1 The Jewish National Fund was an ingenious institution of the Zionist movement: Instead of benefactors paying for lands in Israel to be settled by immigrants, private individuals, including those without means, could donate money to the fund without the lands becoming their property. It was in this way that lands were acquired across Israel and forests were planted.
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On precisely the same day the state was established on JNF lands, the fund should cease to have been run by Zionist institutions and instead been managed by the Israeli government.
Someone, however, "forgot" about the JNF, and left it in Jerusalem's National Institutions Building, which was built for national Zionist institutions before the country's establishment. The JNF has since done many things, some of which were completely unnecessary, like drying out the Hula Lake and marshlands. Other things, like the establishment of water reservoirs, the paving of access roads to parks, and other endeavors that could have been carried out by private infrastructure firms, were very nice. Yet the JNF's main purpose was to prevent the acquisition of Israeli lands by non-Jewish citizens. Since the founding of the state, many of Israel's detractors have cited this fact as supposed proof of Israel's institutional racism.
Earlier this week, JNF senior management decided to invest 38 million shekels (around $11.6 million) toward the purchase of lands in the West Bank. The proposal talks about "redeeming the land," as if we were living under the Ottoman Empire, and is unique because unlike a land purchase by private individuals, this is a public body that isn't authorized to transfer the territory it purchased to Arabs. This is a decision aimed solely at harming a future Israeli-Palestinians settlement. If there was a responsible adult in the region, they would have prevented it, but right now, no such person can be found.
2 It's no coincidence the very realistic candidacy - – thanks to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - of Otzma Yehudit party head Itamar Ben-Gvir has become a topic of discussion. This "likable" lawyer, the media replacement for the filter-free former Likud MK Oren Hazan, who jokes with his interviewers on every media outlet, is not just a proud Kahanist. He is a violent bully who has been convicted in seven criminal trials and for whom patriotism is a refuge. It is not for nothing that the Israel Defense Forces refused to draft him. Israeli society should have denounced him. Ahead of the election, mainstream parties must announce they will treat him the same way they treated Meir Kahana, who advocated the forced removal of Palestinians and a Jewish theocracy and exit the Knesset plenum every time he speaks.
3 Everyone must get vaccinated. We must fight this bizarre phenomenon of anti-vaxxers who appear in the form of sane people and try to convince those with a tendency to cast suspicions on everything to also doubt the vaccines. It is important to offer advantages like authorizations to take part in events the unvaccinated will not be able to attend to those who get the jab. It is important, and even surprising, that private bodies are offering the vaccine-hesitant free meals and pastries, but what's so fair about that? What about those who've already been inoculated? Why doesn't anyone contact the High Court of Justice? After all, we'd like a free pastry, too.
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