The Jewish National Fund (JNF) is an internationally
recognized charitable organization that has the privilege
of issuing charitable tax receipts in the United States,
Canada and many other countries.
The JNF frequently honours distinguished members
of the community at its fund-raising dinners and it has
raised many millions of dollars for projects in Israel.
For example, the president of the University of Western
Ontario in London, Ontario, Paul Davenport, has recently
accepted an award from the JNF. However, 36 members
of the University of Western Ontario faculty signed a
protest letter condemning the JNF as a racist organization
and arguing that the University was being used to promote
the JNF and its discriminatory practices and that the
honour should be rejected.
It is the opinion of many individuals, including many Jews,
that the JNF is a racist organization that discriminates
against non-Jews. For example, there is a letter signed
by two Jewish organizations and 34 individual Jewish
signatories protesting a JNF event being held at Windsor
Castle to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the
founding of the state of Israel. Israeli Uri Davis's book,
Israel: An Apartheid State, details the discriminatory
policies of the JNF and many other Israeli practices that
discriminate against non-Jews.
The JNF was also used to cover up the ethnic cleansing and
destruction of three Palestinian villages in 1968. In the place
of these villages "Canada Park" was created by the JNF,
subsidized by the Canadian taxpayer. A CBC Fifth Estate
program, entitled "A Park with no Peace," about the JNF
and Canada Park was broadcast on October 21, 1991. This
program interviewed eyewitnesses and documented the
war crimes committed by Israel and how the JNF was used
to cover up those crimes.
In 1995 an Israeli Arab couple, the Kadans, tried to buy an
apartment on land owned by the JNF. For a decade the
JNF and the Israeli Lands Authority refused to lease this
"Jewish" land to these non-Jews. They took their case to
court. Eventually the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that
state land could not be sold to Jews only.
Unfortunately 93 per cent of the land in Israel is governed
by this racist criteria of excluding non-Jews. This Israeli
Supreme Court ruling caused huge embarrassment among
supporters of Israel worldwide. Many Jews asked how could
Jews protest against anti-Semitism when condoning
blatantly racist practices in Israel?
The JNF's bylaws and operations were deemed to
represent racial discrimination by the United Nations
Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights in
1998. To quote the UN Committee:
"The Committee notes with grave concern that
the Status Law of 1952 authorizes the World
Zionist Organization/Jewish Agency and its
subsidiaries including the Jewish National
Fund to control most of the land in Israel,
since these institutions are chartered to
benefit Jews exclusively. Despite the fact
that the institutions are chartered under
private law, the State of Israel nevertheless
has a decisive influence on their policies and
thus remains responsible for their activities.
A State Party cannot divest itself of its
obligations under the Covenant by privatizing
governmental functions. The Committee takes
the view that large-scale and systematic
confiscation of Palestinian land and property
by the State and the transfer of that property
to these agencies, constitute an institutionalized
form of discrimination because these agencies by
definition would deny the use of these properties
by non-Jews. Thus, these practices constitute a
breach of Israel's obligations under the Covenant."
Former Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem, Meron Benvenisti, wrote
in the Israeli daily Ha'aretz on June 29, 2006, "It's well known
that the 'national institutions' - the Jewish Agency and Jewish
National Fund - primarily exist to enable institutional
discrimination based on ethnicity while clearing the state
from accusations that it deviates from universal norms
common to liberal democracies."
To avoid overturning the practice held to be racist, the
JNF adopted policies to circumvent the law. Benvenisti
wrote, "A classic example is the High Court of Justice's
decision regarding the Kada'an family, which was
perceived at the time as dealing for the first time with
the principle of equality, confronting the Zionist principle
of 'redeeming the land,' and presenting a victory of
democracy over the apartheid inherent to the national
institutions' land distribution policies. Those institutions
quickly learned how to 'minimize the damage' and
continue with their discriminatory policy."
Israeli Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, in early 2005,
also forbade the JNF from issuing tenders for Jews only.
To quote Benvenisti, "And once again, a way was found to
circumvent the decision through 'land swaps,' which only
strengthened the JNF as a discriminatory institution with
racist policies." The JNF refused to obey the Israeli
Supreme Court ruling and continued the discriminatory
practice with the Israeli state authorities refusing to
enforce the ruling of their highest court.
The JNF launched a campaign to reverse the court's decision.
In 2007 a JNF Bill was introduced into the Knesset, to
continue the discriminatory practice, which passed on the
first reading by a vote of 64 to 16. The implications are
quite clear. If Israel is a "Jewish state" then it cannot be
a state of all its citizens who have equal rights. In Israel
25 per cent of the population is non-Jewish and is severely
discriminated against and denied basic democratic and
social rights.
The late and prominent member of the Canadian Jewish
community, Bernard Wolfe, who I had the privilege of
knowing, decided to challenge the restrictive convent that
barred Jews, Catholics and Blacks from living in the
Beaches Pines resort in Grand Bend, Ontario. As a
result of this legal challenge, and others, restrictive
covenants that barred individuals on the basis of race
or religion from owning land have been declared racist
and illegal in Canada.
Would prominent members of the community accept an
award from the South African apartheid state or the
Klu Klux Klan that discriminated against Blacks? Would
they accept an award from an organization that
discriminated against Jews? I hope that they would not
accept such a dubious honor. Yet many prominent
individuals accept an award from an organization that
discriminates against Muslims and Christian Palestinians,
and members of all other religions except Judaism. The
JNF also excludes from its lands in Israel and the Occupied
Territories any other race or ethnic group except those
individuals whose mother was Jewish.
The questions that must be asked are: why does the JNF
have charitable status? And, why do many members of the
community accept an award from an organization that, in
the opinion of many, is racist?
Edward C. Corrigan is a lawyer certified as a Specialist in
Citizenship and Immigration Law and Immigration and
Refugee Protection by the Law Society of Upper
Canada in London, Ontario, Canada. He can be reached
at corriganlaw@edcorrigan.ca.
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