Jul 6, 2023
A wave of attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank has been unleashed under Israel’s new far-right government. The attack on the Jenin refugee camp has been the largest military assault in the last 20 years, destroying essential infrastructure, killing 12 people and injuring over 100. Since the beginning of this year, the Israeli military and settlers have killed over 190 Palestinians, including 30 children. The army also colluded in the pogroms carried out by the settlers against the Palestinian villages of Huwara, Ein Samiya, Urif, Masafer Yatta, Sinjil, Umm Safa and Tumus Ayya, aimed at accelerating Israeli colonisation and ethnic cleansing.
In Tumus, the settlers killed Omar, a 27-year-old father of two children; burned 30 homes; 60 cars and 10 acres of agricultural fields. Even as the burnt-out homes and fields of Turmus were still smouldering, the Israeli government announced the construction of a further 5,700 illegal Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank. The Israeli state’s objective is clear: to seize more Palestinian land and remove the inhabitants into tiny enclaves, on the model of South African Bantustans, ultimately seeking their total removal from historic Palestine. The idea of a future Palestinian state, declared Netanyahu at the most recent meeting of his ministers, must be killed and removed from the international agenda.
In the face of escalating Israeli violence and ethnic cleansing, the British government, far from imposing sanctions on Israel, is pressing ahead with legislation that would ban British public bodies from cutting their ties to the Israeli state.
Palestinians continue to resist Israel’s colonial violence, standing strong to defend their homes and land. They call on people around the world to show solidarity with their struggle for freedom and self-determination, including by taking action against companies, financial institutions and other organisations that facilitate their oppression.
Stop the JNF campaign is an international campaign committed to ending the role of the Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemet LeIsrael) in the colonisation of Palestinian land. The Jewish National Fund is a key instrument for the Zionist movement’s efforts to transfer Palestinian land into exclusively Jewish ownership and eradicate the Palestinian presence on the land. The attacks on Palestinians that the settler movement has now unleashed are vigilante extensions of Israel’s land confiscations, conducted through the JNF, under the pretext of afforestation and developing nature reserves for environmental improvement: they both have the common goal of entrenching a Jewish supremacist state.
Stop the JNF calls on all those committed to justice for the Palestinian people to:
- endorse and promote our Call for Action, https://www.stopthejnf.org/call-for-action/
- donate and help us fundraise for the Plant a Tree in Palestine project – the project supports the on-going struggle of Palestinians at grassroots to resist by sustaining and rebuilding their land;
- join actions and mobilisations in your area. Around the world, our governments continue to provide Israel cover – in the UK the British government’s proposed Economic Activities of Public Bodies bill singles out Israel for special protection from efforts by the public and civil society groups to support the Palestinian Call for BDS
Nov 7, 2022
This year, we’ve seen the climate crisis wreak havoc across the world. From record-level extreme heat, forest fires, to flooding and droughts – we’ve seen that the climate catastrophe is here and ongoing. 2022 has demonstrated once again that those who contributed the least to the crisis suffer the most.
As the IPCC has recognised, colonialism – which devastates ecosystems, and exploits and destroys land and resources – was, and continues to be, a key driver of the crisis.
There is a gap between recognising the problems and taking decisive action.
Israel’s regime of settler-colonialism, military occupation, and apartheid, has destroyed Palestine’s environment, pillaged its natural resources, and left Palestinians without the control over, or access to, their land and resources necessary to mitigate and adapt to the effects of the climate crisis. The Jewish National Fund has always been a key instrument in the settler colonisation of Palestinian land, expropriation of Palestinian resources, and ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people, yet the JNF has observer status with the UNFCCC and regularly accompanies the Israeli government at COP meetings.
Indigenous and global majority movements, in Palestine and beyond, are leading the struggle for justice. In advance of COP27 in Egypt, the Stop the JNF Campaign joins movements across the world in demanding climate justice – for rich countries to pay their climate debts and reparations, and for an urgent and just transition to renewable energy.
Specifically, the Stop the JNF campaign amplifies calls for:
- A people-led overhaul of the negotiations, rejecting its narrow corporate agenda.
- For organisations and corporations that profit from ecological destruction to be held accountable – including Siemens and Chevron, who are both engaged in fossil gas projects with Israel.
- The removal of the racist Jewish National Fund from observer status to the UNFCCC.
