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US: Sanction Jewish National Fund-Israel (KKL-JNF) for Funding Settlement Expansion and Fostering Settler Violence

KKL-JNF acquires Palestinian land through secretive subsidiaries in shady transactions to support Jewish-only settlement expansion

(Washington, D.C., January 17, 2025) — The U.S. Departments of State and Treasury should impose sanctions on the Israeli-registered entities Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund ("KKL-JNF" or "JNF") and its subsidiaries, Himanuta Ltd. ("Himanuta") and Himanuta Ltd. ("Himanuta Jerusalem") for their roles in undermining the peace and security of the occupied West Bank; dispossessing Palestinians of their property; financing and facilitating illegal and racist settlement expansion; and providing material and financial support to violent or sanctioned Israeli settlements and settlers, DAWN said in a communication to the U.S. government today.

DAWN urges KKL-JNF to cease all of its discriminatory and illegal activities to promote and expand settlements on Palestinian property in the occupied West Bank.

"KKL-JNF has been the financial engine for the taking of Palestinian land in transactions often marred by fraud to expand Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank that have caused violence, instability, and harm, and the U.S. government should sanction them for it," said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director at DAWN. "President Biden has an opportunity to close his term by  broadcasting a resounding message: all those responsible for settler violence and settlement expansion, no matter how powerful or well-established, will be punished for their damaging actions."

KKL-JNF and its Subsidiaries

KKL-JNF, the 124-year old Israel-based organization with prominent affiliate entities in the US, Canada, and the UK, is widely but superficially recognized for raising funds to plant trees in Israel; in fact, it has been a leader in Israeli efforts to cement control over the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT), quietly acquiring Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank through its subsidiaries for decades, making it one of the leaders in settlement expansion financing. Since 1967, KKL-JNF and its subsidiaries have acquired an estimated 65,000 dunams (over 16,000 acres) of land in the OPT, much of which it has allocated to Israeli settlements. As of 2016, the last year for which public data was available, Himanuta, a wholly owned KKL-JNF subsidiary, had NIS 4.8 billion ($1.3 billion) of land assets in its portfolio, with a stated goal of increasing that portfolio to NIS 20 billion ($5.5 billion) in 20 years. As of 2022, the most recent year for which data is available, KKL-JNF's budget topped NIS 1.7 billion ($500 million).

Since 1967, KKL-JNF largely relied on its subsidiaries, Himanuta and Himanuta Jerusalem, to acquire Palestinian private property in the West Bank. In 2022, however, its board formalized a policy of directly acquiring Palestinian-owned land in the West Bank to support the expansion of Jewish-only settlements. On February 1, 2024, President Biden issued Executive Order 14115, "Imposing Certain Sanctions on Persons Undermining Peace, Security, and Stability in the West Bank," which classifies violent settler activities as a threat to U.S. national security interests. The executive order authorizes the U.S. secretaries of state and treasury to designate individuals and entities perpetrating violence, forcibly displacing Palestinians, and undermining the peace and security of the occupied West Bank, as well as individuals and entities providing financial or material support to those actors.

In a 23-page submission to the State and Treasury Departments, DAWN presented comprehensive evidence of how KKL-JNF and its subsidiaries have committed sanctionable activities under E.O. 14115, including facilitating dispossession schemes targeting Palestinians, often relying on agents using fraud and extortion to acquire their property; threatening the peace and stability of the region by facilitating and financing the unlawful transfer of Israeli settlers into occupied territory; and funding and supporting settlements in the West Bank that serve as de-facto launchpads for settler-led violence, including several settlements that the U.S. has already sanctioned.

"Sanctioning JNF could and should be a textbook example of effective smart sanctions, targeting the powerful organizations that are the beating heart of the illegal settlement enterprise in the West Bank," said Mohsen Farshneshani, DAWN's sanctions counsel. "The U.S. government should leverage the full weight of economic sanctions to deny Israeli organizations like JNF access to the international financial system until they implement lasting changes in policy."

Land Acquisitions Often Marred by Fraud, Forgery, Shady Dealings

KKL-JNF, through its above-named subsidiaries, has facilitated, financed, and supported the dispossession and displacement of Palestinians from private property in the occupied West Bank since 1967. Israeli authorities have repeatedly scrutinized its and its subsidiaries' real estate transactions for suspected fraud and forgery, as detailed in DAWN's dossier. Like Amana, which the U.S. government sanctioned in November 2024 for supporting sanctioned settlers and orchestrating dispossession schemes in the West Bank, KKL-JNF, through its subsidiaries, has a history of, at worst, acting directly, or at best, serving as a willing and primary beneficiary, in schemes that displace Palestinian civilians. Between 2000 and 2003 alone, Himanuta, one of KKL-JNF's subsidiaries, acquired more than one thousand dunams of privately-owned Palestinian land in the West Bank in transactions built on forgery, fraud, and extortion, according to Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now. 

