Thursday, October 21, 2010

Israeli & American Jewish Groups Respond to JNF CEO Russell Robinson

Don’t plant or fund forests that displace Bedouin villages
Dismayed at reliance on serious misstatements of fact to justify an immoral policy

This response to Jewish National Fund CEO Russell Robinson has been issued by the following Israeli and American Jewish organizations from among the 36 organizational signatories to the JNF petition: Shatil - Leading Social Change, An Initiative of the New Israel Fund; Rabbis for Human Rights-Israel; Rabbis for Human Rights-North America; Meretz USA; Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality; Hit’habrut-Tarabut – Arab-Jewish Movement for Social and Political Change; Yesh Gvul; the Shalom Center, and the Jewish Alliance for Change.

In his response to the petition, JNF CEO Russell Robinson side-steps the main issue: the complicity of JNF—together with its Board of Directors and donors—in dispossessing Bedouin communities of the Negev through its forestation and development campaigns.

1. JNF claims that its practice is to plant forests wherever the Government of Israel tells it to—including on top of demolished Bedouin villages. But JNF-Israel (known as JNF-KKL), as the body entrusted exclusively with forestation throughout Israel’s territory, in fact plays a major role in deciding where forests are planted. We call on JNF to publicly state to the Israeli government, and to JNF-KKL, that it will not fund or participate in the forestation or development of any area that is the site of an existing or demolished Bedouin village. Until it takes a stand against the demolitions and expulsion of Bedouin citizens, and aligns its forestation and development practices with human rights and the universal values enshrined in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, JNF cannot begin to remove the moral stain of complicity in such acts.

2. JNF-KKL continues to push through a massive forestation plan intended to double the area of the Destiny Hills forest project from 14,000 to 28,000 dunams. Several Bedouin communities in this area are slated to disappear along with 11,000 dunams of agricultural land. Will JNF oppose the destruction of the Bedouin villages involved in JNF-KKL’s Destiny Hills forest project? Or will JNF continue to support forestation in this area, as the government proceeds to destroy the Bedouin villages there and to uproot its residents?

We challenge Mr. Robinson to visit Al-Arakib and the Destiny Hills area to witness the destruction and to explain to the communities concerned that JNF’s American Jewish donors want a forest where Bedouin homes and villages now are.

3. In his response to the petition quoted in JTA, Mr. Robinson claimed that the unrecognized Bedouin villages “cover 60 percent of the Negev,” and that recognizing and developing them would therefore cause “an environmental crisis.” In fact, adding together all of the lands that are claimed by the Bedouin, including those in dispute, the number comes closer to just 6%. (The Bedouin communities in the entire Negev live on 240,000 dunams, and are seeking to preserve ownership of an additional 450,000; this totals about 700,000 of the Negev’s entire area of 13 million dunams, or less than 6%.) We are dismayed that Mr. Robinson has relied on a serious misstatement of fact to justify an immoral policy.

4. The very day after Mr. Robinson responded to our petition, just two days after the conclusion of JNF’s Annual Conference in Atlanta, the Bedouin village Al-Arakib was completely demolished for the sixth time in three months, leaving hundreds of Israeli citizens again without shelter. What was JNF’s response to this act? Silence. As a self-proclaimed friend of the Bedouin that is working to raise several million dollars to buttress a partnership with one of Israel's minorities, one might have expected JNF to express its distress that a Bedouin village was demolished yet again in an area that JNF has singled out for forestation, and to strongly encourage the Israeli government to resolve the land dispute with Israel’s Bedouin communities through a negotiated agreement rather than by force.

5. Mr. Robinson has challenged our organizations to raise money for Negev development. But fundraising is JNF's mission and expertise. The mission of the organizations who have signed the petition is to safeguard the rights of all Israel’s citizens, to champion justice and equity. Many of them do enormous work on the ground in varied fields such as access to education, community advocacy, women’s rights and other areas.

That is why we are calling on JNF to challenge the policies of JNF-KKL and the government, and to truly help the Bedouin, not just with a few projects—however meaningful and important they may be—by funding projects for Israel’s Bedouin citizens at levels proportionate to the size of this community in the Negev, nearly 30% of its population.

