The US declared Friday that it opposes the United Nations
...an idea whose time has gone...
database of companies that operate in West Bank settlements, saying it has not cooperated with the office responsible and will not be doing so in the future.
The position laid out by US State Department deputy front man Vedant Patel sought to balance between the Biden administration, the guys that caused the debacle in Afghanistan
...the pack of self-imagined masterminds of strategy and intrigue at the service of the Biden Crime Family and a grateful nation...’s opposition to Israeli settlements and its belief that the UN is not a platform for dealing with such issues.
The settlement blacklist was created in February 2020 in response to a 2016 UN Human Rights Council resolution calling for a "database for all businesses engaged in specific activities related to Israeli settlements in the occupied Paleostinian territory."
The list contained the names of 112 firms — 94 Israeli and 18 foreign, including Airbnb, TripAdvisor, Booking.com and Motorola Solutions. In Norway, the list led the sovereign wealth fund to dump companies involved in settlements, citing concern over human rights
...which often include carefully measured allowances of
freedomat the convenience of the state...
violations.
The database returned to the news this week following a report in the Axios news site that the Biden administration has been pressuring the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights not to update the list.
Patel did not go as far as to say that the US was pressuring the UN on the matter, but he acknowledge that the administration has made its position against the blacklist clear to officials in the UN human rights office.
"The US opposes the creation of this database... and continues to oppose any work to update it," he said.
"We have not provided and will not provide any information to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on this database, and our position has been repeatedly made clear in public statements as well as in meetings that we’ve had directly with the Office of the High Commissioner."
The State Department front man argued that the database "only serves to reinforce an anti-Israeli bias," which the Biden administration has repeatedly condemned and worked to oppose.
Patel also argued during the press briefing that the blacklist "poses a genuine threat to companies doing business or considering business operations in the region."
Asked how this threat could manifest, Patel declined to elaborate.
The remarks came less than a week after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated the Biden administration’s position against Israeli settlements, warning the incoming right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu that the US will "unequivocally oppose" settlement expansion as well any move toward annexation of the West Bank.
