Jewish National Fund is complicit in West Bank illegal settlement. After Canada, the UK must revoke its charity status

Despite credible allegations of Israel’s war crimes and acts that amount to genocide in Gaza, we have watched in despair at the international community’s inability, or even unwillingness, to prevent the loss of Palestinian life.

No amount of spin can pull the wool over our eyes when evidence of war crimes are beamed directly from Gaza and the West Bank onto our phones, allowing us to see and judge for ourselves what Israel has been doing since it escalated its violent occupation of Palestine.

For many, the initial horror and disgust at the loss of tens of thousands of lives has shifted into feelings of shame and frustration at the role our own government has played as a complicit actor in the genocide, by supplying weapons that Israel uses to wantonly kill Palestinian men, women and children.

The UK’s stance is a far cry from the likes of Slovenia, Ireland, Malta and Spain, who are amongst nine countries that have recognised Palestine this year alone. Even Canada, which by no means has a government sympathetic to Palestinians, said it would pause future arms sales to Israel.   

And now, Canada has gone further. The recent decision by the Canadian Revenue Agency to revoke the Jewish National Fund’s (JNF) charitable status is a symbol of hope that the legal and moral compass of the international community is slowly shifting to recognise the reality of Israeli policies which routinely violate international law.

JNF UK, militias, and illegal settlements

The JNF was founded in 1901 to encourage settler colonialism, decades before the State of Israel even came into existence. It is an international organisation with national chapters for fundraising, like JNF Canada and JNF UK. After years of campaigning and legal work, it was a monumental breakthrough that the Canadian Revenue Authority finally revoked JNF Canada’s charitable status.

Following the decision in Canada, our team at the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) wrote to the Attorney General, Richard Hermer KC, calling on him to instruct the Charity Commission to investigate JNF UK and revoke its charitable status here in the UK, as they did in Canada.

As a UK-registered charity, JNF UK can currently claim UK Gift Aid, meaning UK taxpayer money can currently be used to fund their operations, consolidating British complicity in West Bank violence as well as Gaza.

Our submission demonstrates how JNF UK provides funds to the Israeli military supports illegal settlements in the occupied Palestine territory (oPt), and works with Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael Jewish National Fund (JNF-KKL) in Israel — which has been involved in the ongoing displacement of Palestinians and property theft in the oPt as well as the destruction of the natural environment.

Shockingly, the JNF has even been lauded for their supposedly ‘progressive’ nature. For instance, the JNF’s ‘reforestation’ efforts, including the planting of 240 million trees, have been hailed by some. Still, this praise overlooks the historical context: many of these forests are established on the ruins of destroyed Palestinian villages, such as the Birya Forest, which took the place of six Palestinian villages, one of which was ‘Ayn Zaytun, Spring of Olives, a farming village which was home to over a thousand people.

Even beyond the historical context, this ‘greenwashing’ or ‘green colonialism’ isn’t even positive from an environmental perspective. They are named ‘forests’, but they are actually monoculture tree plantations — non-native pine trees are planted en masse, posing fire risks, destroying biodiversity and uprooting and taking the place of indigenous plants – perhaps slightly too obvious of a metaphor.

So this is what JNF-KKL is doing on the ground in Palestine, but what about JNF UK? From 2015-2018, JNF UK infamously donated over £1,000,000 to HaShomer HaChadash, an organisation that even Israeli newspaper Haaretz once referred to as "Israel’s largest militia".

HaShomer HaChadash conducts "highly securitised activities such as land patrols" in order to ‘guard’ illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank from the indigenous Palestinians that reside there.

The moral argument against this work is self-evident, but the law is with us too. Under the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s Rome statute, Article 25, individuals can be held liable for assisting in the commission of a crime by "providing the means" for the crime’s commission. In 2021, then UN Special Rapporteur on the oPt Micheal Lynk wrote a report to the Human Rights Council concluding that settlements amount to a war crime.

Aptly, soon after Canada’s revocation decision, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) released its advisory opinion, unequivocally obligating States, including the UK, to not render any aid or assistance that perpetuates Israel’s ongoing unlawful occupation of the Palestinian territory.

Violation of UK law?

Of course, as momentous as the ICJ’s ruling was, it was a consolidation of what we already knew.

The international legal community and UN bodies couldn’t be clearer when it comes to Israel’s policies of occupation – forcible transfer, de facto annexation, and failure to protect Palestinians from illegal settler violence are clear violations of its duties as an occupying power.

Even with domestic law, allowing a registered charity like JNF UK to raise funds for organisations involved in illegal settlements may well be in violation of the UK’s own legal standards.

The UK government has long held that settlements are illegal under international law, so supporting such activities through charitable means could contravene both UK charity law and UK foreign policy.

Despite the persistent efforts of civil society to uncover and expose JNF operations in the oPt, the charity continues to operate in the UK, benefitting from Gift Aid under its charitable status.

Our recent letter to the Attorney General comes at a critical juncture — not only following the advisory of the world’s highest court and Canada’s precedent but also amid exponentially escalating settler violence and military raids in the occupied West Bank, which has been silently suffering Israeli brutality whilst all eyes are on the ongoing genocide on Gaza.

Continuing to allow JNF UK to operate as a charity in the UK could undermine the public’s trust in the charity sector altogether.

The government and relevant oversight bodies must ensure that these organisations operate transparently and within the boundaries of the law, safeguarding the UK public from becoming complicit in actions that run counter to British values of freedom and human rights for all.

Tayab Ali is the Director of the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians and a Partner & the Head of International Law at leading London law firm Bindmans LLP.

Follow him on X: @tayab_ali_

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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.