© JNF
For decades, Jews around the world have cherished the Jewish National Fund's supposedly "charitable" work buying and managing land in Israel. Generations of Jewish children have been encouraged to drop pennies into its iconic blue
collection boxes.
The Fund is held in similar high esteem by western governments, which typically subsidize their citizens' donations to the JNF
by treating them as tax exempt. Meanwhile, international agencies
seek out its advice on environmental and sustainability issues.
But a vote last month by the
JNF's board threatens to unmask the Zionist charity, even to its most faithful supporters. For the first time, the organization has agreed to
publicly allocate funds to expand Israel's illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.$12 million set asideThe JNF has initially set aside nearly $12 million for
what it describes as "land purchases" in the occupied West Bank. In reality, the JNF will be funding the
confiscation and takeover of Palestinian lands by Israel's occupation authorities.
According to
reports, the JNF may ultimately
funnel hundreds of millions of dollars from its reserves into the West Bank in a bid to more than double the size of the settler population there -
from at least 450,000 to one million Jews.Analysts have noted that the
KKL-JNF - as the organization is known in Israel -
is being rapidly reinvented as a "bank" for right-wing politicians. They want to use its enormous reserves to entrench the government's
de facto annexation policy by helping the settlers tighten their hold on the West Bank.
Comment: Meanwhile, in New York: