Aid That Helps Palestinians Perpetuate the Conflict, But Not Peace - by Jonathan Tobin

...By not working to create a sea change within the political culture of the Palestinians or acquiescing to boycotts of some Jews, the well-meaning supporters of Build Israel Palestine are actually doing as much if not more to perpetuate the conflict as those who support the settlements. That’s a hard truth for those who accept the myth that it is the settlements rather than Palestinian intransigence that is the obstacle to peace. But instead of venting their spleen at an organization like the JNF, which does so much to help build and preserve the Jewish state, they need to send a message to their Palestinian partners — who have repeatedly rejected peace offers that would have create a Palestinian state — to look in the mirror when they wonder why the conflict continues.

AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
17 May '16..

The tragic plight of the Palestinians is a staple of modern journalism and, to some extent, the attention paid to the subject is justified. The Palestinians are caught in a century-old conflict in which their national beliefs seem to have left them no option but to carry in with a self-destructive struggle. But though their position is far from ideal, they are the beneficiaries of the sort of international attention that the poor and/or downtrodden caught in equally difficult circumstances might envy. That attention — driven in no small measure by antagonism against Israel and the Jews — has resulted in endless billions being poured into the West Bank and Gaza by foreign donors. But what is generally not known is how much help the Palestinians get by the people so many of them revile: Jews.

As the New York Times reported on Sunday, much the funds for a new project to bring solar polar to Palestinian farmers in the West Bank comes from American Jews. But the Palestinians were very clear about the kind of aid they would accept. They’d accept money from the Jews but only as long as they could prove all those involved in the project had no ties to Jewish settlements in the West Bank. That means that the Jewish National Fund wasn’t welcome to participate even if it was itself a primary funder of an Israeli organization that is also helping the solar project.
Confused? So are those involved if they think their efforts will do much to resolve the conflict, so long as they are catering to Arab sensitivities about which Jews are worthy of helping their struggling communities.

The project is providing $100,000 worth of solar panels that are being provided to 45 farm families in the Jordan Valley village of Auja. Reportedly, this is the first time that a substantial project is being funded by Jews and Muslims in the United States and is being implemented by Israeli and Palestinian members of a technical team. Given the demonstrated inability of the Palestinian Authority that governs Auja to provide services to its people, it is much needed. It’s also being lauded as an example of how such efforts can build a spirit of coexistence between Arabs and Jews that can serve as a foundation for peace.

But it’s a curious kind of coexistence since it is predicated on the Palestinians being supported in their policy of shunning their Jewish neighbors in nearby settlements. Moreover, the Jewish leadership of the Build Israel Palestine group that is sponsoring the idea is supporting this sort of fastidiousness.

The argument for such projects makes sense both in a philanthropic and political sense. Palestinian poverty undermines any hope for the stability of the region. Helping Israel’s neighbors to be able to provide energy or other resources for themselves is also preferable to simply doling out aid, as is the practice of the United Nations Relief Works Agency. UNRWA, the UN’s agency that is solely devoted to the Palestinians (one other UN group provides for all of the rest of the refugees in the world) pours large amounts of money into the decades-old refugee camps, but does nothing to resettle Palestinians or to provide sustenance that enables them to do anything but to wait and plot Israel’s destruction.

Huberman: What about JNF land in 'Arab' areas?

Bataween
Point of No Return
13 June '11

http://jewishrefugees.blogspot.com/2011/06/what-about-jnf-land-in-arab-areas.html


Although some British community leaders deny it, David Cameron's resignation as Jewish National Fund honorary patron is the result of an insiduous Palestinian campaign of delegitimisation. But is the JNF, once a pillar of the Israeli establishment, doing enough to put its case? It's time to turn the tables and talk about the JNF land seized and squatted on by Arabs, says Michelle Huberman in her Jerusalem Post blog, Clash of Cultures:

Whilst the pro-Palestinian campaigners celebrate David Cameron stepping down as Honorary Patron of the JNF, our Jewish leaders here in the UK (thankfully with the exception of Harvey Rose of the ZF) seem to be excusing his actions rather than condemning them. Leading the choir is Mick Davis, the controversial UJIA chairman who asserts: "Whatever the reasons David Cameron may have for stepping down as patron of the JNF, I have no doubt he has not responded to pressure from anti-Israel groups and there is no basis for this assertion."

Has Mick Davies not seen the StoptheJNF campaign? This movement has been working relentlessly to delegitimise the JNF. They have a very polished operation and no doubt see Cameron’s actions as a victory for their struggle.

David Cameron is a great orator, and he gave a marvelous speech defending the Jewish community at a recent CST dinner, however before leaders sing his praise they should not forget that our British leader plays to his audience. It was not so long ago when he was in Turkey with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that he was describing Gaza as prison camp and that the Israeli defensive attack on the Gaza flotilla was completely unacceptable.

The Jewish community in London expect the leaders of the main Jewish charities to speak out in defense of the JNF. This charity is embedded in our hearts, and we have memories of putting our spare change in blue boxes in our parents' and grandparents' homes and saving up to buy trees in Israel.

As Samuel Hayek, the chairman of JNF UK stated: “The lack of vocal support for Israel on this issue from leaders of Anglo-Jewry has been deafening.” Earlier in the year he took the brave decision to withdraw the JNF from the Jewish Leadership council, an unelected body that has now “shifted significantly” towards foreign affairs and the actions of the Israeli government.

But are the JNF putting their case over well enough? How many people know that the JNF lays claim to 73,974 dunams in southern Syria (Jewish Property Claims against Arab Countries, by Michael Fischbach p36)? The earliest purchase was made in the 1880s when it was under Ottoman rule. Surely they should have been demanding compensation from the Syrian government? Maybe if this had come to public attention, it could have been negotiated for the Palestinian refugees that the Syrian government have allowed to fester and more recently mobilised to storm Israel's borders.

The same in Lebanon: 4,000 dunams. Originally purchased by the Palestine Israel Colonisation Association (PICA) and later transferred to the JNF. This could also have been negotiated.

Where is the outcry when Arabs build illegally on JNF-owned land? There is an extremely tangled web of Jewish ownership in Arab areas. There are hundreds of thousands of Arab squatters in 'Arab east Jerusalem' who live on land still owned by the Jewish National Fund. The JNF purchased hundreds of individual parcels of land in and around Jerusalem during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. Some ended up under Jordanian control. In 1948, on one of these parcels the UN built the Kalandia refugee camp, seizing the land without permission from the owners, the JNF.

As Gil Zohar explained in his 2007 Jerusalem Post piece other parcels of land in 'Arab' east Jerusalem were cut off from their Iraqi and Iranian Jewish owners after they came under Jordanian rule. In total 145,976 dunams of Jewish land is said to have come under Jordanian control. (Jewish property claims against Arab countries by Michael Fischbach, p 85).

Another 16,684.421 dunams of Jewish land in the rural West Bank - including the Gush Etzion settlements, land between Nablus, Jenin and Tulkarm, and in Bethlehem and Hebron - were seized by the Jordanians after 1948.

The Palestinians lament that JNF trees have been planted on the site of 400 villages, but Jews have been evicted from every city in the Arab world, their synagogues abandoned, their cemeteries bulldozed and their property seized – amounting to losses 50 percent greater than Palestinian. These Jews were loyal citizens and non-combatants, hundreds of miles away from the war in Palestine.

Now that Bibi has finally spoken about the Jewish refugees from Arab lands, maybe he will start to talk about the actual losses in monetary terms?

Read article in full

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Address by PM Netanyahu at the JNF Conference [Important policy remarks]

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
29 March '11




- Marshall Plan for Egypt and Jordan
- Sanctions against Iran
- International community make clear to Egypt that must honor commitments to
Israel
- Peace with security and recognition

[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA: it must be recognized that there is absolutely no way to insure that a long-term military presence along the Jordan River can be assured in the absence of a civilian presence there.

In the absence of a civilian presence there are many ways to "nickel and dime" down the military presence over time.

Add to that that in a hostile international environment exploited by our enemies it would be possible to neutralize the force with a deluge of Arab civilians supported by live camera feeds.

But: Keep Israeli civilians along the Jordan River and the narrative changes.Instead of a photogenic march of Arabs engaged in "civil disobedience" facing Israeli soldiers we have a sea of Arabs threatening the lives of equally photogenic Israeli civilians with Israeli security forces having no choice but to do everything necessary to defend the lives of the Israeli civilians.

Cynical?

Perhaps.

But this is not the time to be naïve.]

Address by PM Netanyahu at the JNF Conference
PMO 28/03/2011
http://www.pmo.gov.il/PMOEng/Communication/PMSpeaks/speechkkl280311.htm

I want to welcome all of you. My friend Efi Shtentzler, Chairman of the World Keren Hakayemet, JNF, Ms. Yael Shaltieli, the CEO, the board of directors, the JNF presidents worldwide, and distinguished ambassadors who are with us today.

