Throughout Israel’s assault on Gaza, people up and down Britain saw a live-streamed genocide on their phones, horrified that this slaughter was supported by their government.
But in the background, there is another phenomenon happening, which is not receiving nearly as much attention.
For over a year now, UK-based ‘charities’ have been making a mockery of the charity sector, supporting a genocide with no regulatory consequences.
There are countless examples of this in the last year. Take the Oxford and Cambridge colleges with charity status investing in arms firms and companies complicit in illegal settlements.
Or perhaps Achisomoch Aid Company, a charity accused of providing fundraising services to an Israeli group that supplies “combat and tactical equipment” to Israeli soldiers?
Or what about UK Toremet, the fundraising charity accused of sending UK Gift Aid to settler groups to block humanitarian aid from entering Gaza?
And then of course, there is the Jewish National Fund (JNF) – a goliath compared to some of the other charities listed above – who we believe the UK sanctions unit, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI), must probe.
What’s the Jewish National Fund?
The JNF was founded as a settler-colonial organisation in 1901 – decades before Israel’s existence – to buy land and promote settlements in Palestine.
By 2007, the JNF owned 13% of all land in Israel, all of which is off-limits to Palestinians.
The Council for the Israeli Land Administration, which determines policy for public lands in the country, allocates half of its seats to the JNF, thereby granting the organisation an absolutely staggering level of power.
Another key part of the JNF’s work is its ‘greenwashing’ – a tactic designed to obscure its malpractices under the veil of environmentalism.
The JNF has planted 240 million trees in what it describes as ‘reforestation’ efforts. It refers to the areas as ‘forests’, but the more accurate name for them is a ‘monoculture tree plantation’.
The JNF plants non-native pine trees on a staggering scale, in close proximity to one another, increasing the risk of forest fires.
Worse still, these projects destroy the biodiversity, wrecking the local ecosystem that had been sustainably managed by indigenous Palestinians for generations.
They are also often established on the ruins of destroyed Palestinian villages, such as the Birya Forest, which took the place of six Palestinian villages, one of which was ‘Ayn Zaytun – Spring of Olives – a farming village which was home to 1,000 people.
These ‘forests’ are a physical stamp of Israeli presence on Palestinian lands, a physical monument to dispossession.
Too close to home
Its British branch, the JNF UK, has been involved in funding Israeli troops through financial support for training and pre-/post- military programmes.
It has also supported settlers that displace Palestinians and militia groups that perpetrate violence in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Twenty years ago, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that all settlements were illegal under international law, so the JNF cannot feign ignorance.
But if anything, it is even more clear now. In July this year, the ICJ issued another landmark Advisory Opinion, calling Israel’s occupation of Palestine illegal altogether.
The UK Charities Act also makes clear that all registered charities must have a specific ‘charitable purpose’ that is for the public benefit.
There is absolutely no reason why an organisation that is so comfortable aiding and abetting violations of international law should be allowed to continue operating in the UK when it so clearly flouts the values that people in this country think of when they think of charities.
Worse still, as a registered charity, JNF UK benefits from UK Gift Aid, so British taxpayers’ money is funding these activities.
And this is why the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) took the action we did, to try to strip JNF UK of its charitable status.
In August 2024, we wrote to Richard Hermer KC, the Attorney General, calling on him to revoke the JNF’s charity status.
As the country’s top law officer, Hermer is responsible for ensuring that charities abide by the law. But instead, the buck was passed, and we were told to complain to the Charity Commission.
Unfortunately, this has been tried before. For years, the Stop the JNF Campaign has been submitting complaints to the Charity Commission regarding JNF UK’s activities, and yet they have gotten nowhere.
Carte blanche
In one particularly absurd episode, the Charity Commission claimed that the test for charitable status is a test of what an organisation was set up to do, not what it does in practice.
This was in response to evidence presented to the Charity Commission that JNF UK had helped create a park over land that was stolen from a Palestinian family in 1948, resulting in their displacement and a denial of their right to return.
Calling this a loophole would be an understatement. Instead, it seems to be a total carte blanche for the JNF to continue their activities unabated.
So now we have taken a new route. In October 2024, ICJP made a submission to the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI), the day after the UK government announced a new sanctions package on illegal settlers.
For UK sanctions to have any bite at all, we need to make sure UK groups aren’t circumventing them.
JNF UK donated £1m to HaShomer HaChadash (HH) between 2015-18. HH operates like a weaponised militia providing ‘security’ to settler groups in the occupied West Bank.
Other individuals and groups who set up and support illegal outposts in the West Bank, including Zvi Bar Yosef and Hilltop Youth, have already been sanctioned by the UK.
If JNF UK is found to be transferring funds, directly or indirectly, to either of these groups via HH, then it would be violating UK sanctions law. It is up to OFSI to investigate if this is taking place.
It is a thankless task, but JNF UK’s actions are so egregious that we are working tirelessly to explore every avenue to hold them accountable.
But it is the responsibility of British institutions to do this work, without our encouragement.
Continuing to allow the JNF UK to operate as a charity in Britain could undermine the public’s trust in the charity sector altogether and the work of those who genuinely contribute to our society.