Seeing the forest and the trees: The untold story of the Jewish National Fund

[Jefferson23]

Revelations from JNF minutes: billions of shekels hoarded in its coffers, millions wasted on legal conflicts, trees planted on disputed land. Not to mention the fate of Holocaust victims’ assets.

By Uri Blau

A Jew purchased an apartment in Carmiel, on Jewish National Fund land. No problem. Twenty years go by and Mohammed who lives in Dir al-Assad ... comes to buy an apartment.”

This may sound like the some sort of ethnic joke, but that’s how JNF world chairman, Effie Stenzler, a member of the Labor Party, chose to speak recently before the members of his board.

"The Jews sells him the apartment for a tidy sum,” Stenzler continues. “He goes to the Israel Lands Administration and says, ‘I’m Mohammed. I want you to register this apartment in the Tabu in my name.’ They say to him, ‘Wait a minute you’re an Arab, we can’t do that because it’s written that JNF doesn’t sell to Arabs, doesn’t lease to Arabs.’ And then there was the trick that worked until 2004, and according to this trick the ILA, without telling anyone ... took land registered in the name of JNF, transferred it to another building and then registered that building in JNF’s name ... But then an Arab came to that building and then they had to do it again ...”
The tale of “Mohammed and the Apartment” is quoted from the minutes of the JNF board meeting in July. The organization claims that the quote “is part of a description of a very complicated bureaucratic problem created by the ILA in regard to the registration of apartments. After discussions with the attorney general and the court, the solution to the problem was found and JNF has been acting accordingly.”

Thus, JNF transfers to the ILA property on which there are buildings where Arabs have purchased apartments, and receive other land in return. Specifically, the records of that July meeting show that each year, three or four such property exchanges are carried out, and that some 25 have been made since the arrangement was formulated in 2008.

in full: http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/seeing-the-forest-and-the-trees-the-untold-story-of-the-jewish-national-fund-1.400530

on edit for clarity.

[dtexdem]

1. apartheid has its costs.

[holdencaufield]

3. Apartheid...

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

-- Inigo Montoya

[azurnoir]

4. But I'd wager Desmond Tutu does n/t

[holdencaufield]

5. People see...

... what they've been conditioned to see. To a soldier, every conflict is a potential battle. To a surgeon, every disease is a potential surgery. To Tutu, and others, every territorial dispute is apartheid.

The IP Conflict is nothing more or less than a territorial dispute.

[azurnoir]

7. South Africa was not a 'territorial dispute' n/t

[azurnoir]

2. Holding the assets of Holocaust survivors waiting for them to die

and bait and switch properties for Arabs a real class act JNF

[Violet_Crumble]

6. There should be no discrimination shown towards any Israeli citizens when purchasing property...

That's just so many shades of wrong. And holding onto money that belongs to Holocaust survivors? Words can't even begin to describe what I think of that one...