Pincus to Use Veto Power to Void JNF Decision Not to Sell Land to Private Parties

Louis I. Pincus, chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive, said today that he would exercise his veto power as Governor of the Jewish National Fund to avoid a decision by the Fund’s directorate March I not to sanction the sale of JNF land to private parties. Pincus was asked by the Executive to use the veto because the JNF acted in defiance of a request to hold the matter in abeyance until it could be studied fully. The Executive appointed a special committee for that purpose, headed by Aryeh L. Dulzin, the Jewish Agency’s treasurer. The issue involves a government proposal to sell JNF and State-owned land to the 240,000 families presently living on it in order to bring additional revenue into the national treasury. About 170,000 of the families occupy JNF land. The JNF, founded 70 years ago, operates on the principle that its land belongs to the “Jewish people” and therefore can never be sold. Occupants hold leases which must be renewed every 49 years.

A JNF spokesman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that Pincus could not veto the agency’s decision because his veto power was restricted to decisions taken at meetings at which the JNF Governor is present. He did not attend the directorate’s meeting March 1. According to the spokesman, the sale of the JNF land would bring in only a fraction of the revenue estimated by Treasury experts. He said the latter expected to realize $141. 750 million over a 15 year period but JNF experts estimated that the total would be about $36.7 million. Many of the families residing on the land were said to be unable to afford to buy it. “For this piddling amount it is not worth violating our hallowed principle of national ownership of the land,” the JNF spokesman said. A 1960 act of the Knosset applied the non-saleable principle to government-owned land but the government is trying to get the act rescinded because it needs the cash. The matter has been under discussion by the Land Administration Authority, a joint government-JNF body in which the government commands the deciding vote. The sale plan was condemned last month by Herman L, Weisman, president of the JNF of America, who claimed that converting the land from leasehold to freehold would encourage speculators and profiteers. The JNF is the largest land holder in Israel after the State.