What is Sheffield doing on this map?

Last week I wrote about the murky connections between the oil and gas industry, Rishi Sunak and the war in Palestine. At the same meeting at Central URC Church, Annie O’Gara from the Sheffield Coalition against Israeli Apartheid explained how the Israeli state is also waging war on the environment.

She told us how the Jewish National Fund (JNF) continues to colonise Palestine. The JNF has offices across the globe including in Britain where it is a charity, whose patrons include Tony Blair. As taxpayers, we support JNF with 25% Gift Aid.

The JNF has been described by historian, Ilan Pappe, as the primary agent of the colonisation of Palestine. Israel has given the JNF effective control of over 93% of the land of Israel. The JNF explicitly says it works for Jewish people only, part of the Apartheid law that discriminates against the Palestinians. Their guiding principle is that land is for Jewish benefit only. 

As someone who helped campaign against the destruction of Sheffield’s Street Trees, you might expect me to welcome JNF’s efforts to plant trees. But it is not as simple as that.

Annie explained, “ After the Nakba (the ethnic cleansing of 1947-49) Israel wanted to join the community of nations but had in its possession the stolen lands of more than 500 Palestinian villages. So it offloaded them!  The JNF took much of the stolen land and covered it with alien trees, European ones, not suited to the climate but making the land look more like Europe – where many Jewish settlers came from. Alien trees, then became fire risks (as we saw not long ago in the Jerusalem Hills.) Of course, covering Nakba villages with trees achieved 2 additional political aims: hiding the crime scenes and (they hoped) preventing the Right of Return to homes and lands.”

“It’s still doing this today by aiming to plant trees over Al Araqib to erase the Bedouin presence.  Another forest, the Yatir forest, gives out more greenhouse gases than it absorbs and has such a dense canopy that the forest floor is starved of light and indigenous flora and fauna have died out.”

On the back of its huge tree planting schemes (260 million), JNF claims to be the oldest green organisation in the world and has gained Observer status at COPs. But Israel and the JNF are uprooting Palestinians and Palestinian trees to build the state of Israel – 800,000 olive trees have been destroyed since 1967. That’s why Stop the JNF works with the Popular Struggle Co-ordinating Committee and the Land Defence campaign to plant trees with farmers in Area C ( a part of the West Bank illegally occupied by Israel).

The campaign, Stop the JNF: Plant a Tree in Palestine,  supports Palestinian farmers threatened by settlers to preserve their land by planting olives and vines.

Annie went on to talk about water which is essential for life. In Gaza the Israelis have cruelly cut the supply of water to the 2.2 million people living there, which is leading to intolerable conditions and the spread of disease.  

In the West Bank the situation is slightly more subtle, but still extremely cruel. “The JNF co-founded Mekorot, the Israeli water carrier,  helping to establish water apartheid. Settlements and Israeli towns get all the water they need: Palestinian farmers carry what they can from wells, and struggle when cisterns, water storage tanks and pipes are deliberately wrecked. Water is distributed unequally – Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza get far less than they need. Bedouin citizens of Israel living in the Naqab desert region are denied connection to the water supply.” 

On the subject of water – The JNF drained the water from the Hula wetlands, displaced the Bedouin who lived there, destroyed a migration stopping off spot for cranes and eliminated rare species. They turned the lake into a dust bowl and are now building a lake to restore what they damaged as a Tourist Attraction.

Also on the subject of water, the Coca-Cola bus came to Sheffield recently but was met with Free Palestine protestors. Coca-Cola has a bottling plant at Atarot, an illegal Israeli settlement. This takes much of the available water, leaving little for the Palestinians. 

There are currently up to 750,000 Israeli settlers living in at least 250 illegal Israeli settlements across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. By drinking Coca-Cola, we are supporting the illegal occupation of Palestine.

You can join the Boycott of Coca-Cola and find out about other products to boycott here. Our Government are trying to make it illegal for councils and other public authorities to conduct boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns against other countries, and in particular Israel. Michael Gove’s bill is currently working its way through Parliament. 

The JNF works to evict Palestinians in East Jerusalem, supports settlements, military academies and draws the rest of us into complicity. It uses a promotional map which covers Israel (including Gaza and the West Bank) with British cities including Sheffield.  Who said the JNF UK could put us on their map – which wipes out Palestine? Who said they could build a park on stolen lands of 7 Palestinian villages and call it British Park?