Jewish National Fund of Canada throws fit after losing charitable status
Written by: Yves Engler
The Jewish National Fund of Canada losing its charitable status is a win for Canadian Palestine advocacy. JNF’s pathetic response to the revocation has also helped shine light on a significant Canadian contribution to Palestinian dispossession.
Last week, JNF Canada published a release saying they were launching legal proceedings against Canada’s revenue minister in a last ditch bid to reverse the revocation of their charitable status, which grants the organization a series of financial benefits including the ability to give donors tax receipts. The JNF hyped their suit through Canada Newswire and a statement on their site in the hope of having the minister intervene (while bemoaning outside pressure as the reason the CRA acted against them).
Irrespective of its complaints, the real scandal is how long the CRA has made all Canadians subsidize JNF operations. For decades the influential charity has supported the Israeli military and West Bank colonies in violation of CRA rules. The JNF’s most iconic project is Canada Park, which was built on the remnants of three Palestinian villages Israel took in 1967.
But everyone is doing it, according to JNF Canada. In a stunningly parochial bid to defend themselves, they told the Canadian Jewish News that “dozens of Canadian charities” operate in colonies the International Court of Justice recently ruled nations have a legal responsibility to not assist. JNF Canada responded to the paper’s question about revocation by writing: “While JNF Canada disagrees that it is contrary to Canadian foreign policy to develop projects on disputed territory (there are dozens of Canadian charities that operate in the disputed territories with CRA’s blessing), we have not supported new projects in the disputed territories since this matter was brought to our attention.”
In reality, JNF Canada could end its direct assistance to the Israeli military and West Bank colonies, but it would still violate government rules. That’s because the broader JNF is explicitly racist. In control of 13 per cent of Israel’s land – and with significant influence over most of the rest – KKL-JNF openly discriminates against the over 20 per cent of Israelis who aren’t Jewish. Its website previously noted, “a survey commissioned by KKL-JNF reveals that over 70% of the Jewish population in Israel opposes allocating KKL-JNF land to non-Jews, while over 80% prefer the definition of Israel as a Jewish state, rather than as the state of all its citizens.” Yet, Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms prohibits racial discrimination and a two-decade old CRA directive calls on charities to promote racial equality.
In its release on the revocation, JNF Canada seems to argue it possesses an ‘acquired right’ to have all taxpayers subsidize its racism. JNF Canada president Nathan Disenhouse noted, “our position is that it is unjust for CRA to revoke a charity because a charitable object that it accepted almost 60 years ago is now no longer considered to be a valid charitable object.”
On top of violating CRA rules on racism, foreign militaries and West Bank settlements, the JNF’s finances are opaque. Charity monitoring organization Charity Intelligence gives the JNF a 1-star (out of five) rating for its financial disclosure.
In other words, it’s unlikely the court will overturn the CRA decision and JNF Canada likely knows it. Its public campaign is an attempt to avoid a legal proceeding by forcing the minister to intervene.
It’s unclear whether their public strategy will succeed in eliciting a political intervention but, it doesn’t look promising. They haven’t even received vocal backing from the main genocide lobby groups. While the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs responded to a National Post inquiry by defending JNF Canada, CIJA, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center and B’nai Brith have failed to release a statement or even post about it on X. One reason for their hesitancy is the CRA has significant financial leverage over these groups since they also (directly or indirectly) depend on tax-receipted donations and it likely wouldn’t be difficult to find financial improprieties.
But the broader reason for the quiet from generally bellicose groups’ is that JNF Canada is bringing unwanted attention to a hard to defend subject at a time when many are appalled by Israel’s holocaust in Gaza.
Many of Canada’s 200-plus Israel-focused registered charities violate existing CRA rules and they raise over a quarter billion dollars a year for a country with a GDP per capita equal to Canada’s. No other wealthy, faraway, country receives a remotely comparable amount of “charity”. While apartheid apologists complain incessantly about Israel being unfairly “singled out”, the CRA’s failure to apply its own rules towards massive subsidies highlights how Israel is in fact singled out for special treatment.
In their bid to press the government for a concession, JNF Canada have offered activists an opportunity to draw attention to this Canadian contribution to Palestinian dispossession.
Canadian Dimension’s X post about JNF losing its charitable status garnered 1.9 million views. 20,000 watched the ‘Big Win for Palestine: Canada Revenue Agency revokes Jewish National Fund charitable status’. The dominant Canadian media ignored the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute and Just Peace Advocates organized press conference. However, Al Jazeera (twice), TRT, Canadian Dimension, Middle East Eye and Electronic Intifada covered the press conference or press release while Mondoweiss, Palestine Chronicle, Rabble and others published articles about the JNF revocation. The press conference and many of the articles discussed the 200+ charities raising funds for Israel. So have many of the social media posts on JNF’s revocation and a Just Peace Advocates and Canadian Foreign Policy Institute action alert produced thousands of emails to the CRA.
In another sign of how the JNF Canada publicity campaign has elicited unwanted attention, NDP revenue critic Niki Ashton responded to the revocation by emailing her list a fundraising appeal highlighting her recent role in challenging charities funding the Israeli military and West Bank colonies.
It’s time to ramp up the campaign against a most significant Canadian contribution to Palestinian dispossession. Mainstream progressive institutions should be pressed to sign on to the campaign and activists should mobilize at CRA offices to demand they revoke the charitable status of at least a dozen Israeli charities who’ve been shown to be violating rules.
As Ashton put it, “not one cent of Canadian tax-dollars should be funding genocide.”
Yves Engler is the author of 13 books. His latest book, available now, is "Canada's Long Fight Against Democracy”.
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