Highlighted in DAWN's sanctions nomination dossier is JNF's role in the 2019 forcible dispossession of the Palestinian Kisiya family in Beit Jala, west of Bethlehem. After decades in which the Kisiya family lived, worked, and paid taxes on their plot of land, where they built a home and a successful restaurant, JNF subsidiary Himanuta arrived and claimed that it owned the land. Himanuta successfully petitioned Israeli authorities to evict the family, demolish its home and restaurant, and then facilitated the establishment of a new Jewish-only settlement just a few dozen yards away, taking advantage of the absence of a comprehensive property registry in the area and presenting suspect acquisition documents of its own.

The submission also details Himanuta's nefarious role in supporting squatters who had taken over the home of the Palestinian Bakri family in Hebron. In 2001, Israeli settlers broke into the family's home and began squatting there, providing a series of fraudulent and dubious documents to support their ownership claims. After an arduous legal battle lasting over a decade, the Bakri family succeeded in their court case against the squatters, with the court rejecting the purported ownership documents of the squatters and finally ordering their eviction. However, in 2019, the settler squatters enlisted the help of Himanuta, which intervened in the case to claim that it had purchased part of the property from a mysterious relative weeks before the settlers were to be evicted; Himanuta then quickly leased it to an Israeli settler organization and secured a temporary injunction against the settler squatters' eviction from the unit. The case is still pending, despite an Israeli government report describing Himanuta's alleged purchase as being "riddled with legal flaws."

Not all of JNF and its subsidiaries' efforts to fraudulently displace Palestinians have succeeded, however. In 1991, KKL-JNF, through Himanuta, started eviction proceedings against the Palestinian Sumarin family of Silwan in occupied East Jerusalem. The organization based its claim to the property on a declaration that the home was "absentee property," a categorization that allows Jews to regain ownership of property they lost in 1948 but does not allow the same rights to Palestinians. After 32 years of legal battles, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled on April 3, 2023 in favor of the Sumarin family, allowing them to remain in their home. This decision was a rare victory against efforts by settler organizations to alter the demographic landscape of the occupied territories.

While the Sumarin family's legal victory exposed and thwarted one attempt at dispossession, other fraudulent efforts by Himanuta and similar settler organizations have faced far less resistance, and accountability remains the exception rather than the rule. In a 2005 criminal conspiracy involving large-scale theft of Palestinian land, Israeli police arrested several suspects, including Civil Administration officials, real estate professionals, an attorney, and the CEO of Himanuta, for fraud, forgery, and extortion over West Bank property transactions. Haaretz reported that then-CEO of Himanuta Haim Cohen was well aware of the theft of the properties Himanuta purchased under his purview, but was not charged with any crimes due to insufficient evidence​. In 2013, Lt. Col. Yair Blumenthal, head of the Civil Administration's infrastructure department, ​was convicted; Major Ehud Brosh, head of the IDF's lands department, accepted a plea agreement in 2011. Yosef Amram, an Israeli real estate agent, reportedly engaged in blackmail to facilitate fraudulent transactions that led to at least 1,400 dunams of stolen land to Himanuta. Yosef Amram pleaded guilty to bribery, extortion, and tax offenses in 2011. This criminal scheme, coupled with Himanuta's involvement—whether directly or as a willing and well-resourced beneficiary—provides a glimpse into the pervasive illicit dealings that drive and sustain the ongoing expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

"Israeli authorities have repeatedly pointed to fraud and dubious practices in KKL-JNF and its subsidiaries dealings but the organization has faced no consequences," said Farshneshani. "This is a clear-cut case where U.S. sanctions can remedy the near-blanket impunity that Israel gives to everyone involved in the settlement enterprise, including those financing and promoting the establishment of settlements on Palestinian property."

Land Acquisitions to Undermine the Viability of a Two-State Solution

KKL-JNF has engaged in sanctionable conduct under E.O. 14115 by acquiring Palestinian land and allocating it to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank through its Subsidiaries and, more recently, direct land acquisitions. KKL-JNF's discriminatory mandate, which now applies to land purchases in the occupied West Bank, undermines the U.S. policy goals of promoting equal measures of security, prosperity, and freedom for Palestinians and Israelis. For decades, the United States has maintained that Israeli settlements are detrimental to the prospects of a viable two-state solution.

