Jewish National Fund has prominent affiliate entities across the world including the US, Canada and the UK [Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images]
A US non-profit has written to the US government urging the imposition of sanctions against the Jewish National Fund (JNF) for enabling the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), a Washington DC-based non-profit, announced it had submitted a 23-page dossier to the US government over the issue on Friday.
In a press release, DAWN accused the Jewish National Fund and its subsidiaries of “dispossessing Palestinians of their property; financing and facilitating illegal and racist settlement expansion; and providing material and financial support to violent or sanctioned Israeli settlements and settlers”.
“President Biden has an opportunity to close his term by broadcasting a resounding message: all those responsible for settler violence and settlement expansion, n matter how powerful or well-established, will be punished for their damaging actions,” DAWN Executive Director Sarah Leah Wilson said.
The JNF, also known as Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael, is a Zionist organisation founded in 1901 with the purpose of acquiring land in Palestine for the exclusive settlement of Jews.
DAWN says that through its subsidiaries, the JNF has acquired Palestinian land for Jewish settlement in the West Bank and plans to expand its acquisitions in the future.
Because of the connections between the JNF and settlers and settlements, some of which have already been sanctioned, DAWN said that their actions violate President Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14115 titled ‘Imposing Certain Sanctions on Persons Undermining Peace, Security, and Stability in the West Bank,’ in place since 1 February 2024.
Part of the dossier details the ways in which the JNF has acquired Palestinian land, which it says often includes practices of fraud and forgery, citing such cases as the landgrabs against the Kisiya family near Bethlehem and Bakri family in Hebron.
Likewise, Dawn argues that their direct involvement in settlement expansion undermines the two-state solution for the conflict, and thus US foreign policy, as well as violating international law.
In 2024, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory ruling stating that Israel’s occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem is illegal under international law.
DAWN also accused the JNF of supporting violent settlers, including financing entities on the US Specially Designated Nationals List which lists people or companies that are sanctioned by the US, as well as those that are known to perpetuate violence in the West Bank.
Settler violence rose to unprecedented heights in 2024, with the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) saying that the year marked the highest number of settler-related incidents in the West Bank since the office began keeping records nearly 20 years ago.
The year also saw an acceleration of settlement expansion, and Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announcing the aim of annexing the West Bank in 2025.
“Israel’s settlement enterprise and its associated land theft and forcible displacement of Palestinians rely on the massive support of institutions like KKL-JNF,” said Michard Schaeffer Omer-Man, director of research for Israel-Palestine at DAWN.
“If there is any chance of ending the occupation and removing Israeli settlements, organisations like JNF must be forced to cease their illicit activities or face international isolation and financial sanctions.”Â
In 2024, Canada revoked the charity status of both the JNF and the Ne’eman Foundation.
