International opprobrium towards the presence of Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria, commonly known as the West Bank, is discernibly shifting from rhetorical condemnation to economic and legal warfare.<\/p>\n
Three episodes reported during the last week illustrate the trend. On September 26, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) issued<\/a> an updated version of its database \u2014 described by<\/a> Israel as a \u201cblacklist\u201d \u2014 that identifies Israeli and international businesses allegedly \u201cinvolved in certain activities in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory.\u201d On September 28 \u2014 less than a week after The Netherlands\u2019s ban<\/a> on the import of goods from these communities went into effect \u2014 passengers who arrived at Amsterdam\u2019s Schiphol Airport on a flight from Tel Aviv were subjected<\/a> to \u201cintrusive\u201d searches of their baggage by Dutch customs officers. On September 29, three weeks after the British government announced a ban<\/a> joined by 11<\/a> other western states, passengers disembarking a flight from Tel Aviv to the United Kingdom\u2019s Luton Airport similarly reported<\/a> extra screening of their baggage by the UK Border Force.<\/p>\n In addition, at the beginning of September, Luxembourg\u2019s financial authority confirmed<\/a> that it would no longer approve the prospectuses required under EU law to enable the sale of Israel government bonds.<\/p>\n These developments demonstrate that the architecture of sanctions and other punitive measures traditionally aimed at the adversaries of western democracies are now being applied to the State of Israel. Moreover, because supply chains connecting Israel with Judea and Samaria are closely intertwined, tracing a product\u2019s origin to one side of the Green Line is practically impossible, meaning that measures ostensibly designed to affect a narrow set of targets, negatively impact the Israeli economy as a whole.<\/p>\n UN Human Rights Council Expands Database \u2018Blacklist\u2019<\/p>\n Launched in 2016 under Resolution 31\/36<\/a> of the UN\u2019s Human Rights Council \u2014 which during its existence has passed<\/a> 116 resolutions condemning Israel, 16 on Iran, and 13 on Russia \u2014 the database naming companies allegedly involved in activities connected to Israeli communities in the disputed territories has been significantly expanded, with 214 companies now included compared to 158 in 2025.<\/p>\n While the great majority of the companies listed in the database are Israeli, it also includes American and European businesses. Six U.S. companies \u2014 Airbnb Inc., Booking Holdings Inc., Expedia Group Inc., Motorola Solutions Inc., RE\/MAX Holdings Inc., and TripAdvisor Inc. \u2014 have been present since 2020. Two more were added this month: the nonprofits Friends of Ir David and HaYovel.<\/p>\n European Measures Now Given Legal Teeth<\/p>\n The OHCHR database is designed to galvanize both governments and private businesses, but it does not have the force of law underpinning it. This is not the case with the three European countries, two of whom are EU members. In the Dutch<\/a> case, the importation of goods from Judea and Samaria as well as the Golan Heights can result in custodial sentences of up to six years and fines of up to 1.1 million euros. Similarly draconian penalties could be imposed in the United Kingdom once it completes<\/a> the implementation of its ban over the next six to nine months.<\/p>\n In the case of Luxembourg, while no legal penalties are envisaged, preventing the sale of Israel bonds sends the unmistakable signal that the EU is ready to take measures punishing Israel on both sides of the Green Line. This may well encourage EU states hostile to Israel, such as Ireland and Spain, to push for the suspension or revocation of the EU-Israel Association Agreement<\/a> in force since 2000.\u00a0<\/p>\n The U.S. Must Protect American Companies Trading With Israel<\/p>\n The United States should act immediately to stymie economic warfare against Israel, particularly as it negatively impacts American companies, which conduct over $54 billion worth of trade<\/a> with the Jewish state annually.<\/p>\n The Trump administration should tie the payment of $4 billion of arrears to the United Nations to a verifiable end to the OHCHR\u2019s campaign of pressure against Israel. It should also seek to protect U.S. entities from exposure to the campaign, if necessary through reciprocal measures against participating UN entities and foreign governments.<\/p>\n Ben Cohen<\/a>\u00a0is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). For more analysis from the author and FDD, please subscribe\u00a0HERE<\/a>.\u00a0Follow FDD on X\u00a0@FDD<\/a>. Follow Ben on X @BenCohenOpinion<\/a>. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"International opprobrium towards the presence of Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria, commonly known as the West Bank,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-632340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}