The European Union of Jewish Students (EUJS) condemns the decision made by The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to release a list of organisations doing business in Israeli settlement areas, acting upon a resolution passed by the Human Rights Council in 2016.

The creation of this blacklist of organisations is unprecedented, signaling support for the Boycott Divest Sanction (BDS) movement, which is – especially for Jewish Students – a dangerous development. Instead of standing for universal human rights, the council, headed by some of the worlds worst tyrants, singles out the world’s only Jewish state, Israel, for biased criticism. This is – also according to the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism, which the council refused to adopt, atisemitism.

EUJS urges the OHCHR to recall and rescind the publication of this list, acknowledging that such a partial, selective and discriminatory “database” does not seek the betterment of human rights, as outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but instead compromises on the universality of the declaration and acts as yet another example of the institutional anti-Israel bias of the UN Human Rights Council.