Through strategic land acquisitions, along with legal and material support, KKL-JNF has played a central role in severing the territorial contiguity of the occupied West Bank, undermining the viability of a Palestinian state and threatening the peace, security and stability of the region. KKL-JNF has also funded infrastructure, roads, tourism, and educational facilities for various settlements. In 2022, KKL-JNF adopted a policy of direct land purchases in the occupied Palestinian territory and allocated NIS 61 million ($18 million) to this effort. Such actions make the dispossession of Palestinians in the OPT a core pillar of its operations.

KKL-JNF has also intervened to block policies that could preserve the viability of a two-state solution. In 2021, in the Palestinian village of Khirbet Zakariyyah, KKL-JNF claimed ownership of land and prevented the Israeli Civil Administration from legalizing Palestinian buildings, thereby maintaining the contiguity of nearby Jewish settlements. These actions have been criticized for destabilizing the region and diminishing prospects for peace. 

KKL-JNF's support for settlement expansion directly violates international law prohibiting settlements in occupied territory, as well as explicit orders from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) for Israel to cease all settlement activity and withdraw its settlers from the OPT. In July 2024, the International Court of Justice declared that all Israeli settlements are illegal and that Israel should end its unlawful presence in the OPT "as rapidly as possible." Under the Geneva Conventions, settlements in occupied territory, such as the Israeli settlements in the West Bank, are deemed to be war crimes. In 2016, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed resolution 2334, reaffirming "that the policy and practices of Israel in establishing settlements in the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967 have no legal validity and constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East" and further called on Israel to take steps to end its presence in the OPT.

"KKL-JNF's close ties to the Israeli government and international stature have long shielded it from scrutiny, allowing it to implement discriminatory Israeli land policies that undermine U.S. foreign policy objectives, international law, and the human rights of millions of Palestinians," said Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man, director of research for Israel-Palestine at DAWN. "Sanctions would signal a break in this impunity and force KKL-JNF, its backers, and the Israeli government to reevaluate the costs of their policies, behaviors, and actions." 

Material Support for Violent or Sanctioned Settler Entities

KKL-JNF's activities include funding and allocating land to extremist settlement outposts that serve as epicenters of violence aimed at displacing Palestinian civilians. This support extends to financing entities currently on the U.S. Specially Designated Nationals List ("SDN List"). Between 2021 and 2024, KKL-JNF directed NIS 5.5 million ($1.5 million) into programs that send "at-risk" youth to wildcat settlement outposts from which the vast portion of settler violence emanates. These programs support SDN-listed entities such as Hashomer Yosh, Havat Hamachoch, Zvi's Farm, and Moshe's Farm.

Announcing sanctions against Hashomer Yosh on August 28, 2024, the State Department wrote: "After all 250 Palestinian residents of Khirbet Zanuta were forced to leave in late January, Hashomer Yosh volunteers fenced off the village to prevent the residents from returning.  The volunteers also provided support by grazing the herds and purporting to "guard" the outposts of U.S.-designated individuals."

Among others, KKL-JNF's subsidiaries also allocate and lease land to violent settlements with a documented history of violence against Palestinians, including Nahal Heletz (Neve Ori), Itamar, Einav, and Metzadot Yehuda (Beit Yatir). These KKL-JNF actions support the proliferation of settlement outposts and entrench systematic violence and dispossession in the occupied West Bank.

"Financing Hashomer Yosh, an organization that the U.S. government sanctioned for its direct participation in ethnic cleansing, should have led to action against KKL-JNF months ago," said Omer-Man. "The fact of the matter is that the deeper you look at the settlement enterprise, the clearer it becomes that the entire Israeli establishment, major NGOs, and corporations, all willingly participate in the violence inherent in settlement."

Call for U.S. Action

DAWN's submission to the State and Treasury Departments presents comprehensive evidence of KKL-JNF's sanctionable activities under E.O. 14115, including its role in violent dispossession, fraudulent land deals, and material support for settlement expansion and for U.S.-sanctioned entities. DAWN urges the U.S. government to take decisive action to compel major institutions like KKL-JNF to stop supporting Israeli settlements and violent settlers. 

"Israel's settlement enterprise and its associated land theft and forcible displacement of Palestinians rely on the massive support of institutions like KKL-JNF," said Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man, director of research for Israel-Palestine at DAWN. "If there is any chance of ending the occupation and removing Israeli settlements, organizations like JNF must be forced to cease their illicit activities or face international isolation and financial sanctions."

An Israeli flag and a giant Star of David are displayed next to an Israeli watchtower in the Eviatar settlement outpost opposite the village of Beita, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, on October 19, 2024.

Source: Photo by JAAFAR ASHTIYEH/AFP via Getty Images

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