In a small but significant step for defenders of Palestinian rights, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has revoked the charitable status of the Jewish National Fund, an organization that violates Canadian law by funnelling tax deductible charitable donations to the Israeli military. According to CRA policy, funds intended to benefit the operations of a foreign military cannot be tax deductible.

The CRA decision follows an audit of JNF activities, launched after a complaint that the JNF is violating Canadian tax law by sending donations to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). In 2017, a complaint filed by Independent Jewish Voices asserted that “JNF Canada works in violation of the Income Tax Act and in contravention of Canadian foreign policy in various ways,” including by funding infrastructure projects on Israeli army, air, and naval bases.

BREAKING: The CRA has revoked the charitable status of the Jewish National Fund (@JNFca) for violating Canadian and international law by providing support to a foreign army and enabling Israel’s annexation of land within the Occupied Territories. https://t.co/8STK8Mt5dD

— Canadian Dimension (@CDN_Dimension) July 26, 2024

On top of funding the IDF through charitable donations, the JNF is a key participant in Palestinian dispossession through the sale of illegally occupied lands and financial support to illegal Israeli settlements. The JNF owns 13 percent of Israel’s land and, while claiming the “make the desert bloom” through tree-planting and other environmental projects, it sells lands stolen from Palestinian communities to Israeli settlers, helping to entrench Israel’s occupation.

The CRA cannot claim that JNF’s flouting of Canadian tax law is news. The organization has been openly flouting Canadian law with impunity for decades.

The JNF has long relied on fundraising in Canada to power its dispossessive activities. In one case, the Fund used donations from Canada to build “Canada Park” atop the ruins of three Palestinian villages that had been destroyed, their 9,000 inhabitants expelled from their homes. In another case, the JNF built a bird sanctuary and named it after former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Ottawa has allowed this fundraising to go on for decades, despite the obvious contradiction between public statements against the Israeli occupation and the JNF’s role in deepening and expanding these same activities.

According to Global Affairs Canada:

Canada does not recognize permanent Israeli control over territories occupied in 1967 (the Golan Heights, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip)… As referred to in UN Security Council Resolutions 446 and 465, Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The settlements also constitute a serious obstacle to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace.

In permitting the JNF to use tax deductible donations to fund illegal settlements in the West Bank, the Canadian government is—even by the terms of its own foreign policy—helping to violate the Geneva Conventions and preventing peace in the region. Like the JNF’s funding of the Israeli military, the Canadian government cannot claim ignorance.

Following the 2017 complaint, the CRA instructed JNF Canada to halt its financial support for the IDF and to stop funding projects in the illegally occupied West Bank. The Fund openly flouted this instruction for seven years before the CRA finally revoked its charitable status.

It is important to ask: why did the Canadian government take so long to enforce laws that advocates for Palestinian rights (including the international Stop the JNF campaign) knew were being broken, in public, year after year?

In response to the long-overdue striking of charitable status, the JNF announced a lawsuit against the CRA. The JNF claims that the decision is “flawed and fundamentally unfair,” and that there is “a reasonable apprehension of bias in the audit.”

The mounting controversy around the JNF calls into question what lawyer Shane Martinez dubs “the Canadian charity to Israeli military pipeline.” During a July 26 presser hosted by Just Peace Advocates, Martinez stated:

Yesterday’s announcement by the CRA comes after years of campaigning by community advocates who stand in solidarity not just with the Palestinian people but with the rule of law. CRA policy states that Canadian-registered charities, when they carry on activities outside of Canada, can’t be used as a conduit to funnel resources to an organization that is not serving a charitable purpose. The policy of the CRA explicitly states that supporting a foreign army is not charitable activity.

Martinez referenced the July 19 advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), a clear defeat for Israel and its Western backers. The ICJ ruled that “all activities carried out by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories are illegal and that its unlawful presence should be brought to an end and reparations made to Palestinians.” The world’s highest court stated that Israel’s policies in the Occupied Territories “amount to annexation,” that Israel is an apartheid state, and the occupation must end “as rapidly as possible.”

The ICJ also said that states must not materially support Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian lands. Martinez adds:

The [ICJ] observed quite specifically that states, including Canada, are under an obligation to not render aid or assistance, including economic aid and assistance, in maintaining… Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Territories. They also went on to state that states must ensure any impediment… to the Palestinian people’s ability to exercise their right to self-determination is brought to an end… It goes without saying that subsidizing Israel’s military occupation to the tune of millions of dollars a year, through violations of Canadian law and policy, that’s a clear impediment to the exercise of Palestinian self-determination.

Renowned physician and writer Gabor Maté also welcomed the CRA’s decision, describing the JNF as a racist, colonial, and criminal organization:

It’s a criminal organization. It received stolen goods [Palestinian lands]… It’s a racist organization. Would in Canada any institution or organization be allowed to function with tax deductible donations if it bought and sold stolen land only to a certain ethnic group?… Would it receive tax deductible status? [The JNF] is a racially exclusive organization by its mandate… This is ethnic cleansing that the JNF is involved in.

Wesam Ahmad, human rights advocate at the Ramallah-based Al-Haq NGO, echoed these points, asserting that “for decades the JNF has been instrumental in the dispossession and displacement of Palestinian communities, using environmental projects as a guise to further these aims” while violating international law, Canadian law, and Canada’s stated foreign policy aims. Ahmad goes on:

These practices are condemned under contemporary international law [including at the world’s highest court] and it’s not surprising that the JNF Canada would appeal and try to contest to being held accountable for actions that they have carried out with impunity for decades… The CRA’s decision aligns with these international legal developments, reinforcing the principle that support for military activities and the perpetuation of illegal settlements cannot be masked as charitable work. This revocation is a call to action for Canada and the global community to uphold international law and support the rights of the Palestinian people.

The CRA ruling shines a light on the hypocrisy of Canada’s legal regime and stated foreign policy, neither of which stopped Ottawa from deepening its complicity in Palestinian dispossession and Israeli occupation for decades.

And while the revocation of the JNF’s charitable status is a small step toward justice in the region, it nevertheless represents a legal and moral victory for advocates of Palestinian rights.

Owen Schalk is a writer from rural Manitoba. He is the author of Canada in Afghanistan: A story of military, diplomatic, political and media failure, 2003-2023 and the co-author of Canada’s Long Fight Against Democracy with Yves Engler.