JNF eBook Vol 4 - JNF eBook Series

JNF eBook Vol 4
JNF New Zealand “Sustainability, Afforestation, Bringing Streams Back to Life.” “KKL-
JNF´s work in its early decades sketched and determined the boundaries of the State of Israel
that rose in 1948. Its extensive afforestation endeavor, begun soon after its inception and
pursued to the present, has no parallel.”
http://www.zfnz.org.nz/index.php/community/jnf-kkl
(Comment: as detailed below, the extensive afforestation projects were used to confiscate
Palestinian land and to clear the land of the ethnically cleansed villages and towns. See
Pappe.)
3.1 Image vs. Reality
The following section includes representative examples of environmental practices in Israel
connected with the JNF, either through its funding these projects and/or its misrepresentations
of Israel’s impact on people and the environment.
FORESTS
JNF tree-planting contrasts with the gratuitous destruction of Palestinian olive trees, many of
which are hundreds of years old. The JNF has ostensibly planted some 240 million trees in
forests and national parks throughout Israel.
Susan Nathan, a Jewish Israeli living in the Palestinian town of Tamra, writes that for Israel,
“trees are a weapon of continuing dispossession.” First was the National Carmel Park Law in
which the “state uprooted natural vegetation of olive, carob and fruit trees for which the area
was renowned and which the villagers had cultivated for generations and surrounded them
instead with useless pines.” These pines are aging, demanding more water and they are more
prone to problems like pests, disease and fire. Tree planting projects prevent Palestinians
from planting, while expanding land confiscation around illegal Jewish settlements. Pine
trees, which grow fast, destroy all other small plants because of their acidity, and ultimately
make the land unusable for Palestinian shepherds. (Balsam, p. 139) Ironically, Israel is now
introducing (really reintroducing) “native” varieties like carob and pistachio.
Canada Park, funded through charitable JNF donations, exemplifies the JNF modus operandi.
“Seeking revenge for having lost the Latrun area near the foothills of the Jerusalem
Mountains to the Jordanians in 1948, and wishing to cleanse the approach to Jerusalem of
Arabs, Israel summarily expelled 5,000 residents from the villages of ‘Imwas, Yalu and Beit
Nuba. The razed villages were then “’Judaized, covered over by a recreational forest planted
by the Jewish National Fund and called ‘Canada Park’.” (Halper, p. 144). The park is located
in the West Bank, beyond Israel’s internationally recognized borders, and thus violates the
Geneva Convention. [See Zayid, this volume.] This year a number of Palestinian news
agencies, Jewish Voice for Peace, and the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot reported actions
that are “transforming the olive tree from a symbol of peace into one of theft and extortion.”
(Mondoweiss, 23 Feb. 2011) In the last two years, the Israeli government has uprooted more
than 160,000 olive trees in the West Bank. “Many of these trees were hundreds of years old
and had sustained the Palestinian economy for generations.” Stolen olive trees are taken to
Israeli nurseries to be resold. “None of the money is returned to the original owners. In
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