalent anywhere else in the world,"
They also called it “a political tool employed by the Office of the High Commissioner to advance a smear campaign against business enterprises that committed no wrongdoing.”
That charge lands harder because the United Nations applies no matching blacklist to other disputed or occupied territories. The mechanism singles out Jewish communities beyond the 1949 armistice lines, which the U.N. labels occupied Palestinian territory, while leaving comparable business activity elsewhere untouched.
U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk cast the update in softer terms. He said the database and report serve as a “reminder to companies that they have human rights responsibilities.”
Türk added that businesses “are expected to conduct due diligence to ensure that they do not become involved in human rights violations or abuses.”
Under the mandate, companies involved in construction, surveillance, demolitions, and destruction of agricultural land in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem are supposed to land on the list. Officials say 381 companies out of 596 reported for potential violations have been reviewed.
Israel’s answer was blunt. The mission argued that “By amplifying and inflating the so-called ‘database,’ OHCHR plays an active role in compounding the discriminatory treatment of Israel among the human rights bodies.”
The database began in 2020 under a U.N. Human Rights Council resolution during the tenure of then-High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet, the former Chilean president. The office was supposed to produce a yearly report. It had updated the list only twice before this latest release.
That spotty record did not stop the office from adding dozens of firms in one stroke. Nor did it soften the economic warning from Jerusalem’s diplomats.
The Israeli mission said deterring companies from working in conflict-affected areas “may in itself promote adverse human rights impacts.” It added: “The stark reality is that the database damages the livelihoods of the population whose rights it ostensibly deems to promote.”
In plain terms, Israel says a list sold as protection ends up harming the very people the U.N. claims to defend, by scaring off investment, jobs, and commerce.
Bachelet’s name resurfaced for another reason. On Sept. 19, 2026, she dropped out of the race for U.N. secretary-general after drawing support from only one of the 15 U.N. Security Council members. The database built on her watch remains a live pressure campaign against Israeli communities and the firms that serve them.
The Human Rights Council has long drawn fire for its fixed voting blocs and its outsized focus on Israel. The business database fits that pattern: a standing mandate, a public shaming list, and no twin project for other territorial disputes around the globe.
Companies now face a choice the U.N. designed for them. Stay active in Judea, Samaria, and eastern Jerusalem and risk the blacklist. Pull back and accept the economic hit the Israeli mission says falls on local livelihoods.
Türk’s office calls that accountability. Israel calls it a smear with a letterhead.
A world body that runs a unique commercial blacklist against the Jewish state is not refereeing human rights. It is picking a side and daring businesses to ignore the cost.