Feb 24, 2022
The Nakba wasn’t just a historical event. It has continued unabated for 70 years. Every time I leave Nazareth I pass the town where I grew up. Although I can see it and I still have the deeds to more than 100 acres of land, I cannot return and live there. I have one grandchild, a precious 4-year-old boy who I love more than anything else in the world. I dream of a day when he can live in freedom and equality in our homeland and pray that he does not have to endure the same suffering that we have gone through as a result of the racist, apartheid regime that Israel has established in our land.
Mohamed Buttu, born in Nazareth in 1939, was raised in al Mujaydil and forcibly expelled from his home in 1948. He passed away in November 2021.
Balfour Forest-al Mujaydil is a project of the Stop the JNF campaign which aims to:
- amplify Palestinian voices
- expose and challenge the JNF as one of the key pillars of Israeli apartheid and settler colonialism
- mobilise international civil society in support of Palestinian freedom, justice, and equality
- highlight the historical and current role of Christian Zionism in Israeli settler colonialism and mobilise Christian communities to support the Palestinian call for BDS
We will do this by:
- presenting the story of the destroyed Palestinian village of al Mujaydil as a case study
- telling the story of the survivors from al Mujaydil village, from before the Nakba in 1948 until today when they and their descendants continue to be denied freedom, equality, and justice
- putting a spotlight on the planting of the JNF Balfour Forest on al Mujaydil land as a case study of Israel’s attempts to deny Palestinians their right of return
- highlighting Balfour’s Christian Zionism and contrasting with how the residents of al Mujaydil represent Palestinian Christian-Muslim sumud, solidarity, and resistance against a Jewish supremacist state and ideology
What you can do now:
The project will launch with a webinar, and we will then be looking to share some introductory materials and will be developing further resources, holding workshops, and seeking invitations to speak at your events. There are opportunities to give support, and if you have more time, to get involved.
- Get in touch to express your interest in this project:
A brief background: Al Mujaydil
Al Mujaydil before the Nakba
What is left of the Palestinian village and village land (4,654 acres) of al Mujaydil lies some 4 miles southwest of Nazareth. Agriculture was the backbone of the economy with grain as the most important crop, with 400 acres planted with olive trees. The village before 1948 was the second-largest olive producer in the district with two mechanical olive presses. In 1945, al Mujaydil was the third largest village in the village, with a population of 1,640 Muslims and 260 Christians.
Al Mujaydil had two mosques. The al-Huda Mosque was built in 1930 and was known for the elaborate system it used to collect rainfall from the roof into a well. There was an elementary Quranic school nearby, a kuttab. The village also had a Russian Orthodox Church which functioned as a school. The Roman Catholic church was built in 1903 and housed a trilingual school for boys and girls and a local clinic. There was also the Banin state school. Al Mujaydil was the site of significal social developments; 1925 the villagers modernised the traditional system of village leadership by electing a local council.
Zionist settlement on what was traditionally village land began as early as 1926 with the establishment of the exclusively Jewish Yif’at. During the Palestinian Nakba, The Catastrophe, which culminated in the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, al Mujaydil was bombed. This ‘ethnic cleansing from the air’ (Ilan Pappe) was carried out to create panic and to force Palestinians to flee their villages. Most of the villagers fled before al Mujaydil was occupied by a unit of the Golani Brigade on 15 July 1948. Those who remained were expelled and the village was completely ethnically cleansed of Palestinians. The villagers reached Nazareth by the end of July 1948. The women and men who returned to harvest their crops were met by Israeli military patrols who had the task of preventing harvesting and any possibility of return. About half of the villagers of al Mujaydil remained in Nazareth, while others fled to Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank.
After the intervention of the Pope in 1950, the Christian villagers of al Mujaydil were offered the opportunity to return to their homes. They refused to return without their Muslim neighbours – an inspiring act of solidarity and resistance amongst the villagers. Israel destroyed half of the houses and the al-Huda mosque. In 1952 the Jewish-only settlement of Migdal ha’Emeq was established by Iranian Jews on the ruins of the village. The remaining mosque was destroyed in 2003 to make way for a shopping mall. The monastery remains and the Orthodox St Nicholas church was renovated in 2004 by a group of al Mujaydil villagers who remained in Israel as internally displaced persons.
