As well as financing settlements on territory seized by the Israeli state in violation of international law, the WZO has transferred lands to the settlers that even Israel's occupation authorities recognize as belonging to private Palestinian land-owners. On those lands, the WZO has helped to establish what are officially termed "unauthorized outposts".
These fledgling settlements are home to the most extreme and violent settlers, who are often behind attacks on Palestinian farmers intended to drive them off their land. The Israeli state has used the WZO as a means to veil its own role channeling money into these "outposts".
Haaretz concluded: "The [WZO] Settlement Division is acting like a publicly funded crime organization."
Greenwashing plansNow Duvdevani appears to be encouraging the JNF to mimic the WZO in publicly funding the same lawless settlement practices.
To placate donors, the JNF is reported to be planning to greenwash its activities in the West Bank by characterizing them as involving "education, forestation and environmental protection" - echoing similar deceptions it perpetuates inside Israel.
There, the JNF has planted hundreds of forests over the lands of Palestinian refugees to prevent them from ever returning home, after they were ethnically cleansed by Israel in 1948, during events Palestinians call the Nakba, or Catastrophe.
Other JNF forestation programs have been weaponized against a section of Israel's own citizens - a large minority of 1.8 million Palestinians who avoided expulsion in 1948.
In collusion with the government, the JNF has forced Palestinian villagers, like those of al-Araqib in the Naqab (Negev), off their land by planting trees in place of their homes, or the JNF has used forests to tightly box in Palestinian communities to prevent expansion, leading to overcrowding and social tensions.
In Israel's early years, officials transferred 13 percent of Israeli territory to the JNF so the organization could enforce residential segregation between Jewish and Palestinian citizens. The JNF's charter specifically requires it to reserve all its land for Jews only.
Zionist 'consensus'Since its founding in 1901, the JNF has been strong-arming Palestinians off the land it controls - whether inside Israel or in the occupied territories, especially in East Jerusalem.
However until now, the JNF has successfully remained within the Zionist "consensus" by focusing public attention on its operations inside Israel. Its activities in the occupied territories have been concealed behind Himanuta.
Peace Now recently reported that, before the early 2000s, Himanuta had claimed ownership of at least 16,000 acres of West Bank land on which settlements were founded, including Itamar, Alfei Menashe, Einav, Kedumim and Givat Ze'ev.
Himanuta's work has concentrated in particular on occupied East Jerusalem, where it has allied with an extremist settler organization, Elad. The pair are behind efforts to evict an extended Palestinian family, the Sumarins, from their home in Silwan, an area that has been aggressively targeted for takeover by armed settlers backed by the Israeli state.
Secret fundAfter a long lull of activity, the JNF quietly revived its operations in the West Bank through Himanuta back in 2018.
Duvdevani's predecessor, Daniel Atar, a Labor party appointee, set up a secret war chest, in the name of Himanuta, amounting to some $70 million. The money was disguised as funds for use in Jerusalem.
But it was actually used to "purchase" Palestinian land and properties - including through the use of forged documents - in the Jordan Valley, Jericho, Hebron and the Etzion bloc south of Bethlehem.
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