Ban SA Jewish body, urges Israeli author

Israeli author Dr Uri Davis called the Jewish National Fund "an illegal organisation" during an address in Freedom Park.

Pretoria - The world-renowed Israeli author and academic Dr Uri Davis is pulling no punches as he addresses South African audiences across the country this week. “The central message that I am bringing to South Africa is that the Jewish National Fund (JNF) must be declared an illegal organisation,” Davis told Independent Media prior to his address at Freedom Park on Tuesday night.

According to Davis, who authored the book Apartheid Israel, the JNF of South Africa funded the development of the South Africa Forest over the ruins, and on the lands of Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed in the village of Lubya.

“Ethnic cleansing is a crime against humanity under international law. It was the Israeli army that during the course of the 1948 war ethnically cleansed the inhabitants of Lubya and rendered them stateless refugees. The JNF, by planting that forest and naming it after South Africa is complicit in that crime,” Davis claims.

The JNF was founded in 1901 to buy and develop land in Ottoman Palestine for Jewish settlement. By 2007, the JNF owned 13% of the land in Israel. The JNF describes itself as a charitable organisation, specialising in the development of Israel and its infrastructure, especially in the planting of trees. Over the past 100 years, the JNF has planted more than 250 million trees in Israel.

While the JNF promotes its campaign through the slogan “helping to green the land of Israel”, activists such as Davis do not see their motivation as benign, and claim that the trees are planted to hide the villages from which Palestinians were forcibly removed. The aim, according to activists, is to erase the historic Palestinian villages by overplanting pine and other fast growing species in forests named after countries from where their donors emanate - like South Africa.

Davis contends that the Women’s Zionist Organisation of South Africa funded the development of recreational facilities in South Africa Park. “While on the surface these facilities give the impression of non-segregation as Jews and Arab families can picnic there, it veils the crime against humanity, and compromises South Africa,” Davis argues.

According to Davis, the group South African Jews for a free Palestine visited Lubya, and made strong statements condemning the JNF.

When Davis visited South Africa Park last month, the name had been changed to Lavie Park. “In order to clarify the matter, I went to the JNF headquarters in Jerusalem and spoke to the manager of UK donations, which includes South Africa. She stated that the money for South Africa Forest comes from South Africa, and Lavie Park is South Africa Park.”

According to Isla Feldman, the chairwoman of JNF South Africa, “Accusations of 'stealing land', 'ethnic cleansing', and 'racial discrimination' are standard anti-JNF propaganda, without basis in either fact or law. The JNF operates on land that is internationally recognised as being sovereign Israeli territory.”

Regarding the South Africa Forest, the Arab village located there (itself built over a previous Jewish settlement) was directly involved in attacks on Jewish civilian convoys during the 1948 Israeli War of Independence, necessitating its capture by the Israeli military.

According to David Saks, the associate director of the SA Jewish Board of Deputies, “The modus operandi of Uri Davis is to falsely depict the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a black-and-white struggle between villainous, predatory Zionists, and suffering, innocent Palestinians.”

“His views allow for only one narrative to be heard - the Palestinian one. There is nothing useful or constructive in this approach.”

Uri Davis maintains that the funding from South Africans of the JNF is a case of criminal complicity.

“I hope my visit will accelerate the process of declaring the JNF as an illegal organisation in South Africa,” Davis said.

Pretoria News