The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is preparing a blacklist of Israeli companies working in the illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, an Israeli newspaper reported on Tuesday. According to Israel Hayom, the list is an initiative “prompted” by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and is scheduled to be released later this year.

Former UN Special Rapporteur in the occupied Palestinian territories, Richard Falk, is said to have come up with this idea six years ago when he was in office. Describing him as a “known BDS activist”, the newspaper said that Falk now has the support of a number of Arab states.

Pro-settlement group NGO Monitor has written to the UN claiming that such a list “would be a violation of international law” as it would target “Jewish-owned” companies. This, it argues, violates the UNHRC’s own guidelines against discrimination based on national origin.

BDS is an international initiative of Palestinians living under Israel’s brutal military occupation. It is an entirely peaceful movement which has spread across the world and discourages commercial and cultural trade with Israel and those companies which benefit from the occupation.

Interestingly, the Israel Hayom article does not mention the word “occupation” at all. It refers instead to companies “operating beyond the Green [1949 Armistice] Line” in “Judea and Samaria”, the Zionist term for the occupied West Bank.