We had a forest fire a few months ago in the Carmel and I knew I could rely on JNF to shoulder its part of the burden, and I'm glad that you raised I think about ten million dollars, is that right? Congratulations, Mazal Tov, for the great project of reforestation. I also saw JNF volunteers during the fire itself, and this is one of the activities that JNF has been doing for so many decades, before the State of Israel and after the State of Israel, before the forest fires, during the forest fires and after the forest fires.

Now, we face other conflagrations and other convulsions. In fact, we're going through a period of turmoil that can only be called historic. It is akin to the great revolutions that have taken place in modern times, but the question is which revolution is it. Is it 1989 in Europe? Or is it 1979 in Tehran? Or is it 2005, the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon?

Israel's Unwavering Guardsmen

Caroline Glick
Carolineglick.com
26 March '10

As the local and international press corps converged on Jerusalem's Old City to cover the Arab riots at the Temple Mount two weeks ago, little mention was made of the fact that Jerusalem was not the only flashpoint. In Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Israeli Arab rioters supported by far-left protesters stoned buses. Israeli Arabs firebombed motorists on Highway 443 and on the roads to Beersheba. In the North, cars were stoned.

These little-reported attacks are the consequence of one of the most dangerous emerging threats to Israel's national survival: the rapidly escalating radicalization of Israel's Arab citizens.

Over the past decade and at a frenzied pace since the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, acting at least partially at the direction of the Israeli Islamic Movement and with the active support of the far left, Israeli Arabs and Beduin have launched a massive assault on the state. The relevant national authorities including the courts, the state prosecution, the police, the IDF, the Jewish National Fund, the Israel Lands Authority and the Ministry of Interior have failed to defend against it.

Firebombing Jewish-owned vehicles is small potatoes in comparison to developments at the center of mass of the Israeli Arab onslaught: state land. Over the past decade, Israeli Arabs have seized millions of dunams of state land.

The dimensions of this phenomenon were spelled out in last year's State Comptroller's Report. While the local and international Left pillories Israel when the state tries to demolish a handful of the thousands of illegal Arab buildings in Jerusalem, what goes unmentioned is that by the end of 2007 there were more than 100,000 illegally built structures in Israel. The overwhelming majority were constructed on state land seized by Arab land thieves in the Negev and the Galilee. By the end of 2009, the number of illegal buildings grew to an estimated 150,000. The scope of the theft is so vast that the Comptroller's Report referred to it as a "national scourge."

(Read full article)

If you were inspired by the story of the New Israeli Guardsmen (Hashomer Hahadash) and would like to support their efforts, here is the information you need to contribute.
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A new Palestinian city takes root - with JNF trees

Eli Ashkenazi
Haaretz
29 November 09

(See ZOA response below)

Hirui Amara excitedly held a bunch of pine seedlings and was quick to dip their soft roots in a bucket of water. Several seconds later he was next to an elderly man, and helped him plant one of the seedlings.

This was the end of an exciting day for Amara, who heads a Jewish National Fund greenhouse at Golani Junction.

Amara and five other JNF employees took part, 10 days ago, in an extraordinary project that involves the JNF assisting in planting trees in the area where a new Palestinian city, Ruwabi, is scheduled to be built north of Ramallah. The name means "City of Hills."

As a first step, the JNF contributed 3,000 tree seedlings for planting in what is meant to be a forested area on the edges of the new city. At the same time, the forestry experts of the JNF have been advising the city planners on the matter.

Suhil Zaydan, one of the JNF's forestry managers, is serving as liaison between the organization and the city planers.

"There have been a number of meetings, both at the location where the city will be built and also at the JNF greenhouses," he says. "We have contributed with our know-how, by advising on how to prepare the ground for the planting and how public gardens should be planned, as well as the best times for planting, and what kinds of trees it is preferable to plant. We did not talk about politics and we shall not talk about it - we deal with trees and understand forestry, botany and greenhouses."

The ambitious project of building a city from scratch has drawn an estimated investment of $800 million, mostly from Palestinian and Qatari sources.

The plan is for 6,000 housing units over a 6,300 dunam area that is supposed to provide housing for nearly 40,000 people and employ some 10,000 Palestinian workers. The project is aimed at the Palestinian middle class. (Full article)

Click here "ZOA Criticizes J.N.F. For Donating 3,000 Trees To Palestinian Authority"

Gary N. was kind enough to send me JNF's reply to his query.

