The UN Human Rights Council meets in Geneva. Photo: UN official

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations has expressed alarm over reports that United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, is writing to firms regarding the “blacklist” of companies doing business in or with Israeli companies in eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank.

“It is damaging enough that the High Commissioner felt he was required to ‘produce’ this database of enterprises doing business in the settlements,” said Stephen M. Greenberg, Chairman and Malcolm Hoenlein, Executive Vice Chairman/CEO of the Conference, in a statement released on Friday.

“There is no acceptable justification for the High Commissioner to go beyond what is called for in this biased measure,” they said. “Any further action exacerbates the damage already caused by the resolution.”

They said that Al Hussein,  “by informing businesses that they are on the ‘blacklist’… will be complicit in furthering the unacceptable aims of the resolution and promoting the economic warfare waged against Israel by the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.” Hoenlein and Greenberg added that the “grossly discriminatory ‘blacklist’ was compiled through an undisclosed process overseen by the High Commissioner and his staff,” following the passage of “a blatantly anti-Israel resolution” by the Human Rights Council in March 2016.