Palestine: land theft & afforestation
By Dr Haroon Aziz, South Africa
Zionism and its green facial surgery
The violent forest fires on ‘Jerusalem Hills’ have definitively confirmed that afforestation was a part of the strategy of land theft.
In 1901 the 5th Zionist Congress established the ‘charitable’ Jewish National Fund (JNF) to enable the ‘purchase’ of land, the establishment of settlements and agriculture, and employment of colonizing Zionists. This followed upon the experiment in European immigration in the 19th century. It distributed blue donation boxes to families and schools worldwide. It set 15 February as an annual tree planting day.
Beginning of afforestation
In 1920 JNF began its afforestation and silviculture (cultivation of trees) in earnest in cooperation with the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association (PICA), which was established by Baron Rothschild, the main financier of Zionist colonization under the ‘British Mandate’. Amongst the first forests were Ben Shemen and Kiryat Anavim in Ramle. The rationale for them was to prevent landslide, increase soil fertility, improve level of sediments, and reduce water evaporation. It tried to replicate the European rural model of an idyllic setting.
JNF partnered with new state power
After the establishment of the formal colony in 1948 JNF partnered with the new Ministry of Agriculture and speeded up afforestation. Currently, forests cover 1.18-million dunum of land – only 242000 dunum of it is native forests. Forty percent of the planted forests is covered in pines and cypresses; 13.5% in eucalyptus; and only 5.1% in local hardy oak, carob, and olive trees.
As a partner to government, JNF holds six of the 12 seats on the Israel Land Authority Council, which plays a key role in land distribution and development and planning – with minimum government oversight. JNF effectively operates as a powerful front for government with impunity.
The government uses JNF to circumvent not only cumbersome domestic property laws but also UN resolutions on the Israeli government’s legal obligation to return the land to Palestinian owners.
Uprooting of Palestinians
After the uprooting of Palestinians from their lands, the lands were declared as “absentees’ properties” and transferred to JNF, which became the largest land owner in Palestine. Seventy-one uprooted villages were turned into commercialized tourist attractions. This changed the character of the place and prevented refugees from returning to their lands.
Physical erasure of Palestinian villages
The villages of Al-Qabo, Allar, Soba, Ein Karem, Ajour, Emwas, Yalo, Lubya, Al-Araqib, Lajoun, Beit Nouba, Beit Jala, and others were erased and converted into the ‘Jerusalem Forest’ and other forests, which came under violent wildfires in the ‘Jerusalem Hills’ in April-May 2025. In Al-Araqib alone the residents resisted more than 200 demolition attempts by IDF.
Lubya was converted into the ‘South African Garden’ or the ‘Mandela Garden’ without the permission of the South African government, which objected strenuously and successfully. The Jerusalem Botanical Garden was also constructed in this region. The Israeli government unilaterally planted 18 trees ‘in honour’ of South Africa’s Ambassador, the Honourable Ismail Cachalia, who made a scathing attack on the Israeli government, which then removed his name from the trees.
In Galilee in the 1948 territory of Israel, JNF strategically outbids Arabs who are of Israeli citizenship for land allocated for the development of Arab/Palestinian towns and ensures Zionist ownership.
Jebel Mar Elias (in Arabic) for Mount Carmel
This is a coastal mountain range overlooking the strategic port of Haifa. It is the HQ of the Baha’i religion (founded in the 19th century). The afforestation campaign overwhelmed the range with an alien variety of tree, viz., eucalyptus, which the Palestinians mockingly nicknamed ‘the Jewish tree’. They planted this variety because they grow fast though they guzzle groundwater. They also planted Aleppo pines because they, too, grow fast though they spread fire fast because of terpenes (volatile natural compounds) and the cones and leaves make the flow of fire-friendly oxygen easy.
Carmel wildfires of 2010
The historic Carmel wildfires of 2010 amply demonstrated the non-homogeneity between the molecular genetics of tree-roots and soil types. This evidence was again demonstrated in the Jerusalem wildfires. The highwater content of these alien varieties could not retard the wildfires. They are also susceptible to pest infestations that demand artificial chemical sprays, which pollute the air and soil. There is negative impact on the ecosystem, biome (flora and fauna) as well as insect, reptile, bird and small animal life. The spread of minerals as nutrients through the root systems is harmed.
The only ‘good’ that may come out of forest fires is an oversupply of nitrogen for the organic composition of natural fertilizer. In strong contrast, the Palestinians know from their centuries of natural wisdom not to plant alien trees on their soils in local climatic conditions.
Society for the Protection of Nature (SPN) report
In 2019 SPN published a scientific report attacking JNU and called for it to stop its exotic afforestation campaigns. The studies show the natural harm to the environment and it classified the Aleppo pine as an invasive species that endanger other ecosystems and biodiversity.
JNF has no nutrient conservation strategies though its resorption is vital for its conservation. The leaf nitrogen resorption efficiency and soil nitrogen mineralization rates are vital for forest health.
