On Tuesday 27th April, the New York based Human Rights Watch declared that Israel’s rule over the Palestinians constitutes the crime of apartheid, a crime of the highest order. The criminality applies both at the collective level (to the state of Israel) and to named individuals within that state for their role in the crime.
Significantly, the report acknowledges the Jewish National Fund’s (JNF) central role in Israel’s system of apartheid.
The report notes how “semi-governmental bodies like the JNF, Jewish Agency, and WZO that serve the Jewish community and no other constituency” ensure Palestinians are excluded from land in Israel.
Moreover, the report analyses the JNF’s contemporary role in advancing the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem.
The JNF is a racist organisation, which is complicit in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, both during the Nakba of 1948, and with the land seizures and house demolitions that have continued relentlessly.
The JNF established the British Park on three destroyed and ethnically cleansed Palestinian villages. It is active in the destruction of Palestinians villages like Umm al Hiran, replaced by an exclusively Jewish village, and Al Araqib, destroyed 185 times to make way for a JNF ‘forest’.
Despite this, the JNF’s UK branch is a registered charity.
Defining Israel as a state practising apartheid brings responsibilities for the international community to end their complicity. This includes the removal of the JNF UK’s charitable status.
Find out more about the role of the JNF by coming to the meeting with Illan Pappe on Saturday 8th May.