Jewish National Fund

Another Blow Struck Against Canada’s Largest Pro-Israel Charity

November 17, 2024 Anna Lippman, Canadian Dimension. Resist! Canada, Israel, Jewish National Fund, Palestine, Palestine Solidarity

On November 8, another blow was struck against one of Canada’s most prominent Israel-serving charities. In August, the Canada Revenue Agency notified the Jewish National Fund Canada that its charitable status was being revoked due to the organization’s contravention of Canadian charity law. This week, the JNF’s application for a judicial review of the revocation was denied. While this story is far from over, the ruling holds great significance for Palestine solidarity activists in Canada and around the world. Founded in 1968 as the Canadian branch of the Jewish National Fund, JNF Canada is notorious for its role in greenwashing the Israeli occupation and settlement expansion in the West Bank.

Canada Set To Revoke Jewish National Fund’s Charitable Status

July 26, 2024 Yves Engler, Mondoweiss. Resist! Canada, Jewish National Fund, Nonprofits, Zionism

Score a significant victory against apartheid, genocide and Canada’s most significant contribution to Palestinian dispossession. The powerful Jewish National Fund of Canada has reportedly had its charitable status revoked. Under pressure from Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) and others the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) instigated an audit of the JNF in 2018. JNF Canada was eventually forced to differentiate itself from its parent organization in Israel and to stop “co-mingling” its funds with that organization. JNF Canada was also instructed to stop assisting projects in the illegally occupied West Bank and initiatives supporting the Israeli military.

US Supreme Court Rejects Bid To Silence Palestinian Rights Advocacy

January 23, 2024 Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams. Resist! Free Speech, Israel, Jewish National Fund, Palestine, US Supreme Court, Victory

Free speech defenders welcomed the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to take up a lawsuit that outlandishly claimed a civil society group provided "material support" for terrorism by advocating for Palestinian human rights. The Supreme Court's punting of Jewish National Fund v. U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights—which comes over three months into Israel's war on the Gaza Strip—marks the third consecutive time a federal court has dismissed the case, which USCPR said casts "collective activism and expression of solidarity as unlawful." In the case's first dismissal in March 2021, a federal judge said that the plaintiffs' argument was "to say the least, not persuasive."

Protesters Demand Canada Revoke Jewish National Fund’s Charity Status

July 31, 2023 Candice Bodnaruk, Washington Report. Resist! Canada, Israel, Jewish National Fund, Palestine

More than 50 people danced the dabke and flashed peace signs at a peaceful demonstration against the Jewish National Fund (JNF) at the organization’s annual Manitoba fundraising dinner in mid-May. The JNF Canada website states: “JNF Canada envisions a world where Israel’s communities are supported and healthy, and where generous Canadians can help us build strong foundations for Israel to thrive.” JNF acquires and develops land in Israel and the occupied territories used for settlements, illegal under international law. In 1972 JNF Canada raised $15 million to create Canada Park.

How Israel’s Occupation Of Palestine Intensifies Climate Change

February 4, 2022 Jessica Buxbaum, Mintpress News. Resist! Climate Change, Environment, Israel, Jewish National Fund, Palestine

Al-Naqab — On Sunday, roughly 200 activists demonstrated outside Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s office in Jerusalem against the Jewish National Fund’s (JNF) tree-planting project in al-Naqab, maintaining the forestation is an attempt to displace the indigenous Bedouin population. Contracted by the Israeli government, the JNF razed fruit trees and seeded fields in al-Naqab in January to “make the desert bloom” with non-native plants. The purported environmental project has been met with fierce protest from the local villagers, with more than 60 Bedouin arrested in the last few weeks. JNF maintains that its actions in al-Naqab encourage sustainability, but other organizations disagree. The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel took the JNF to the Supreme Court last year after its research found that JNF’s afforestation will harm the area’s biodiversity.

