Jewish National Fund confirms grants to West Bank settlement projects

The Jewish National Fund (JNF) in the United States has confirmed that it grants money to projects based in, or benefiting, illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

The information is contained within its annual financial report, which, according to the report in Haaretz, for the first time “includes a detailed breakdown of its investments in projects overseas.”
According to the paper, groups opposed to settlements had long sought such a breakdown, “in order to determine whether the non-profit, which enjoys US tax-exempt status, contributes to Jewish settlements in the West Bank, as has long been suspected – and if so, to what degree.”

The grants include $532,500 to the Gush Etzion Visitors Centre, located in Kfar Etzion settlement near Bethlehem.

Another example cited is a $33,000 grant to Friends of Ir David, “a US organisation active in promoting the settlement enterprise.” The Ir David Foundation, also known as Elad, “purchases properties in Arab neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem in order to move Jewish settlers in.”

Overall, “the total included grants to several other projects and organisations thought to be linked to the settlement movement or engaged in activities in the occupied territories.”

The data confirms claims long made by anti-settlement activists, who have “contended that the JNF exploits its American tax-exempt status to promote projects in the West Bank.”

According to Haaretz, JNF-USA is a separate organisation from JNF-Keren Kayement in Israel.