"In what one human-rights activist characterizes as blackmail, the United Nations Human Rights Council is reportedly pressuring a major Israeli telecom to cease operations in disputed areas of the Jewish state or face the possibility of being designated a human-rights abuser.
It's part of a broader effort - referred to as the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement - to chill businesses serving Israelis in West Bank settlements, according to The Washington Free Beacon.
The CEO of Bezeq received a letter from the Human Rights Council, accusing the company of providing services for Israelis in presumably Palestinian territory. Up to 30 U.S. companies were similarly contacted by the council, according to Anne Bayefsky, senior editor of Human Rights Voices.
The council is threatening to add the companies to a database of presumably human-rights-abusing businesses working with Israel.
'The database is to include companies that 'directly or indirectly' are connected to Israeli settlements,' Ms. Bayefsky told The Beacon. 'It is nothing short of an assault on the economic welfare of the state of Israel, period.'
A spokesman for the United States Mission to the United Nations also criticized the database creation and said the U.S. will have no part of it.
Racketeers use business intimidation to achieve their objectives. What's revealed, yet again, is the contemptible, anti-Israel agenda promulgated by the U.N. committee charged principally with the preservation of human rights."