How the Jewish National Fund helps Israel colonise Palestine

The JNF is one of the oldest key institutions helping Israel to expel the Palestinians from their land.

I was honoured this week to be invited by the Palestinian Return Centre to speak on this panel about the JNF for their third annual Return Week.

I was the first speaker, and gave a brief history of the JNF, as well as a short overview of its ongoing activities in the expulsion of the Palestinians — from all over historic Palestine.

The rest of the panelists gave some very informative updates on the state of the Stop the JNF campaign. The JNF’s UK-based charity listed an income of more than £14 million on its most recent financial statement. The JNF receives generous tax exemptions as a charity in the UK, as well as in several other countries.

You can watch the whole talk in the video above.

Thanks to activist and archivist Andy Simons for brining my attention to the rare “Nachlath Massachusetts” JNF pamphlet from 1944, which I used in my presentation. Please do also read the Joseph Massad article I mentioned about how Israeli claims that Zionism represents “self-determination” for Jewish people are a very modern phenomenon.

More information about the two-page JNF publication is available on rare books websites like this one. I’d be interested to read the whole thing, but meanwhile, here’s the full-res image of the cover I used in my presentation: