Mar 30, 2013
30 March 2013
Stop the JNF UK
On 30 March 1976, thousands of Palestinians living as a minority in Israel mounted a general strike and organised protests against Israeli government plans to expropriate almost 15,000 acres of Palestinian land in the Galilee. The Israeli government, led by prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and defence minister Shimon Peres, sent in the army to break up the general strike. The Israeli army killed six unarmed Palestinians, wounded hundreds and arrested hundreds more, including political activists. All were citizens of Israel.
Palestinians who were internally displaced or managed to remain in their homes during the Zionist ethnic cleansing of 1948 were given citizenship of Israel but kept under military rule until 1966. During those years expropriation of Palestinian land accelerated and Jewish settlement building increased while the Israeli government crushed political organisation and resistance by Palestinians, now a minority on their own land.
On what became known as Land Day, 30th March 1976 was the first time since 1948 Palestinians inside Israel demonstrated mass resistance against Zionist colonisation and systematic dispossession of Palestinians.
Today, Palestinians are 20% of the population of Israel and they, together with Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, continue to struggle against land expropriation, dispossession and systematic segregation, or apartheid. Until today the Israeli government with the help of Zionist organisations such as the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund (JNF) are working to drive Palestinians from their homes and their land to replace them with Jewish settlers and colonies. The JNF is a racist organisation that is complicit in ethnic cleansing and whose activities are an obstacle to a just peace.
The JNF branch in the UK has registered charity status despite JNF UK aims and activities violating charity law and the public benefit requirement. While we send our greetings of solidarity on Land Day to Palestinians protesting and in struggle against the colonisation and occupation of their lands, it is important we work here to end JNF UK charity status.
Mar 23, 2013
by Susan Landau, Philly BDS
Original posting on Modoweiss
“Ethnic cleansing is a crime – justice now in Palestine!” Chanting with great energy and exuberance, the Philadelphia Coalition for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel (Philly BDS) was once again a colorful and vocal presence in protest at the annual local fundraiser for The Jewish National Fund.
This year’s JNF fundraiser, “March Madness Poker Tournament” was held in the Philadelphia neighborhood of Manayunk on Thursday, March 21. Under the banner “STOP THE JNF’s APARTHEID ROYALE,” members of Philly BDS and allies costumed themselves as playing cards bearing the words “Stop the JNF!” Carrying signs reinforcing their message “Land Theft is not Charity,” protesters positioned themselves strategically on both sides of the driveway entrance to the event. Informational postcards and conversation were available to attendees and passers-by.
The demonstration called attention to the role of the Jewish National Fund in ethnically cleansing indigenous 
Palestinians from their homes. Since 1948, the JNF was re-branded as an environmental organization focused on forestation, while inflicting environmental devastation through fires, bulldozers, and pesticides in order to cover up Palestinian history. Each year, the JNF raises over $60 million in the United States alone. Despite its role in ethnic cleansing and apartheid, the JNF continues to enjoy charitable status.
“Protesting the JNF makes a slam dunk case for apartheid within Israel,” said Nathaniel Miller, longtime activist and founding member of Philly BDS. “Acquiring land and property rights exclusively for Jewish Israelis is an unambiguous example of Israeli apartheid and makes the case for the need to respond to the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. Philly BDS challenges the JNF to end its racist policies. We are committed to ending the occupation, full equality for all people of Israel-Palestine, and the Right of Return for refugees.”
Today’s protest is in support of the international “Stop the JNF” campaign that has been gaining ground in the UK, Europe and elsewhere. “We must work to revoke the tax-exempt charitable status of the JNF,” adds Miller.
The chanting continues non-stop, “Bulldozing homes, stealing land- it’s all part of the JNF plan!”
The Philly BDS consumer boycott targeting Sabra Hummus and Tribe Hummus is directly connected to the JNF. Tribe Hummus is owned by Osem foods, a company that contributes its profits to the Jewish National Fund. Since launching its campaign targeting Sabra Hummus and Tribe Hummus in October 2010, Philly BDS continues to stand for justice with Palestinians by responding to the 2005 Call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel until it meets it obligations under international law.
Mar 23, 2013
In the United States, the Internal Revenue Service (the “IRS”) may grant federal tax-exempt status to certain organizations that are organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes such as, among others, charitable, religious or educational purposes. Just as the IRS grants, so can the IRS take away, or revoke, an organization’s tax-exempt status. Organizations may lose their tax-exempt status for various reasons, including if the organization:
- is not organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes,
- engages in deceptive or improper fundraising practices or
- operates contrary to the United States’ public policy. An organization operates contrary to the United States’ public policy if, for example, the organization’s activities are racially exclusive or discriminatory, increase neighborhood tensions, increase prejudice and discrimination or undermine human and civil rights.