Mr. Robinson: Don't plant or fund forests that displace Bedouin villages and deprive people of their ancestral lands. Don't let JNF be used to implement the Israeli government's policy of discrimination and destruction. Join with the thousands of Israelis and American Jews who are committed to a sustainable Negev for all its inhabitants, Jews and Arabs alike.


Now more than ever - sign the petition to JNF.
Hold JNF leaders accountable.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Video: Dramatic Reading of JNF's CEO Response to Bedouin Demolitions

The Jewish Alliance for Change, together with its partners in Israel, will soon provide a formal response to JNF CEO Russell Robinson's highly inaccurate, misleading and evasive statements about the JNF petition and its 36 Israeli and American Jewish NGO sponsors. In the meantime, some delicious irony.

KungFuJew has this at Jewschool:



In response to a petition launched by the Jewish Alliance for Change calling on the Jewish National Fund to immediately halt their participation in the dispossension of Bedouin unrecognized villages in Israel’s economically impoverished Negev region, JNF’s CEO Russell Robinson responded with fiery indignation (full text below).

Jewschool founder Mobius juxaposes the statement over video of the recent demolition of Bedouin village al Araqib for a JNF forest. As aluminum huts crumble, Robinson claims JNF’s Blueprint Negev benefits some tens of thousands of Bedouin in and around select recognized towns. And as phalanxes of policemen shove the poorest of Israeli families from their homes (read: tents), Robinson charges further, “The NGOs and individuals who signed onto this petition did not contribute to the advancement of the quality of life of these residents; rather they seem to spend their time petitioning against those who are.” A heavy charge indeed given that the leading signatories are the NGOs providing services to Bedouin that the [Israeli] government does not.

Read the rest of his post here.

Bulldozers return to Bedouin village for sixth time, Jerusalem Post

Hours after the demolitions, dozens of protesters held solidarity rallies in Tel Aviv and Beersheva in support of the residents.

A month since the last house demolition, Israel Lands Authority (ILA) bulldozers returned on Wednesday to the unrecognized Beduin village of Kafr al-Arakib, leveling dozens of illegally- built structures. Police said one person was arrested during a protest that ensued and taken for questioning.

Police added that together with the southern branch of the State Prosecutor’s Office they are filing a lawsuit against the residents of the village. The act is a method of demanding compensation for state funds spent to carry out the six rounds of demolitions.

Previous rulings by the ILA and Israeli courts have determined that the structures at the village are illegal, while residents contend it is their ancestral land that they have lived on since before the founding of the state.

Hours after the demolitions, dozens of protesters held solidarity rallies in Tel Aviv and Beersheva in support of the residents.

Ya’acov Manor, an Israeli activist involved in the protest movement against the demolitions, said that he believed that the bulldozers returned on Wednesday after a month’s absence as an act of revenge for recent protests against the demolitions.

On Monday a demonstration was held by representatives of Jewish organizations outside the Jewish National Fund conference in Atlanta.

The protest coincided with the sending of an open letter to the JNF, signed by Israeli organizations and hundreds of citizens opposed to the continued demolitions.

Manor added that activist Haia Noah from the Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality was arrested and violently assaulted by police. He added that she was interrogated for several hours before she was taken to a local hospital to be treated for pain in her neck and head. Police only confirmed that one person was arrested.

By BEN HARTMAN, 14/10/2010
All rights reserved © 1995 - 2009 The Jerusalem Post.
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=191324
October 14, 2010 Thursday 6 Heshvan 5771 0:46 IST

Monday, October 11, 2010

Sign the Open Letter to the Jewish National Fund: Equal rights, sustainability, and development for Israel’s Negev – not dispossession of the Bedouin!

Sign the Open Letter Petition to Ronald Lauder, Stanley Chesley, and Russell Robinson and the entire Jewish National Fund leadership here.

As residents of the Negev, human rights activists, social organizations in Israel, Jewish and other allies in the United States and around the world, we issue this call to you, the leadership of the Jewish National Fund (JNF), as you assemble for JNF’s Annual Conference in Atlanta, together with Israeli cabinet ministers, the mayor of Jerusalem, and others involved in various projects in the Negev, some involving JNF and others sponsored by it. No doubt, JNF presumes to be speaking for all the residents of the entire Negev during this conference. But the facts suggest otherwise.

