A prolonged legal battle over the Jewish National Fund’s refusal to fund projects in the administered territories is costing the organization more than the price of planting an entire forest in Israel.
Since February, JNF has been fighting a lawsuit filed by a group called the Ad Hoc Committee for Jewish Survival in Judea, Samaria, Gaza and the Golan.
This week, the committee served JNF with a motion for contempt of court.
It charged that JNF was disobeying a court injunction barring it from displaying, in promotional and fund-raising materials, maps of Israel that include the administered territories.
The dispute over maps is really a disagreement over politics. JNF’s U.S. branch funds tree-planting and land-reclamation projects only within the pre-1967 borders of the State of Israel.
The Ad Hoc Committee would like to see JNF change that policy. In order to try to force JNF to fund projects in the administered territories, it filed suit, claiming JNF “misled and defrauded” donors by concealing its policy.
Although the majority of the original charges in the Ad Hoc Committee’s lawsuit were dismissed, New York Supreme Court Judge Shirley Fingerhood did grant a motion restraining JNF from using maps of Israel that imply the organization is funding projects in the territories.
JNF spokesman Stuart Paskow said the organization has been abiding by that ruling. “All we use maps for is to locate projects. Maps were never used for fund raising, “he said.
MAPS ON BLUE BOXES
But in the recent contempt motion, the Ad Hoc Committee claims that when it wrote to JNF requesting information, it was sent copies of JNF brochures and JNF’s famous “blue boxes,” or pushkes.
These materials had the prohibited maps on them, thereby violating the court injunction, the Ad Hoc Committee charges.
“They can’t go around boycotting one-third of the land of Israel and then produce fraudulent literature,” said Michael Teplow, who is co-chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee, though not one of the plaintiffs in the case. Teplow also is president of Tehiya USA, the American affiliate of the right-wing Israeli party.
The battle will continue the first week of August, when Judge Fingerhood returns from vacation. Both sides have appeals pending: JNF is appealing the injunction and the Ad Hoc Committee is appealing the dismissal of four of its original charges.
No matter who comes out on top in court, the real loser in this case, Paskow says, is the State of Israel.
“Funds that we would normally be transferring to Israel we are now using to pay for attorneys,” Paskow said. He said JNF legal costs had exceeded $50,000, which is “more than enough to build a forest.”
Changing the policy, however, would be far more costly, Paskow said. The “overwhelming majority” of JNF’s donors, he said, want to keep their contributions confined to projects within the pre-1967 borders. A change in that policy could cost millions in donations.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
