I am writing to you as a director of the Charity Commission. There is a major scandal brewing concerning the Charity Commission and I assume that you know little or nothing about it, or you would have acted. The Board of the Charity Commission has the duty of protecting its reputation and integrity. All UK charities in the UK are obliged to be for the public good. The Jewish National Fund Charitable Trust is racist, complicit in ethnic cleansing and is allied with those evicting the Sumarin family from their home in illegally occupied East Jerusalem. It is not for the public good. The Charity Commission has been failing in its statutory duty of oversight.
Briefly – other materials are availablei.
1. The Jewish National Fund CT is not independent of the Jewish National Fund in Israel (KKL) The agreements between the JNFCT and the KKLii were known to the Charity Commission, but they were hidden from the public. (The Charity Commission even refused to say whether they had a copy.) The Jewish National Fund CT does not even own its own name. It uses it on lease from the KKL. See below or https://youtu.be/VgILRxYyYgU In the agreement between the JNFCT and the JNF/KKL, they agree to work together to find suitable projects for the JNFCT to fund. All the monies raised in the UK by the JNFCT for Israel pass through the accounts of the KKL.In the agreement between the JNFCT and the JNF/KKL, they agree to work together to find suitable projects for the JNFCT to fund. All the monies raised in the UK by the JNFCT for Israel pass through the accounts of the KKL.
2. The JNF in Israel (KKL) is openly racist and has stated as much in an Israeli court. “The JNF is not and cannot be loyal to the entire Israeli public. The JNF’s loyalty is reserved for the Jewish people alone – for whom it was established and for whom it acts. […] The JNF will argue that it bears no duty to allocate its land to non-Jews. To the extent the matter concerns JNF land, it will lead not only to interference with and disruption of the order of the JNF’s activities and tasks, but will negate entirely its unique function as the owner of the eternal property of the Jewish People.”iii The Racism of the JNF/KKL should preclude any links with a British Charity.
3. The JNF UK created the British Park on the ruins of the village of Ajjur (and others). When the owners of the land raised the issue with the Charity Commission, their solicitor said “It may be that Ms Al Ajarma and her family have legal rights that have been breached by the actions of the Jewish National Fund” but they had no right to question the status of the JNFCT.
4. The JNFCT openly stated in 2014 that it spent £114,000 on the Gaza war effort. When the Charity Commission was asked about this it has refused to comment. It also refused to say how many other charities have supported foreign wars.
5. The Jewish National Fund (KKL) is working through its wholy owned subsidiary, Himanuta, with ELAD to evict the Sumarin family from their home in East Jerusalem. ELAD is the settler movement funded by Roman Abramovich to the tune of $100million which featured in the BBC film.iv
This issue will not go away. The issue is drifting into the court of public opinion and into parliament.v
I ask you to draw this issue to the other members of the board, and remove the JNFCT from the list of charities.
I feel that I must explain why I have signed this petition.
My connection to the Jewish National Fund goes back to my early childhood, to the blue box in my parents’ house. From the time I could speak for myself at the age of 10 or 11, I went about collecting contributions and counting coins from the homes on my collection route in Copenhagen. As public servant, Chief Rabbi [of Norway], and as a Member of Knesset in the Government of Israel, I have appeared countless times at KKL-JNF events. I have done so with pleasure and inner conviction in the justice of the JNF’s goals.
When I learned the details of the case of the Sumarin family, involving the trampling of their dignity and security as a result of actions taken by the KKL-JNF in the name of the Jewish people, I could not remain silent.
Amal Sumarin and her granddaughter. The illegitimate use of the Absentee Property law, which was later corrected—and justifiably so, and the injustice which has been done to the family, under the pretext of law, cries out to heaven. There is no question here of right or left, religious or secular. Our existence here in the land must be grounded in integrity, justice and fairness towards all residents, Jews and Arabs alike. Even KKL-JNF itself recognized [in the past] the problematic nature and injustice in this case, and ceased the efforts to evict the family.
I rely on you to do the right thing and not cause the friends of KKL-JNF to be offended by it and its practices.
If you permit me, I will remind you that at the end of the laws of the sabbatical year (Shmita) in the Torah, God says to the children of Israel that in the last analysis “the land is Mine”; “ you are but strangers resident with Me”. We here are subject to systems of just law and we are temporary residents on this earth. “Zion shall be redeemed through justice, and those who return unto her with righteousness”. If we do not follow these standards then we are not worthy to redeem Zion.
In friendship and respect,
Michael Melchior.
Rabbi Michael Melchior is an internationally renowned Jewish leader, thinker and activist. He has served as Chief Rabbi of Norway, and has been living in Jerusalem since the 1980’s. He served as a Member of Knesset, a Cabinet Minister, and was the founding chairman of Birthright Israel. He works to bring together religious leaders to work towards peaceful solutions to the conflicts in the Middle East, and is the founder and chairman of several organizations that work to facilitate social change for a shared and sustainable democratic society in Israel.
Two days ago settlers destroyed 36 Olive trees near Nablus
Two days ago a group of illegal Israeli settlers crept into olive groves in the village of Burin near Nablus. There they destroyed 36 mature olive trees.
This is a tiny part of the day to day reality of the illegal occupation of the West Bank by Israel.
Five years ago the Ecologist reported “During the last few years, Palestinian olive trees – a universal symbol of life and peace – have been systematically destroyed by Israeli settlers.
“It has reached a crescendo”, stated a spokeswoman for Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights organization monitoring incidents in the West Bank. “What might look like ad hoc violence is actually a tool the settlers are using to push back Palestinian farmers from their own land.”
Over the past fifty years, over a million olive trees have been destroyed, the main means of rural survival. A year ago, the Israeli Human Rights Organisation B’Tselem reported that between May 1 and July 7 , more than 2000 trees including fruit trees, olive trees and grape vines, belonging to Palestinians, have been destroyed. Some of these Olive groves have been continuously tended for over a thousand years.
In Palestine the dispossession of the indigenous people is not driven by greed. It is driven by nationalism. Israel wants to build a state throughout historic Palestine for Jewish people alone.
Israel was established on Palestinian land and has continued to take more land by expanding settlements and push Palestinians into ever smaller enclaves, much like the South African Bantustans.
Israeli policies are driven not by Judaism but by the politics of Zionism, a form of settler colonialism, that believes in privileging the position of one ethnic group over another. If we wish to live in a world free of racism, part of the struggle is to support the Palestinians.