On all of these accounts, the JNF is not an organization that warrants tax-exemption. Yet the JNF raises over $50 million per year in the United States alone and reaps the benefits of a tax-exempt organization. Therefore, Stop the JNF is requesting that the IRS investigate and, based on the existing evidence, revoke the JNF’s charity status.
Complete the petition form below to send a letter to the IRS to help us challenge the JNF’s tax-exempt status in the United States.
You can also download, print this letter and send to the IRS: [wpdm_file id=20]
Download the petition to the IRS: [wpdm_file id=21]
Signature sheets: [wpdm_file id=22]
Note: the letter should be signed by US residents only. To prevent spam you will be asked to confirm your email address before your letter is sent to the IRS.
[emailpetition id=”1″]
Mar 22, 2013
On Thursday 21st March, International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Palestine solidarity activists handed over a copy of the Stop the JNF application to the Charity Commission to remove JNF UK charities from the register.
Liverpool
On Thursday 21st March a delegation of twelve people mostly from Liverpool Friends of Palestine gathered together on Princes’ Parade. Their aim was to hand in a document to the Charity Commission.
Similar delegations were at Charity Commission offices at Taunton, London and Newport.
Newport
Palestine supporters from South Wales presented several petitions to Harry Iles at the Charity Commission offices in Newport on Thursday, as part of a nationwide campaign to call for the racist JNF to have its UK charity status revoked. We were welcomed into the offices by Mr Iles who had been expecting us and invited to state our position. We did so briefly and were told that our submission would be considered by the CC lawyers and that we were welcome to add any further material like JNF fundraising leaflets to our petition if we wanted.
London
Campaigners from various groups, including Jews for Justice for Palestinians and International Anti-Zionist Network stood with the Stop the JNF banner at the London office of the Charity Commission.
Photo (right): Kenneth Dibble, Charity Commission Head of Legal Services, and Nick Allaby, Executive Director came out to receive the Stop the JNF application.
Taunton
They were expecting us! A very helpful security chap let us in and asked us if we were anything to do with the “petition” across the country. Neil Robertson came down from the Charity Commission office to receive our submission.
Photo (above): Neil Robertson of the Charity Commission, Taunton, receives the submission from Sharen Green from Stop the JNF watched by John Burbage
Photo (right): Jean Franklin from Wimborne and John Burbage from Sherborne at the Charity Commission, Taunton.
Mar 22, 2013
MEDIA RELEASE
Israel charity registration shows Charity Commission ‘failed to protect public interest’
22 March 2013
Human rights campaigners have accused the Charity Commission of failing to protect the public interest by allowing the charity status of JNF UK to continue. John Nicholson from the Stop the JNF campaign said that “in a period when we hear almost every day of regulatory bodies being condemned for failing to carry out their core duties, we expect the Charity Commission to take the concerns of British tax payers seriously”.
Nicholson explained that “JNF UK and its charities are involved in the violation of Palestinian rights. Their primary aim is to settle Jews in Israel-Palestine which is not a charitable purpose under British law. Our tax payers money should not be helping the destruction of Palestinian villages and removal of Palestinians from their land so that leisure parks can be built for the state of Israel”.
This is not the first time the JNF has come under fire. Over the years human rights campaigners have made complaints to the Charity Commission about the role of the British branch of the JNF organisation in Israel’s policy of administration of large areas of land and related services for exclusively Jewish use. In 2010, David Cameron resigned as patron of the charity making it the first time for one hundred years that a British Prime Minister has not agreed to lend their support. Last year sixty eight MPs signed an Early Day Motion in Parliament saying that “there is just cause to consider revocation of the JNF’s charitable status in the UK”.
The Charity Commission response has so far been to accept JNF UK’s assertion that they are not part of the JNF organisation based in over fifty countries including Israel. The Stop the JNF application to the Charity Commission for the removal of JNF UK charities from the register of charities, however, exposes the close ideological and partnership links between these organisations. The application also makes the case that it is JNF UK that is guilty of complicity in human rights abuses and of running ‘sham charities’.
To mark International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on Thursday, campaigners handed in the Stop the JNF application to Charity Commission offices in London, Taunton, Newport and Liverpool.
Nicholson said that “the Charity Commission has so far failed to act and failed to protect British tax payers from this abuse of charity law to assist a foreign government, Israel, in the setting up and maintenance of a land management system based on inequality and segregation”.
