JNF made Israel. Now a 90-year-old Palestinian has the last laugh

In 1972, a Palestinian pathology professor Dr Ismail Zayid immigrated to Canada after receiving a special invitation from Dalhousie University to teach at their Faculty of Medicine.

Shortly after his arrival, he learned that a real estate project called "Canada Park" has been built on the ruins of three Palestinian villages in the West Bank, including Beit Nuba, where he was born.

"I was appalled by this war crime," he tells TRT World.

The Canada Park was financed by the Jewish National Fund (JNF), an organisation that has helped Tel Aviv expand its occupation of Palestinian lands since Israel’s creation in 1948.

That incident set off a lifelong struggle for Zayid to fight JNF in collaboration with human rights groups. But little did he know that he would see JNF facing a crackdown in his lifetime.

The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) last week revoked JNF's status as a charitable organisation for supporting the Israeli military, which has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.

The measure came after decades of dedicated efforts by the Stop the JNF campaign, which is supported by several human rights groups and activists across Canada.

Even though his village in the West Bank remains under Israeli occupation, Zayid, who is now in his 90s, says he is pleased that he played a role in blocking Canadian tax-deductible donations from going towards illegal Israeli constructions.

Funding the bullets

Several Canadian charities have faced heavy criticism from human rights groups for funnelling tax-subsidised funds to Jewish settler organisations. Some of the funds even directly go to the Israeli military.

Tax deductions have allowed Israel, a country with high GDP per capita, to receive over 11 percent of all donations that Canadians give to other countries.

The JNF has been a major player among these charities and has been found to directly fund the Israeli army.

Independent Jewish Voices (IJV), a grassroots organisation that campaigns against racism and for equal rights of Israelis and Palestinians, and individual activists filed a detailed complaint to the CRA and Canada’s Minister of National Revenue over the JNF in 2017.

A year later, following pressure from IJV and other groups, CRA audited the JNF, and mandated that it sever its ties with its parent organisation in Israel and stop pooling its funds with it.

JNF Canada was also directed to cease supporting projects in the illegally occupied West Bank and initiatives linked to the Israeli military, which is illegal under Canadian law. But since it did not fully comply with these directives, the CRA has revoked its charitable status.

For a charity in Canada, revocation entails losing several critical abilities, including the ability to issue official donation receipts, qualify for income tax exemption, and be listed in the Canada Gazette.

Individuals and entities will no longer be able to claim tax credits for donations to the JNF Canada, a benefit that previously directed billions of Canadian dollars to projects in Israel.

Although this decision could set a precedent against Zionist groups, it comes notably late, considering activists spent decades calling for action.

Karen Rodman of Just Peace Advocates, one of the groups campaigning against various Canadian Zionist charities, stated at a press conference following the revocation announcement that the CRA "has been too slow" in enforcing rules against the Jewish National Fund of Canada.

Nonetheless, she added that the CRA should still be applauded for “finally taking action against this powerful organisation.”

Single-largest landowner

The Jewish National Fund (JNF) was established in 1901 following the first World Zionist Congress. In 1908, the JNF created a subsidiary called the Palestine Land Development Company, which aimed to displace Palestinian peasants from their land.

The JNF funded this initiative by raising money from Jewish communities worldwide to expand Israeli settlements by acquiring land in Palestinian territories.

Today, it has chapters in 50 countries and all 50 US states, each holding charitable status.

Tzomi Sara from Stop the JNF campaign, which was established in 2009 and operates through representative teams in eight countries, explains that the JNF, since its early days, ensured that its chapters are separate organisations with legal status in various countries around the world.

“This offers them both financial and legal protection, in that each national chapter operates and holds funds independently, with those funds raised being sent regularly to headquarters,” she told TRT World.

One of the primary methods the JNF has used to facilitate the displacement of Palestinians from their land and transform their territories has been tree-planting.

This strategy has been part of the Israeli government’s "afforestation" efforts since 1948, aimed at uprooting Palestinian communities from areas where they lived for generations.

For example, a significant tree-planting project in the Naqab desert, largely financed by US charitable donations, displaced Bedouin communities. In these projects, JNF forestry workers have been accompanied by Israeli police, forcibly removing Bedouin residents from their land.

Since its establishment, the US-based JNF has planted 250 million trees on occupied Palestinian lands.

The organisation owns 13 percent of land in Israel, which makes it the single-largest landowner.

According to a Human Rights Watch report, 93 percent of Israel’s land is controlled by the state, either directly or through “quasi-governmental bodies” such as the JNF.

The JNF's mandate is to develop and lease land exclusively to Jews, which implicates the state in discriminatory land allocation practices against Arab citizens.

The Israel Land Administration (ILA), a governmental body responsible for land management, has a governing council of 22 members. 12 of these members are from government ministries and 10 from the JNF.

This structure is what primarily endows it with significant influence over land policies and the distribution of state lands, the report says.

A brick in the wall

Although JNF Canada says it plans to appeal the revenue agency's decision, debates over the activities of Zionist charities that exploit Canadian dollars are not new in the North American country.

At the Green Party convention in 2016, a party member proposed a resolution to revoke the JNF’s charitable status due to its “institutional discrimination against non-Jewish citizens of Israel.”

This move brought the issue into the spotlight, but the party faced accusations of being “Jew haters.”

In June 2024, Niki Ashton, a parliament member from the New Democratic Party, called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government to investigate Canadian charities funnelling taxpayer money to support Israeli military operations and illegal settlements.

In recent years, several Canadian charities that funded Israel have had their status revoked for reasons such as failing to operate exclusively for charitable purposes, listing non-qualified recipients of donations, and providing undue benefits to individuals.

But Zionist entities found new ways to direct millions of dollars to Israel.

The landmark decision of the Canada Revenue Agency on the JNF is one meaningful step towards making a dent in this powerful organisation's bottom line, says Tzomi Sara of Stop the JNF campaign.

“Our hope is that each national chapter can receive similar barriers to their fundraising to begin the work of dismantling this disingenuous charitable organisation, whose work has served to greenwash the colonial project of Israel for 75 years.”