In 2005, JNF-USA, together with JNF-Israel, the Or Movement, Ayalim and the government of Israel, launched a program for developing the Negev, announcing that it will be placing the Negev at the center of its activities in Israel. JNF has since become the major contributor to various development projects in the region. The program set an ambitious demographic target: between the years 2005-2010 the Jewish population of the Negev was to be increased by 500,000. When this goal was not met, a more modest target was set: to increase the Jewish population of the Negev by 250,000 by 2013. But neither of the two targets were formulated in democratic consultation with the current residents of the Negev.

To implement its plan, JNF is using two complementary strategies:
  • Bringing Jews to the Negev in order to achieve demographic superiority over the Arab population.

  • Intensive forestation measures which require massive dispossession of Arab Bedouin from their lands, in order to “open up space” for the Jewish population.

The first strategy has yielded few results. By contrast, the forestation efforts of the JNF have been more successful. JNF is planting trees on thousands of acres of land – much of it not empty, but containing Bedouin villages, many with ongoing legal claims of Bedouin ownership.

Two of many examples illustrate the systematic pattern of JNF action:

First, the village of Twail Abu Jarwal, located in the heart of Givoth Goral (“Destiny Hills”), was destroyed some fifty times over the past four years to make room for a JNF forest already underway.

Second, the village of Al-Arakib, north of Beer Sheba, which recently made headlines, is situated in the heart of the “Ambassadors Forest,” an area in which the JNF conducted massive forestation until mid-May 2010. Since the end of July 2010, the village has been destroyed five times – once during the month of the Ramadan fast.

In this case, too, JNF is cooperating with the government of Israel as it dispossesses the people of the Al-Touri tribe living there—the same Bedouin tribe originally expelled from the site during the 1950’s—by completely afforesting the area so that they can no longer return to their lands. Following repeated home demolitions, hundreds of villagers, men, women and children, are currently living in makeshift open tents and huts, exposed to the extreme heat of the day, and the soon approaching winter.

JNF has completed all its work surrounding the village of Al-Arakib and is awaiting its final evacuation. At the same time, Awjan, an area of small hamlets and agricultural farms in the southern part of Givoth Goral, may be the next target for dispossession and expulsion.

JNF has filed a publicly available plan for forestation which completely ignores the existence of Awjan and other “unrecognized” Bedouin villages in the area to be blanketed with trees. Detailed objections to the JNF plan have been submitted to Israel’s Ministry of Interior by human rights organizations.

The JNF website showcases a number of projects for the Bedouin population, and invites people to make a contribution to them. But the facts suggest that these projects are little more than lip service by JNF, an attempt to whitewash its complicity in the dispossession, or to gain the confidence of some segments of the Bedouin community, the poorest and most neglected in Israel. Projects like Wadi Atir and Nahal Grar, or a few other small projects intended for the Bedouin population, are in no way proportional to the actual size of the Bedouin population of the Negev or to the huge sums and resources that the JNF is investing in the region.

The Bedouin, the indigenous inhabitants of the Negev, comprising nearly 30% of the region’s population, are being forced to pay the price of JNF activities in the Negev. That the JNF does not itself engage in the government’s demolition and expulsion activity, or decide the legal status of villages, is no defense. The JNF must not serve as an accomplice to the discriminatory policy of the Government of Israel and the Israel Land Administration (ILA) – the dispossession of the Bedouin from their land.

We call on you, the JNF leadership, to reconsider JNF’s development plans for the Negev and to commit, henceforth, to working toward truly sustainable development of the Negev for ALL its inhabitants, Jews and Arabs alike.

We call on you to:

  • Stop forestation activities in areas of existing Bedouin villages as well as on lands for which Bedouin have made legal claims of ownership, pending final court decisions.

  • Fund projects for Israel’s Bedouin citizens and communities at levels that are proportional to the size of this population in the Negev—nearly 30%--recognizing the contribution of the Bedouin to the flourishing of the Negev.

  • Join the call of human rights organizations in Israel to allow the Bedouin to live on their traditional lands, as they have for many generations.

Bedouin villages should be able to find their place in a Negev that also includes forests and tourist sites, within the framework of true environmental planning, involving the Bedouin in determining their own future.

By ensuring that all Israelis can feel confident that their basic rights and culture will be treated with respect by the society in which they live, the State of Israel can build a foundation for trust and partnership with its non-Jewish minorities.

Atlanta is the place to do real soul searching, to end JNF’s role as an accessory to acts of robbery and looting, green-washed by false notions of sustainability. True sustainability is not about one national or ethnic group living at the expense of another. It does not mean doing injustice to one for the benefit of another; nor does it involve the exploitation of the limited resources of indigenous peoples living in the State of Israel. Rather, sustainability is about sharing resources equitably; otherwise, it becomes a fig leaf for entrenching ethnic discrimination.

If you, the leaders of the JNF, fail to heed this call, you will bear responsibility for the betrayal of Israel’s commitment to the values of equality and justice enshrined in its Declaration of Independence, to which the state is obligated by the international conventions it has signed.

If you fail to reevaluate the JNF’s course, you risk embroiling the State of Israel in a war against its own citizens—the Arab population of the Negev—igniting a conflagration that may not easily be extinguished.

We call on you, the leadership of the JNF, to end your complicity in the destruction of Bedouin villages in the Negev and in the dispossession of Israel’s Bedouin community.

Signed by 28 NGOs, human rights organizations and social movements from the Negev and Israel and by 8 American Jewish organizations.

From Israel:

■ Al-Arakib Village Committee ■ Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality ■ Rabbis for Human Rights, Israel ■ Shatil – Leading Social Change, An Initiative of the New Israel Fund ■ The Regional Council of Unrecognized Bedouin Villages ■ Physicians for Human Rights – Israel ■ Mossawa Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens in Israel ■ The Association for Support and Defense of Bedouin Rights in Israel ■ Hit’habrut-Tarabut – Arab-Jewish Movement for Social and Political Change ■ AJEEC – Negev Institute for Strategies of Peace and Development ■ The Local Committee – Alsira Village ■ Al-Arakib People’s Committee ■ Women’s Coalition for Peace ■ Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel ■ Sikkuy – The Association for the Advancement of Civic Equality in Israel ■ Recognition Forum ■ Bimkom: Planners for Planning Rights ■ Laqiya Womens’ Association ■ Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Campaign ■ Gush Shalom ■ The Israeli Committee against House Demolition ■ Social TV ■ Alternative Information Center ■ Fighters for Peace ■ Public Committee Against Torture in Israel ■ New Profile – Movement for the Civil-ization of Israel Society ■ Yesh Gvul ■ Amnesty Israel

From the US:

■ Jewish Alliance for Change ■ Rabbis for Human Rights-North America ■ Meretz USA ■ Shalom Center ■ The Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring ■ Jewish Voice for Peace ■ Tikkun Community ■ Network of Spiritual Progressives

Sign the Open Letter to JNF leaders here. By signing you can send the Open Letter by email directly to JNF Chairman Ronald Lauder, President Stanley M. Chesley and CEO Russell Robinson.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Media Advisory: 36 Israeli and American Jewish Organizations Send Open Letter to JNF

Jewish Alliance for Change
P.O. Box 96503 #89647
Washington, D.C. 20090-6503
Contact: Doni Remba
dremba@jafc.org or doniremba@gmail.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - October 11, 2010

36 Israeli and American Jewish Organizations Send Open Letter to JNF
Call on JNF to end its complicity in the dispossession of the Negev Bedouin from their land
JNF must reconsider its development plans for the Negev and commit to truly sustainable development of the Negev for all of the region’s inhabitants, Jews and Arabs alike.

Washington, D.C. – Thirty-six Israeli and American Jewish organizations have sent an Open Letter today to the leadership of the Jewish National Fund as it convenes in Atlanta for its 10th Annual Conference.

The letter, addressed to JNF Chairman Ronald Lauder, President Stanley M. Chesley and CEO Russell Robinson, calls on JNF to end its complicity in the discriminatory policy of the Government of Israel and the Israel Land Administration (ILA) of destroying Bedouin villages in the Negev and dispossessing Israel’s Bedouin community of their land. This policy betrays Israel’s commitment to the values of equality and justice enshrined in its Declaration of Independence, to which the state is obligated by the international conventions it has signed.

