Blair patron of charity that shows Gaza and West Bank as part of Israel
A British charity associated with former prime minister Tony Blair displays a map on its website including the occupied Golan Heights, West Bank and Gaza Strip as part of Israel.
The UK branch of Israel's Jewish National Fund (JNF), which lists Blair as an honorary patron, has in the past been heavily criticised for its activities, which have included donating £1m to "Israel's largest militia".
Now the British organisation, which has charitable status, risks being drawn into a fresh scandal over a map on its official website.
As of 3pm on Friday, the website, viewed by Middle East Eye, displays a donation campaign for JNF UK's activities in the Negev, a desert region in southern Israel.
The website reads: "Israel’s centre is prosperous but crowded. Its peripheries have enough space for millions of new homes, but the infrastructure is lacking."
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It adds that JNF UK "is working to bring new life and investment to its peripheries, and to transform living standards throughout the region".
Next to this text is a map - not reported on previously - depicting not just Israel but territory that Israel occupies. This includes the occupied Palestinian territories - including the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip - and the occupied Golan Heights, which is in southwestern Syria.
The map appears to depict these areas as part of the state of Israel. It does not distinguish them from the areas on the map that are actually in Israel.
This contradicts the status of the territories under international law - and also contradicts the position of the British government, which recognises the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza and the Golan Heights as being under Israeli occupation.
The map is significant because JNF UK has funded illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory.
Middle East Eye put this to the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), asking whether the institute or Blair himself would like to comment, but had received no response by the time of publication.
MEE also asked whether Blair would resign from his role as honorary patron of JNF UK.
Other honorary patrons alongside Blair include Britain's Chief Rabbi Ephraim Marvis and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
'Direct contravention of British government policy'
Other British prime ministers have served as honorary patrons of the charity - including Gordon Brown and David Cameron, who resigned once he entered Downing Street in 2011, reportedly following political pressure.
Mira Naseer, legal officer at the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP), told MEE: "These attempts to assert Israeli sovereignty over occupied Palestinian and Syrian lands stand in direct contravention of British government policy - let alone successive declarations by the ICJ and UNSC."
The map may contradict international law but it is just the latest in a series of controversies that have plagued the charity, the UK arm of Israeli group Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund, founded more than a century ago.
The organisation, which was set up in 1901 to buy land in Ottoman-era Palestine, has long been involved with the displacement of Palestinians and destruction of the natural environment in the occupied Palestinian Territories.
As a registered charity, its UK arm receives tax relief on donations.
While British legislation prohibits charities from engaging in political activity, JNF UK has supported Israeli settlements, illegal under international law
Its accounts also show that between 2015 and 2018 it paid over £1m to HaShomer HaChadash (HH), an organisation Israeli newspaper Haaretz described as having gone from being a "fringe right-wing organisation" to "Israel's largest militia".
Haaretz reported that HH played a significant role in defending illegal settler outposts in the occupied West Bank, including through land patrols.
Charity Commission not investigating
The Charity Commission, Britain's charity regulator, opened an investigation into JNF UK in 2022 over its chair Samuel Hayek claiming that "in Islam there is not a term for ‘peace’".
But it closed the review in July 2023, saying that "regulatory advice and guidance relating to social media usage and trustee conduct was issued to the trustees, and we’re satisfied that this has now been acted upon."
The regulator confirmed to MEE that it is not currently investigating the charity.
'It is no surprise that JNF UK so blatantly flaunts its disregard for international law'
- Mira Naseer, ICJP Legal Officer
In August, the ICJP wrote to Richard Hermer KC, the UK attorney general, urging him to revoke the organisation's charitable status.
The ICJP's legal officer, Mira Naseer, told MEE: "JNF UK's activities - its decades-long funding of illegal Israeli settlements, contributions to forced expulsion of Palestinians, and support for violent settler organisations - are violations of international law and its registered 'charitable objectives'.
"The British government has been made well aware of JNF UK’s actions. ICJP wrote to the attorney general about JNF UK’s unlawful acts in August, and yet the government has refused to act.
"It is no surprise then that JNF UK so blatantly flaunts its disregard for international law on its website."
This comes after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an advisory opinion in July which found that Israel's decades-long occupation of the Palestinian territories was "unlawful", and that its "near-complete separation" of people in the occupied West Bank breached international laws concerning "racial segregation" and "apartheid."
The court also found that states must not in any way assist Israel's illegal occupation.
Earlier this month, the Canadian branch of JNF lost an appeal to stop Canada’s tax department revoking its charitable status, following a years-long audit revealing the organisation used donations to help fund infrastructure for the Israeli military - a foreign army - which contravenes Canada's Tax Code.
In Israel, as of 2007 the JNF owned around 13 percent of present-day Israel and occupied Palestinian territories.
JNF also claimed that over 70 percent of the Israeli population lived on land it owned. Its policies prevent the sale or lease of land to non-Jews, which is in contravention of international law.
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