Nora Barrows-Friedman
The Electronic Intifada / July 26, 2024
In a significant victory against public financial support for the theft of Palestinian land, Canada has announced it is revoking the charitable status of the Jewish National Fund of Canada.
This will mean that donors will no longer be able to claim tax credits for their donations to the JNF, and the organization itself will have to pay income tax on the donations it receives – a major financial blow.
The move by the Canadian Revenue Agency comes after years of legal complaints brought by Palestinians and human rights organizations to the Canadian government over the Jewish National Fund’s use of charitable donations to build projects for the Israeli military and illegal settlement colonies.
The revenue agency’s move to hold JNF Canada accountable for its colonial activities “is long overdue,” stated Michael Bueckert, vice president of the Canadian human rights group Committee for Justice and Peace in the Middle East.
“The colonization of Palestinian land is not a charitable purpose, and neither is the JNF’s support for a military engaged in illegal occupation and genocide,” he added.
Uses of charitable donations to fund foreign militaries contravenes Canadian law.
JNF Canada supports the Jewish National Fund (JNF) which predates the establishment of Israel and uses tree-planting as a cover to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their land.
After Israel’s establishment in 1948, the JNF took control of most of the land which had been confiscated from Palestinian refugees. In the 1950s, the JNF became a quasi-state organization, with a policy to lease land only to Jews on an openly discriminatory basis.
Documents show that the JNF has repeatedly used JNF Canada as a conduit to collect funds for its illegal projects, activists have said.
The Jewish National Fund “is criminal, it is colonial and it’s racist. I’m not making moral statements here, I’m speaking in the very objective sense of those words,” said Gabor Maté, a physician and author who has been part of the public campaign to challenge JNF Canada’s charitable status.
Maté spoke at a press conference organized by the human rights group Just Peace Advocates on Friday, in response to the Canadian government’s action against JNF Canada.
He spoke alongside attorney Shane Martinez, Wesam Ahmad of the Palestinian rights group Al-Haq, professor Miles Howe and Rabbi David Mivasair, who have all been instrumental in holding the JNF and other Israel-aligned organizations to account.
“The so-called ‘absentee property’ – which was the property of Palestinians who had been expelled from their lands and houses – was sold by the state of Israel to the JNF for resale. It’s a criminal organization, it receives stolen goods,” Maté explained.
Wesam Ahmad said that the revenue agency’s revocation of JNF Canada’s charitable status “is a decisive action and a significant step in addressing the historical and ongoing role that the JNF has played in the colonization of Palestine.”
Precedent
Though the Canadian government has largely remained an enthusiastic participant in the decades-long colonial theft of Palestinian land and Israel’s war crimes, at least one lawmaker is pushing back.
In June, parliament member Niki Ashton of the left-leaning New Democratic Party called on the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to investigate Canadian charities that “allegedly funneled taxpayer money in support of Israeli military operations and illegal settlements in Palestine.”
Ashton has also demanded that the government investigate other Zionist charities in Canada that funnel cash to commit war crimes against Palestinians and sponsored a parliamentary petition underlining those demands.
The Canadian Revenue Agency’s action on JNF Canada’s charitable status comes more than five years after it revoked the status of another Zionist organization that funneled money to projects supporting the Israeli army.
The Toronto-based Beth Oloth Charitable Organization, a group without an online footprint, “had been a registered charity since 1980 and was one of richest in Canada,” with more than US$45 million in 2017 revenues, according to Canada’s Global News.
Beth Oloth funded programs called mechinot that prepare Israeli high school students for military conscription, and which include weapons training, mentoring by Israeli soldiers and visits to army bases.
“Cannot be masked as charitable work”
Wesam Ahmed of Al-Haq said that the Canadian Revenue Agency’s decision to revoke JNF Canada’s charitable status “challenges the impunity that the Zionists’ joint criminal enterprise has long enjoyed, in which the JNF has played a pivotal role.”
JNF Canada has stated it will appeal the revenue agency’s determination.
But Ahmad explained that while the group’s objectives “fit within this broader narrative of colonialism and its justifications,” the recent advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice shows that the “occupation is in and of itself illegal and these practices of colonialism must be brought to an end.”
The Canadian Revenue Agency’s decision “aligns with these international legal developments,” he added, “reinforcing the principle that supporting military activities and the perpetuation of illegal settlements cannot be masked as ‘charitable work.’”
This reporter asked Ahmad to explain how Canadians can organize to resist pressure on the revenue agency by Israel-aligned groups to reverse its decision.
“Canadian civil society is going to [have to] play an instrumental role and remain vigilant and proactive,” he replied.
Ahmad encouraged activists to sustain “advocacy and awareness, mobilizing public opinion, building alliances to push back, legal and policy advocacy, and continu[ing] to monitor and report on the process. It’s all very important.”
While successes like this are cause for celebration, Ahmad said that it is equally critical to “never relent until the Palestinian right for self-determination is finally realized.”
Nora Barrows-Friedman is a staff writer and associate editor at The Electronic Intifada, and is the author of In Our Power: US Students Organize for Justice in Palestine (Just World Books, 2014)
