Do you really know the story of the JNF?

Who is the Jewish National Fund?
The Jewish National Fund is a world wide Jewish community development and environmental organization. It is over 110 years old and is strongly connected with the creation and development of Israeli society especially in the water preservation, forestry, agriculture, education and tourism sectors. Everyone knows about the work the JNF does in Israel but what about the beyond this? Below are just some of the projects for which the JNF is famous.

Work Internationally
Al Gore, former US Vice President and Nobel Prize winner for his environmental activism, wrote that JNF, as a tree planting movement, could serve as a model for many countries in the world, and that the tree planting JNF does in arid regions and wastelands is one of the great ecological success stories of our times.

JNF is a major contributor at international events such as COP and WSSD and works with a variety of international research groups for example by combating desertification in Kazakhstan.

JNF shares knowledge about coping with forest pests, builds greenhouses in Rwanda and collaborates with forestry authorities worldwide including in South Africa.

Relationship building with other groups
JNF maintains a partnership with the Palestinian Authority in fighting fires in open country. JNF foresters guide and instruct the foresters in the Palestinian Authority with their experience in extinguishing fires.

JNF has special forest groves that are designated for supplying fir trees to churches, monasteries, embassies and other Christians right before Christmas.

The Arab Scouts youth movement is invited to be guests at JNF field and forest centers. Each group visits for about a week, and JNF subsidizes the activities. 10,000 children take part in these projects annually.

JNF forests are made available to Bedouin shepherds who help to sustainably graze the area and prevent forestry fires.

In the Arab town of Sachnin, in the Lower Galilee, JNF constructed green wetlands. The wetlands purify wastewater and serve as an educational-experimental station for wastewater management.

Wadi Atir is a special project for the Bedouin town of Hura. Plans are being completed this year in conjunction with KKL-JNF  USA. The project will include agriculture, tourism, forestry and ecology. The project is intended to serve as an example for treatment of the herds of sheep, to keep them outside the town in the nearby vicinity, and to take advantage of the process for creating tourism initiatives connected to Bedouin culture—goat cheese industry, wool products, spices and medicinal herbs.

Despite attempts to smear the JNF it is important note concerning these allegations the following:

The JNF works for all people of Israel regardless religion or ethnicity and rents its land on a similar basis.

The JNF only plants on sovereign land belonging to it or the state of Israel, it does not work on Palestinian land unless requested by them to do so.

If there is a case of uncertainty regarding the ownership of land the JNF follows the law of Israel the decision of its independent judiciary.

The JNF does not engage in actions that remove people, whoever they are, from their land. If a legal eviction order is declared by the courts it is a matter for state police to handle.

These activists have simply out to bully organizations connected to Israel even if these happen to be soft targets such environmental organizations trying to make the world a better place.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel plants a tree in the “Grove of nations”.