Arab Appointed as JNF Director
(IsraelNN.com) An Israeli Arab has been appointed as a director of the Jewish National Fund, which works to purchase land in Israel for Jewish settlement. A Jerusalem District Court approved the appointment despite an appeal by several members of the JNF’s Zionist Executive Committee, who said that the appointment of a non-Jew to a directorship should be discussed by the JNF General Assembly. JNF members were unable to consider the issue while voting, they said, because the assembly was given no personal information about the candidates.
Justice Ron Shapiro rejected the appeal, saying that the vote had been conducted according to standard JNF procedure. Shapiro pointed out that JNF has many other directors, and said that one Arab director would not be able to make significant changes to the group’s goals. He compared the JNF directorship to the Knesset, in which there are several Arab MKs.