The Yatir Forest experiment
In 1964 JNF commenced the Yatir Forest project on the southern slopes of the Hebron hills and north of the Negev Desert. It is JNU’s largest project (7400 acres) after the Bedouins were uprooted from Khirbet Itir village and displaced to the town of Hura. In its 30000 dunum space they planted 4-million pines and cypresses. They claimed that it would prevent desertification and climate change. They falsely upheld it as a model of prosperity in the desert. But the artificial forest endangered the desert ecosystem and its thriving plant and animal species such as the Faqqua iris and the Be’er Sheva lizard that are endemic only to the local desert habitat.
In 2010 the forest of 24000 trees caught on wildfire as a result of a severe two-year drought; the soil was deficient in natural minerals and other nutrients.
The lesson of this forest wildfire was also lost to JNU.
The Apartheid Wall
In 2019 alone 15000 olive trees were destroyed in the West Bank to build Zionist settlements. In Apartheid South African parlance this is equivalent to racist White Group Areas. To worsen matters, the Apartheid Wall that separated settlers from Palestinians also separated and isolated living organisms on both sides of the Wall. This made the organisms unable to move naturally, which reduced their numbers, caused ecological imbalance, and harmed biodiversity. The political and physical control of land is anti-ecological.
The Zionist Group Areas are used as bases to launch paramilitary attacks on Palestinian civilians.
JNF transferred the stolen land to the Efrat Regional Council separated from the West Bank. The council built 800 houses in E2 area, known as Nahla, which separates it from West Bank and hinders the growth of Bethlehem. It also partners with another organization, Elad Settler Organization, whose main objectives are to seek Zionist ownership of Palestinian properties and to Judaize East Jerusalem. It uses real estate agents and lawyers to acquire Palestinian lands by means of fraud, forgery, and extortion.
Beyond land theft JNF also funds bulk infrastructure services, fencing, roads, dams, tourism projects, educational facilities, and volunteers to force Palestinians out of their homes and lands and to destroy olive trees and poison wells.
JNF’s main activities are:
- Land Purchase – allocating funds for dubious land purchases.
- Taking legal actions to evict Palestinians from their homes.
- Providing funding for settlement projects.
The Supreme Court is hostile terrain to Arabs who engage in lawfare to reclaim stolen land. One case of the Sumarin family, alone, was prolonged over a period of 32 years (1991-2023). The Court is loaded with judges who have a Zionist perceptual bias, very much like White judges in Apartheid South Africa.
JNF exploits the absence of a comprehensive property registry in certain areas where it presents forged property documents of its claim to ‘ownership’.
JNF in 2021
In 2021 JNF controlled 13% of land with a revenue of NIS1.2-billion and budget of $500-million through fifty fund-raising offices worldwide while its private subsidiary, Himanuta Limited, held NIS4.8-billion in land assets. 2016 was the last year for which public data is available. In a century it claimed to have planted 260-million trees.
Its two other subsidiaries are Himanuta Jerusalem and Himanuta West Bank, which are equally involved in land theft.
Because JNF is a quasi-state entity it enjoys the impunity to undervalue stolen land in its financial statements by 67 times or more to evade taxation while it enjoys tax-free donations.
It has raised billions of dollars by politicizing people who believed in Judaism into becoming Zionists. The shrewd mega businesses (Jewish and non-Jewish) are the main funders with economic motives, for which they created the powerful hasbara media industry for propaganda and brainwashing by ideologically stirring emotions of holocaust memories. It has turned the sacred into the profane.
JNF and White South African soldiers
JNF has established a ‘monument’ in the Lavi Forest in Israel for South Africa’s White soldiers who serve in the IDF. This directly violates South Africa’s Foreign Military Assistance Act of 1998, which prohibits South Africans from providing military assistance without authorization from the National Conventional Arms Control Committee. None of the South African IDF soldiers have received such authorization. Their actions are illegal and prosecutable.
JNF South Africa is the second largest fundraiser to its USA counterpart despite the Jewish population of South Africa being reduced to a mere 70000 from 120000 due to emigration. This population are the descendants of Jews who fled Nazi persecution in Eastern Europe. The few noble Jews who served in the South African liberation movement were against Apartheid and Zionism.
JNF has offices in Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban and funds eco-projects in Black townships such as in Mamelodi in Pretoria.
ICJ Ruling
On 19 July 2024 the ICJ declared that all Israeli settlements are illegal and that Israel should end its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) ‘as rapidly as possible’. Under the Geneva Conventions, settlements in occupied territory are deemed to be war crimes. The UNSC in 2016 unanimously passed Resolution No.2334 and reaffirmed ‘that the policy and practices of Israel in establishing settlements in the Palestinian and other Arab territories since 1967 have no legal validity and constitute a serious obstruction to 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.
Conclusion
When the forest fires are evaluated according to objective scientific criteria there is no mystery or sign of divine wrath or nature’s vengeance. The forests were constructed by settlers for a political purpose.
Afforestation was and is a weapon to uproot Palestinians from their lands as well as a weapon to memorialize the Holocaust. It conceals evidence of uprooting.
The whole eco-utopia of afforestation now lay in ashes after a century of wasted land, labour, and money.
Afforestation has self-inflicted a strategic defeat on itself. Palestinian land theft is still to be defeated.