END
NOTE TO EDITORS
1. The Stop the JNF Campaign is an international campaign aimed at ending the role of the Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemet LeIsrael) (JNF-KKL) in:
– the on-going displacement of indigenous Palestinians from their land
– the theft of their property
– the funding of historic and present day colonies, and
– the destruction of the natural environment.
The Jewish National Fund was established in 1901 by the World Zionist Organisation and mandated to obtain land for the sole use of persons of ‘Jewish faith, race or ancestry’. It was first registered in the UK, and has retained a fundraising and propaganda function in Britain since the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948. Through its landholdings and its influence on the Israel Land Authority, the JNF controls 93% of the land in Israel on which it practices its ethnic exclusion policies.
The JNF continues to serve as a global fundraiser for Israeli ethnic cleansing, occupation and apartheid. Despite its role in a State institution of Israel (the Israel Land Authority) and in institutionalized racism and apartheid, the JNF and its affiliate organisations enjoy charitable status in over 50 countries.
For further information:
uk@stopthejnf.org
07931200361
www.stopthejnf.org.uk
2. Stop the JNF application to the Charity Commission to remove JNF UK charities from the register available to download here.
3. EDM 1677: 68 MPs signed a motion stating “there is just cause to consider revocation of the JNF’s charitable status in the UK”.
Mar 21, 2013
Since 1901 KKL-JNF, known as Jewish National Fund (JNF) in the UK, has worked successfully for the ethnic cleansing of historic Palestine and their project has not been completed. Palestinians continue to resist Israeli occupation, apartheid and colonisation. For most of the time since their founding, the UK branch of KKL-JNF has enjoyed charitable status and the resulting subsidies from British taxpayers. The KKL-JNF branch in Israel functions as an arm of the Israeli State in the enforcement of an apartheid system of land control and population segregation, and has played a major role in the refinement of this system over the years. JNF UK exhibits a large display at the ‘British Park’ in Israel, built on the ethnically cleansed and stolen lands of four destroyed Palestinian villages, boasting that the land is a ‘Gift of the Jewish National Fund of Great Britain’.
Today sees a fresh and determined initiative to strip JNF UK of its charitable status. This effort can succeed with your help, for the JNF UK is vulnerable as never before. Whereas this racist body used to enjoy virtually automatic patronage from the leaders of all three major UK political parties, today Cameron, Clegg and Miliband have each turned their back on this openly racist ‘charity’ as being increasingly impossible to defend. Last year, 68 MPs signed a motion stating “there is just cause to consider revocation of the JNF’s charitable status in the UK”.
The irrefutable case for stripping JNF UK of its charitable status is being presented formally today to Charity Commission offices across England and Wales, in London, Newport, Liverpool and Taunton. A submission to the Scottish Charity Regulators will follow shortly. It is important that many concerned citizens and institutions write to the Charity Commission adding their own and their friends’ voices to the call for the JNF UK to be struck off the charities register as a sham charity.
Today, March 21st, is International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, called by the UN General Assembly in commemoration of the massacre of 69 peaceful protestors in Sharpeville in 1960, 53 years ago today. Sharpeville marked a turning point in the struggle against apartheid South Africa, whose government and institutions found themselves increasingly isolated. Palestinians have suffered almost 100 ‘Sharpevilles’ since October 2000, including 22 ‘Sharpevilles’ of children alone.
Inspired by the South African resistance against apartheid and struggle for freedom, and in response to the Palestinian civil society call for a campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, we call for your participation to help stop JNF UK receiving subsidies from UK taxpayers.
- Go to www.coordin8.org.uk and send a letter to the Charity Commission. Amend the letter provided as you see fit.
- Ask your friends, family and contacts to do the same.
- Join/donate to the Stop the JNF Campaign – we are a volunteer campaign and need your support.
- If you are a member of a trade union, political party or campaign, ask them to endorse the international call for action against the JNF, affiliate to Stop the JNF UK and send a letter to the Charity Commission.
- Order copies of Stop the JNF leaflets and/or invite a speaker to argue the case for stripping the JNF of its status. They will be happy to debate the issue, especially with a JNF UK representative. Download leaflet here: [wpdm_file id=19]
- Mark Land Day (30th March) by placing a Stop the JNF button on your Facebook, website or blog.
- Endorse the Stop the JNF application to the Charity Commission to remove JNF UK charities from the register by emailing uk@stopthejnf.org. View a copy here: [wpdm_file id=18]
30 March 2013
