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What are we expecting in the near future?

We are expecting that this issue will intensify in the coming days and weeks, as Bibi Netanyahu
continues to make threats and exert pressure on the MKs in his party and his coalition to pass
his reform. In addition, the JNF-State land-swap issue is not yet resolved. Right now, the
issue is awaiting resolution in court, due to petitions submitted attempting to challenge the
legality of such a land trade, given that the outcome of the land-swap (subsequent sale of
traded lands to private owners) directly contradicts the JNF’s mission statement.
What can you do?

• Stay informed – Land News, the Coalition against Land Privatization in Israel’s news
outlet, now has an English website: http://en.land-news.co.il/ (if you want to practice
your Hebrew, feel free to visit the Hebrew Land News website: http://land-
news.co.il/. In addition, now that this issue has gathered more attention, there are
daily articles in Haaretz, Ynet, Jerusalem Post, and Arutz Sheva.

• Write to or call your local JNF representatives – a listing of all worldwide JNF offices
is at:
http://www.kkl.org.il/kkl/english/top_toolbar/kkl_offices/office_addresses/officesa
ddresses.x
Share your views with them on their role in maintaining JNF lands as publicly owned
assets, and ask them what they are doing to act as Zionist leaders in this struggle.

• Write back to iton@habonimdror.org.il – let us know what you think of this issue:
o How do you feel, as a Diaspora Jew, about the reforms Bibi wants to
make in Israel?

o How do you think we should be educating youth movement chanichim
about this issue?
o How do you think you can/should be educating your local Jewish
community about this issue?

"The jubilee year is not a new, but an ancient institution set up by Moshe Rabeinu [Moses]. After
seven times seven years, that is to say, in the fiftieth year, land which had been sold reverted back
to its original owner without compensation. We, indeed, arrange it a bit differently. The land now
reverts back to the New Society. Moshe Rabeinu, in his day, wished to distribute the land so as to
ensure the ends of social justice. You will see that our methods serve this purpose no less. The
increases in land values accrue not to the individual owner, but to the public."

– Theodore Herzl, Altneuland