"Shalom Yosef,

This is JNF's (Jewish National Fund (Hebrew: קרן קימת לישראל, Keren Kayemet LeYisrael) reply to my query about their tree donation: "I hope this well help clarify. None of the trees bought by JNF-KKL donors were used for this purpose. KKL grows approximately three million saplings a year; less than one million are bought by donors worldwide. These saplings came from a stock that KKL utilizes for international forestry and related projects. KKL was appointed national foresters by the Israeli government. As such, we work with many countries together with the U.S. Forest Service in their international forestry department, the Canadian Forest Service, the Australian Forest Service, and many others, and we a proud member of the International Arid Lands Consortium. We have worked with Rwanda, Indonesia, E. Timor, Jordan, just to name a few countries, sharing our expertise with them and teaching them how to cultivate and care for the land. We hope to always be able to share our knowledge with the world for positive uses.Beyond tree planting, our priorities are focused on building new lives for Gaza evacuees, building the Negev for tomorrow’s generations, and finding answers to the drought in Israel. For these and many other reasons, JNF is the central address for connecting to Israel."

Regards, xxxx xxxxxxx,

Assistant Marketing Manager,
Jewish National Fund.

Sorry, This does not satisfy me, at all.
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ZOA Criticizes J.N.F. For Donating 3,000 Trees To Palestinian Authority

30 November 09

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has criticized the Jewish National Fund (JNF) following reports that the organization, established by Jews and for Jews to rebuild Jewish national life in the biblical home of the Jewish people, has donated 3,000 trees to the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority (PA) of Mahmoud Abbas for a new city near Ramallah.

Benny Kashriel, the mayor of Maaleh Adumim who also is a member of the JNF board, said today that he will raise the JNF decision with the JNF board. The JNF, a time-honored symbol of Zionism, has for decades received literally billions of dollars from Jews in the Diaspora for planting trees and building the modern Jewish State. Kashriel said the contribution to the PA is a grave step that was taken without any request for approval and without advance notice and reflects a “system that has gone haywire … The country has gone crazy when it plants trees for the PA in Judea and Samaria at the same time that it forbids Jews to build. The system does not know who it is representing – us, the Palestinian Authority or the Americans?” (Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu, ‘JNF Donates 3,000 Trees to Palestinian Authority,’ Israel National News, November 30, 2009).

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “We are deeply critical and indeed shocked by the decision of the JNF to donate thousands of trees, grown with money donated by Jews from around the world, to the PA. The PA is a terror-promoting entity controlled by Abbas’ Fatah, which demonstrated only in August at its Bethlehem conference that it does not accept Israel as a Jewish state, does not support a peace agreement that closes the conflict and engages in, indoctrinates for and glorifies terrorism against Jews. At this conference, Fatah honored terrorists, including Khaled Abu-Isbah and Dalal Mughrabi, responsible for the 1978 coastal road bus hijacking, in which 37 Israelis, including 12 children, were slaughtered.

“Has it really come to this, that a venerable Zionist organization with only one purpose – the up-building of a sovereign Jewish national existence, takes money from Jews and then uses these funds to make a gift of trees to Israel’s unreconstructed enemies?

“If JNF is to retain the confidence of American and world Jewry as to its dedicated purpose of building up the Jewish state of Israel, it is vital that the JNF publicly acknowledge its error and apologize for this clear misuse of funds it has raised. For the JNF to do otherwise would be to raise money from world Jewry under false pretences. It is vital that JNF never repeat this decision.”

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(For those of you who find this deeply disturbing, the following contact information should be put to good use)

Tree Certificates, Products,
Donations:

Inquiries: customerservice@jnf.org
To order: orders@jnf.org
By phone: 800-542-TREE (8733)
By mail: Jewish National Fund,
78 Randall Ave, Rockville Centre, NY 11570

Planned Giving (Bequests, Annuities, etc.):

Email: plannedgiving@jnf.org

Travel & Tours:

Email: travel@jnf.org
Phone: (877) JNF-TOUR (563-8687)

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Regional Offices:

Phone: (888) JNF-0099
Email and Address: Visit our local office pages for this information

General Inquiries:

Email: communications@jnf.org
Phone: (888) JNF-0099
Address: JNF National Headquarters
42 East 69th Street
New York, NY 10021
USA