The Arab Organisation for Human Rights (AOHR) in the UK has accused the Jewish National Fund (JNF), a registered charity, of being involved in activities in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories “which could be classified as war crimes”. There is, claims the AOHR, “accumulated evidence” of such complicity.
“The Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemet LeYisrael) is the financial arm of the Zionist movement established in 1901,” said a statement from the human rights body. “It has been active in stealing Palestinian land under the ‘Absentees Law’ with the help of the British Mandatory government until 1948, and it has continued with the help of the Israeli government ever since.”
During the past 20 years, with the help of Elad, the Israeli settlers’ organisation, the JFN has transferred the ownership of thousands of acres of land and other Palestinian-owned property to illegal settlers in East Jerusalem. “In the 1980s and 1990s, it declared the owners of dozens of Palestinian properties to be ‘absentees’, expelled the residents and confiscated the buildings.”
In the Negev Desert, the JNF is pushing Bedouins to abandon their villages under the pretext of planting trees and nurturing woods. “They are carrying out a plan to evacuate 30,000 Palestinians,” said the AOHR. This plan has been approved by the Israeli government, which wants to clear the so-called “unrecognised” villages. A budget of around £200 million has been allocated for this ethnic cleansing.