The Jewish National Fund Does Israel’s Dirty Work—Again

January 26, 2022 Nina Felshin and Donna Nevel, Popular Resistance. Resist! Displacement, Jewish National Fund, Occupation, Palestinian rights

The JNF (Jewish National Fund) once again is in the news, this time for collaborating with the State of Israel in dispossessing Palestinian residents of the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. According to a 2010 UN report, this is not the first time Sheikh Jarrah’s residents have been dispossessed and, while illegal under international law, it is not illegal according to Israeli law. It is one more act of brutality, brought to you on a regular basis by Israel and the JNF since 1948. On the evening of January 18, 2022, in Sheikh Jarrah, Israeli police attacked the home of the Salahiya family—a family that was originally displaced by Israel in 1948. The destruction of homes and land in such attacks is executed by the JNF. In the January attack, police arrested Mahmoud Salahiya and his sons and violently removed the rest of the family from their home.

The Jewish National Fund Is Ethnically Cleansing The Naqab

January 12, 2022 Stop The Wall. Educate! colonization, Displacement, Jewish National Fund, Palestine

At dawn today, January 12, 2022, Israeli bulldozers and combat-ready soldiers raided the Palestinian village of Al-Atrash in the Naqab desert in southern 1948 Palestine [present-day Israel]. For the third day in a row, Israeli bulldozers have been bulldozing large swathes of land belonging to Palestinians from the village. The escalated ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Al-Atrash is part of a scheme that is being implemented jointly by both the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and Israel’s Land Authority. As a response to this, Palestinians from Al-Atrash and the surrounding areas have been protesting for three days now in an attempt to stop the seizure of their land.

Federal Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Filed By Jewish National Fund Against Palestinian Group

March 31, 2021 Center for Constitutional Rights. Educate! Israel, Jewish National Fund, Legal System, Palestine

Washington, DC - A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and others against a U.S.-based Palestinian rights organization. The JNF had accused the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) of engaging in “material support for terrorism,” citing their speech and expressive activity, including their support for the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. The JNF—a quasi-state institution in Israel that acquires and administers land for the sole benefit of the Jewish people—also sought to hold the USCPR liable for their participation in the “Stop the JNF” campaign, an advocacy campaign that sought to highlight the JNF’s own unlawful and discriminatory practices.

Jewish National Fund Declares It Will Fund Land Confiscation In The West Bank

March 4, 2021 Stop the JNF. Educate! Jewish National Fund, Land theft, Palestinian rights, West Bank

Last month, for the first time in its long history, the Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF) openly declared that it will fund land confiscation in the West Bank, in defiance of international law. Its board of governors voted through the allocation of NIS 38 million to purchase land to expand Jewish-only settlements. All Israeli settlements, based on stolen Palestinian land in the West Bank, constitute a war crime under international law. Yet the British arm of KKL-JNF, JNF UK, continues to be a registered charity, enjoying tax exemption to raise funds for its parent organisation. This decision is not an aberration, or a reversal of existing JNF policy, but a clear indication that the settlement expansion driven by Israel’s far right government and emboldened by the support it received from the Trump administration, is set to continue, more blatantly than previously.

Palestinian Citizens Of Israel Protest Land Grab In Negev Desert

June 23, 2020 Lubna Masarwa and Mustafa Abu Sneineh, Middle East Monitor. Resist! Israel, Jewish National Fund, Occupation, Palestine

Hundreds of Palestinian citizens of Israel protested on Monday in the Negev region to denounce the Israeli government policy of house demolitions and evacuation orders in the village of Khirbet al-Watan. Marwan Abu Frieh, a coordinator and field researcher for the Adalah human rights centre in Israel, told Middle East Eye that Israel’s Jewish National Fund (JNF) and the Israel Land Authority (ILA) were planning to plant hundreds of trees on lands from five Bedouin villages, including Khirbet al-Watan, which had all received demolition orders and faced the displacement of thousands of residents "in the name of developing the area". Demonstrators started marching from Khirbet al-Watan and ended in front of the courthouse in Beersheba, carrying banners accusing the JNF and ILA of forcible land grabs, displacement of Palestinians and discriminatory practices.

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