The top United Nations investigator on Palestinian human rights is calling for a boycott of all companies linked to settlements in the occupied West Bank. Richard Falk, the special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said firms including Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, Volvo and Caterpillar are complicit in the Israeli occupation.

Richard Falk: “This is an attempt to reach out beyond the intergovernmental and international institutional system. And one of the things that our report recommends is encouragement of the boycott of these named corporations and encouragement of civil society actors to join in that boycott.”

The Obama administration has rejected Falk’s proposal, calling it “irresponsible and unacceptable.”