Give Me That Ol' Time JNF

With appreciative thanks to Dassie Marcus, here are two pages from the 1939 amended Principles of Incorporation of JNF USA.

You'll notice in them very explicit goals - all of them Jewish, including "settlement". And the Palestine Mandate at that time included all the territory what Israel controls today - that is, all of Judea and Samaria.

L Love It When Someone's Eyes Open to the Truth

...the assault on the Jewish state was fully joined by the Israeli Arab community's elected leaders, while down in the field Israeli Arabs increasingly participated in terror attacks, including driving suicide bombers to their destinations and in some cases performing the bombings themselves.

Israeli Arab lawmakers have routinely applauded the Palestinian "struggle" against the "occupation," two euphemisms that, as we mainstream Israelis have long learned, mean challenging the Jewish state's right to exist within whatever borders, and backing this aim's promotion even through violence.

From here, of course, the road is short to the rest of the trappings of the effort to hammer at the Jewish state, from demanding the abolition of the Law of Return to seeking the alteration of the national anthem and hiding behind a seemingly innocent apron like the quest for a country of all its citizens...

The tactics deployed in this well-crafted assault are as simple as they are cunning: diversion and deceit. The diversion is in the systematic changing of the subject from the real aim, which is Israel's extinction, to issues that Jews care deeply about like freedom of expression, right of ownership or equality before the law, and the deceit is in that all this crusading energy disappears once one leaves Israel's borders...In other words, Israeli Arab leaders hail Western values only when it helps undermine the Jewish state.

This is also the context in which the attack on the Jewish National Fund comes.

...The day when Israeli Jews can roam the Middle East as freely as Italians, Frenchmen and Germans roam Europe, and purchase real estate in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia or Syria as freely as New Yorkers do in Ontario, has yet to arrive. In fact, what land we have is under attack. That is why we must continue to physically clutch every inch of what the United Nations said should be ours, and Israeli Arab leaders think should be theirs. And when it comes to clutching this land to the Jews' bosom - no one is better than the JNF. Good thing it's still around.

Source

I Diasagree with Misha Arens

Here's the last part of Misha Arens' Haaretz article yesterday:

Last week the Knesset passed in preliminary reading a law that would require the Jewish National Fund (JNF) to allocate land that it owns only to Jews. Presumably this means that Jews who are not citizens of Israel would qualify, but Israel's Arab citizens would be barred from access to land owned by the JNF. A blatant violation of the norms of democracy.

But wait a minute, you might say, was not the Jewish National Fund founded in 1901 so the Land of Israel could be redeemed and come under Jewish ownership? Yes, of course, but something else happened in the meantime. In May 1948, the State of Israel was established, guaranteeing equality to all its citizens. The ultimate purpose of the Zionist Congress that decided on the establishment of the JNF - the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine - has been achieved. In a democratic state one cannot condone laws that discriminate between citizens on ethnic grounds. That was certainly not part of Herzl's vision of the Jewish State.

So what about the Law of Return? Does it not provide a special privilege - the right to immigrate to Israel - for Jews only? Yes, but that is the foundation stone of the State of Israel - to provide a haven for any Jew in the world in need of a haven; so that what happened in the years before the Holocaust and during the Holocaust would never happen again. That is the mission of the State of Israel. A most humane mission by any reckoning. In fulfillment of this mission the Holocaust survivors from Europe, the Jewish communities from the Arab world and Iran, Soviet Jewry and the Ethiopian Jews were absorbed in Israel. Maybe even some of Israel's non-Jewish citizens can identify with this mission, and those who cannot must recognize that this is the reason the State of Israel was established.

The proposed JNF law has nothing to do with this mission. Hopefully, it will not go beyond the preliminary reading in the Knesset.

Truth tell, I have some alternative thoughts about this.

I do not think that a "haven" is the adequate definition. It's a lot more.

As for the land issue, one thought that comes to mind is that American Indian land, by a 1934 law, cannot be transferred out of the tribe's possession. Now, if we Jews are the original possessors, and the Arabs are occupiers from the 7th century; and if they have been trying to prevent we Jews from coming back with violence; and if they do not fulfill all citizen responsibilities and obligations; and if they have presented a separationist ideology this past year - why do we have to yield up on land purchased by Jews for Jews - an operation quite promoted by a Herzlian vision? Numerous times Herzl wrote and spoke of purchasing land, of redeeming the country.

The Declaration of Independence states that "Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment, Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland." This English does less that justice to the Hebrew intent. The Hebrew verb, l'hei'achez, means to grasp the land firmly, i.e, not to let go.

And also "THE STATE OF ISRAEL...will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; also states there." Foster development - not transfer land purchased by Jews for Jews, for the national goal of Zionism.

The Truth

After Mazuz's decision and judging from precedents in his rulings, it will not be hard to guess what the High Court will decide. This judicial establishment is intent on forcing Israel to gradually part with its definition as a Jewish state and become a state of all its citizens. The instruction to allocate the Jewish people's lands to the very nation competing with it for this country's ownership and sovereignty is part of the general moral degeneration to which we have succumbed in recent years.

Agree?

Read it all. Israel Harel's op-ed.