Balfour Forest
KKL-JNF planting of Balfour Forest began in 1928 with the first tree planted by British dignataries that included Lord Plummer, the British High Commissioner. Following the ceremonial planting, labour groups from the nearby Ginnegar settlement and Zionist activists from California were recruited for the project. By 1935, JNF had planted 1.7 million trees covering 1,750 acres.
The Balfour Forest Committee based in London raised the funds and headed by Major George Nathan. In 1920 Nathan joined the paramilitary organisation Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary (ADRIC), which was closely linked with the Black and Tans, and was associated with the Curfew murders in Limerick in 1921. He later became Chief of Staff of the XV International Brigade.
SNP MPs visit Balfour Forest in 2016, hosted by KKL-JNF
The forest was named in honour of Arthur Balfour, a Christian Zionist, the first to be planted in honour of a non-Jewish figure and was the JNF’s first major forestry project. Balfour signed the Balfour Declaration in November 1917, as British Foreign Secretary, declaring British government support of the Zionist colonisation of historic Palestine. The Declaration gave the green light to KKL-JNF to accelerate its part in the Zionist settler-colonial project.
Balfour Forest was a target for arson attacks during the Arab Revolt (1936-1939) and continued to be a military target for Palestinian resistance up to the Nakba. Balfour Forest, and other JNF forests were used to conceal bunkers and the clandestine military training of the Zionist militia groups the Haganah and Palmach.
What you can do now:
The project will launch with a webinar, and we will then be looking to share some introductory materials and will be developing further resources, holding workshops, and seeking invitations to speak at your events. There are opportunities to give support, and if you have more time, to get involved.
- Get in touch to express your interest in this project:
Further reading:
Maps:
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An 1870s map of the area of al-Mujaydil
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A 1940s map of the area of al-Mujaydil
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A modern map of the area of al-Mujaydil
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A 1940s map of the area of al-Mujaydil overlaid with modern roads
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Map of showing outline of Balfour Forest
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Balfour Forest
Jun 3, 2020
URGENT: the Jewish National Fund (JNF) is trying to evict a Palestinian family from their East Jerusalem home. We have made it simple for you to write to your MP to exert pressure on Israel to support the Sumarin family.
EDM 529: Eviction of Palestinian family from East Jerusalem
That this House strongly condemns the ongoing attempts of the Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF) to evict the Sumarin family from their home in East Jerusalem; recognises this within a broader context of the Israeli government’s efforts to demographically alter the population of Jerusalem, and the controversial use of Israel’s Absentee Property Law to dispossess Palestinians of their land; notes the Sumarin family have lived at their property, with deeds of ownership, for over fifty years; reiterates that ethnic cleansing is one of the most serious crimes, and that the UK is committed to upholding international law; urgently requests the Government to intervene on behalf of the Sumarin family, and calls on the Charity Commission to review the charitable status of JNF UK.
69 MPs have signed as of 9am on Thursday July 23rd
Is your MP one of them? Find out here
Apr 3, 2014
Sunday, April 6, 2014, 5 pm
Four Seasons Hotel (W. Georgia and Howe St.), Vancouver, B.C.
On April 6, 2014, the Jewish National Fund JNF Pacific Region is holding its annual “Negev Gala Dinner”. The JNF is publicly claiming to be enhancing the environment and aiding underprivileged youth, this year in conjunction with Canadian Friends of Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem (also built on stolen Palestinian land). Meanwhile, they are working to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian Bedouins from the Negev region, most recently under the infamous Prawer Plan. “The bill is another nakba,” MK Taleb Abu Arar said, talking about the Prawer Plan and referring to the events of 1948 when Israel was established. “It’s based on hatred and racism.”
The Bedouin village of Al Araqib in the Negev has been destroyed 62 times by Israeli and JNF paramilitary forces (as of Nov, 2013), but the Palestinians of the village refuse to surrender, many of them returning time and time again to rebuild. March 30th is also Palestinian Land Day and the villagers of Al Araqib are a moving example of the Palestinians’ enduring attachment to their land.
More info at: Stop the JNF
Please join our Facebook event
Download Poster and/or Handout
Organized by: Canada Palestine Association
Endorsed by: Boycott Israeli Apartheid Campaign (Vancouver), Canadian Boat to Gaza, Independent Jewish Voices, Vancouver
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