{"id":34516,"date":"2011-05-29T07:36:53","date_gmt":"2011-05-29T04:36:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=34516"},"modified":"2023-04-05T00:27:38","modified_gmt":"2023-04-04T21:27:38","slug":"cameron-drops-israel-racist-charity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2011\/05\/29\/cameron-drops-israel-racist-charity\/","title":{"rendered":"Cameron drops Israel ‘racist’ charity"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Stop the JNF Campaign: Media Release<\/strong><\/h3>\n

27 May 2011 – Prime Minister David Cameron has quietly terminated his status as an Honorary Patron of the controversial Jewish National Fund (JNF).\u00a0 His office confirmed he had \u201cstepped down\u201d.<\/strong> For many years leaders of all three main political parties became Honorary Patrons of the JNF by convention.\u00a0 According to Dick Pitt, a spokesperson for the Stop the JNF Campaign, \u201cCameron was the only leader of the three major parties remaining as a JNF Patron.\u00a0 This decline in political support for the JNF at the highest levels of the political tree may be a sign of the increasing awareness in official quarters that a robust defence of the activities of the JNF may not be sustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The news of Cameron\u2019s move has reached Palestinians in refugee camps, \u00a0people whose land is under the control of the JNF.\u00a0 Salah Ajarma in Bethlehem\u2019s Aida Refugee Camp was \u201cdelighted to hear the news that the British Prime Minister has decided to withdraw his support for this sinister organisation involved in ethnic cleansing. My village, Ajjur, was taken by force from my family and given to the JNF who used money from JNF UK to plant the British Park on its ruins. For the Palestinians who were evicted from their villages and have been prevented from returning, Cameron’s withdrawal is another victory on the road to achieving justice and freedom for the Palestinians”.<\/p>\n

The JNF chairman Samuel Hayek defends the work of the organisation saying, \u201cfor over 100 years we have had one mission: to settle and develop the Land of Israel\u201d as pioneers of the \u201chistoric Zionist dream\u201d.\u00a0 The registered charity claims their work, especially in the Negev region of Israel, deals with \u201cthe rising demographic challenges faced by Israel\u201d.\u00a0 In recent months the JNF\u2019s activities in the Negev have received extensive international media coverage, linking them to the demolition of Palestinian Bedouin villages and confiscation of the land of the village.\u00a0 Campaigners report that \u201ceven Israeli courts have criticised the JNF as an organisation that discriminates against non-Jews and there is mounting evidence of the JNF\u2019s involvement in Israel\u2019s programme to change the ethnic composition of areas inside 1948 Israel as well as in Jerusalem and the Occupied Territories.\u00a0 It is not acceptable that such an organisation is allowed to operate in the UK, much less to enjoy charity status\u201d.<\/p>\n

Michael Kalmanovitz, UK co-ordinator of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, said \u201cCameron\u2019s patronage of the JNF lent parliamentary credibility to a criminal organisation backed by a highly-equipped occupying army and masquerading as a \u2018humanitarian charity\u2019.\u00a0 Now parliamentarians who are \u2018Friends of Israel\u2019 must consider how much longer they can defend Israeli apartheid and worse.\u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pressure has been mounting on Cameron and the JNF.\u00a0 An Early Day Motion in the Westminster Parliament highlighted the Prime Minister\u2019s status as honorary patron and claimed that \u201cthere is just cause to consider revocation of the JNF’s charitable status in the UK\u201d.\u00a0 UK and international JNF fund-raising events increasingly face protests due, campaigners argue, to \u201ca shift in public opinion on Israel generally\u201d<\/strong>.\u00a0 In 2007, the American JNF application for consultative status on a key UN committee was rejected because delegates were unable to distinguish between the activities of the US Branch and those of the JNF in Israel whose activities the UN\u2019s Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination expressed concerns about.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Stop the JNF Campaign<\/em> has workshops planned in London on 4 June 2011 and protests against JNF fundraising activities will be organised throughout the coming year.<\/p>\n

ENDS<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/span>
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stop the JNF Campaign: Media Release 27 May 2011 – Prime Minister David Cameron has quietly terminated his status as an Honorary Patron of the controversial Jewish National Fund (JNF).\u00a0 His office confirmed he had \u201cstepped down\u201d. For many years leaders of all three main political parties became Honorary Patrons of the JNF by convention.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":34517,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[148,94],"tags":[2913,5692,5691,498],"class_list":["post-34516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-israel","category-uk","tag-david-cameron","tag-jnf","tag-the-stop-the-jnf-campaign","tag-zionism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}