The letter, which is available on
http://bedouinjewishjustice.blogspot.com/ at http://bedouinjewishjustice.blogspot.com/2010/10/open-letter-to-jewish-national-fund.html, asks that JNF

  • Stop forestation activities in areas of existing Bedouin villages as well as on lands for which Bedouin have made legal claims of ownership, pending final court decisions.
  • Fund projects for Israel’s Bedouin citizens and communities at levels that are proportional to the size of this population in the Negev—nearly 30%--recognizing the contribution of the Bedouin to the flourishing of the Negev.
  • Join the call of human rights organizations in Israel to allow the Bedouin to live on their traditional lands, as they have for many generations.
  • Reconsider its development plans for the Negev and commit to working toward truly sustainable development of the Negev for ALL its inhabitants, Jews and Arabs alike.

The Open Letter has been signed by a big tent of 28 ideologically diverse NGOs, human rights organizations and social movements from the Negev and Israel and 8 American Jewish organizations:

From Israel:
■ Al-Arakib Village Committee ■ Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality ■ Rabbis for Human Rights, Israel ■ Shatil – Leading Social Change, An Initiative of the New Israel Fund ■ The Regional Council of Unrecognized Bedouin Villages ■ Physicians for Human Rights – Israel ■ Mossawa Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens in Israel ■ The Association for Support and Defense of Bedouin Rights in Israel ■ Hit’habrut-Tarabut – Arab-Jewish Movement for Social and Political Change ■ AJEEC – Negev Institute for Strategies of Peace and Development ■ The Local Committee – Alsira Village ■ Al-Arakib People’s Committee ■ Women’s Coalition for Peace ■ Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel ■ Sikkuy – The Association for the Advancement of Civic Equality in Israel ■ Recognition Forum ■ Bimkom: Planners for Planning Rights ■ Laqiya Womens’ Association ■ Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Campaign ■ Gush Shalom ■ The Israeli Committee Against House Demolition ■ Social TV ■ Alternative Information Center ■ Fighters for Peace ■ Public Committee Against Torture in Israel ■ New Profile – Movement for the Civil-ization of Israel Society ■ Yesh Gvul ■ Amnesty International – Israel Section

From the US:
■ Jewish Alliance for Change ■ Rabbis for Human Rights-North America ■ Meretz USA ■ Shalom Center ■ Jewish Voice for Peace ■ The Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring ■ Tikkun Community ■ Network of Spiritual Progressives

JNF is engaged in intensive forestation and development in the Negev designed to ensure a Jewish majority in the region. To achieve this, it plants trees on large tracts of land containing Bedouin villages, many with ongoing legal claims of ownership, requiring massive dispossession of Arab Bedouin from their lands in order to open up space for the Jewish population. The destruction of the entire villages of Al-Arakib and Twail Abu Jarwal and the expulsion of hundreds of men, women and children to make way for JNF forests are but a few of many examples.

JNF has filed with Israel’s Interior Ministry a publicly available plan for forestation which completely ignores the existence of “unrecognized” Bedouin villages in areas it intends to blanket with trees. Detailed objections to the JNF plan have been submitted to Israel’s Ministry of Interior by Israeli human rights organizations.

JNF Petition Campaign: The Open Letter to the JNF is being launched today by the 36 organizations as a public petition campaign at www.change.org at the following location online: http://www.change.org/petitions/view/equal_rights_sustainability_and_development_for_israels_negev_not_dispossession_of_the_bedouin. Each time the letter is signed online, it is emailed to JNF leaders Ronald Lauder, Stanley M. Chesley and Russell Robinson. A related petition campaign, started in August by JAFC and 7 other Jewish organizations, gained the endorsement of more than 50 prominent American Jews, including rabbis, artists, academics and organizational leaders, calling on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the demolition of unrecognized Bedouin villages in Israel and to negotiate a just solution to the plight of Israel’s Bedouin Palestinian Arab citizens in the Negev. That petition drive now has nearly 4,000 signatories and growing.

The American Jewish petition expresses solidarity with an Israeli petition, signed by over 3,500 citizens of Israel and others, sponsored by the Negev Institute for Strategies of Peace and Economic Development (NISPED), an Israeli nonprofit in Beer Sheva which promotes Arab-Jewish equality and empowerment for the Arab citizens of Israel, particularly the Arab Bedouin community in the Negev. That petition is hosted by http://www.change.org/ at http://humanrights.change.org/petitions/view/end_the_destruction_of_bedouin_villages_in_israel and emailed to Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren each time it is signed.

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