Ma'an, February 8, 2011

The motive that has led me to write and publish this article in my capacity as Convenor of the FATH Revolutionary Council Committee on Resistance to the Settlements, the Apartheid Wall and the Ethnic Cleansing is to minimize the damage that the construction of the new Palestinian City of Rawabi, led by Mr Bashar Masri, Chairman of the board of the Bayti Real Estate Investment Company, a project deemed to be one of our flagship Palestinian national project has already caused.

Rawabi is located 9 km north of Ramallah. The town of Birzeit, home to Birzeit University, one of Palestine’s reputable universities, is less than 4 km to the south of Rawabi. Rawabi is 20 km to the north of Jerusalem and 25 km south of Nablus. From the hilltops of Rawabi, one has a panoramic view of the Mediterranean's eastern coastal line, located 40 kilometers to the west. The Jordanian capital, Amman, is 70 kilometers to the east of Rawabi.

The current boundary of the city of Rawabi, as shown on the maps below, was approved by the Palestinian Authority Higher Planning Council in October 2008. The development of Rawabi will be phased in relation to infrastructure provision and market demand.

The center of the city extends to a land tract of 850,000 square meters. It includes the commercial center and a range of public facilities and has the potential to accommodate a population of up to 20,000.

Subsequent development phases will be planned in accordance with future master plans under the oversight of the Palestinian Authority. The eventual municipal boundaries of Rawabi will extend over 6,300,000 square meters and its population is expected to reach 40,000.

Like most cases locate at the interface of the private sector and the public sector, the case of Rawabi has its own "Pros" and "Cons".

On the Pros column we have weighty considerations including:

Iskan versus Istitan. Given that the core of the apartheid Israeli-Palestinian conflict being control over the land of Palestine - promoting Palestinian villa housing projects to counter apartheid Israeli suburban settlement projects was already a maxim stipulated by our martyred second-in-command FATH leader Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad), whose assassination in Tunis was masterminded by the war criminal current Minister of Defence of apartheid Israel Ehud Barak.

An additional consideration is the significant employment and business opportunities that the construction of Rawabi offers to our Palestinian people under apartheid Israeli occupied territories.

On the Cons side, however there are equally weighty, and, in my view, even weightier considerations including:

The bulk of Rawabi’s land is private land purchased by the developers of the project, the Bayti Real Estate Investment Company (jointly owned by Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Company and Massar International). The remainder has been sequestered by Presidential Decree issued on 15.11.2009 by signed President of the State of Palestine and the Palestinian Authority Dr Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazin: approximately 1,532,000 square meters from the neighbouring village of Ajjul, 122,000 square meters from Attara and 118,000 square meters from Abwin.

It is debatable, though, whether a project that is designated to fetch possibly a windfall of profits for a private corporation deserved classification of Rawabi as a "national project" justifying the support of our Palestinian Authority Council of Ministers and our President.

But worse it seems that, unless public measures such as suggested below are taken by Mr Bashar Masri and the Bayti Real Estate Investment Company – the construction of Rawabi renders our Palestinian Authority Council of Ministers and our President complicit with one of World Zionist Organizations (WZO) and Israel’s ugliest apartheid instruments, the Jewish National Fund (JNF), and with the "greenwashing" of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by the Israeli army in the course of and in the wake of the 1948 and the 1967 wars.

Mr Bashar Masri, Chairman of the board of the Bayti Real Estate Investment Company accepted a donation of some 3,000 tree saplings from the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and allowed the JNF arrange for the planting of the said tree saplings on lands designated for Rawabi.

By accepting a donation of some 3,000 tree saplings from the JNF, a primary political-Zionist apartheid instrument complicit with the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by the Israeli army in the course of and in the wake of the 1948 and the 1967 wars, and by allowing the JNF plant these tree saplings allegedly as a "green" contribution in the areas designate for Rawabi - Bashar Masri, the Bayti Real Estate Investment Company, the Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Company and Massar International are made complicit with the 1967 ethnic cleansing of 'Imwas, Yalu and Bayt Nuba and the 1948 ethnic cleansing of some 500 odd Palestinian Arab rural and urban localities ethnically cleansed by the Israeli army in the course of and in the wake of the 1948-49 war.

As noted above, given that JNF political-Zionist tree saplings have been planted also on some of the 1,777 dunums sequestered from the villages of Ajjul, Attara and Abwin and sanctioned by our Palestinian Authority Council of Ministers and by our President Mahmoud Abbas in his capacity as the President of the State of Palestine, Chairman of the PLO Executive Committee and President of the Palestinian Authority – the construction of Rawabi also implicates the said authorities with the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by the Israeli army in the course of and in the wake of the 1948 and the 1967 wars.

To add insult to injury, rather than plant indigenous arboreta, notably olive tree saplings, the tree saplings planted by the JNF in the area designated for the Rawabi projects are typically political-Zionist pinera (conifers), the most common tree planted by the JNF in the forests and recreational centers on the lands and over the ruins of ethnically cleansed Palestinian-Arab villages ethnically cleansed by the Israeli army.

What is the JNF

The JNF is an instrument of the World Zionist Organization.

The Fifth Zionist Congress, held in Basel in December 1901, decided on the formation of the Keren Kayemet Le'Israel (Perpetual Fund for Israel), otherwise known as the Jewish National Fund (JNF). This is a fund of the Zionist Movement for what is referred to in political Zionist parlance the "redemption", namely the apartheid (for "Jews" only) settler-colonization of the lands of what is referred to in political-Zionist parlance "Eretz-lsrael", namely, the country of Palestine, by the Jewish people around the world, preparation of the lands and making them available to the Jewish settlers in Eretz Israel.

The JNF is fundamentally complicit with the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by way of leading and implementing extensive afforestation projects on the lands of and over the ruins of many is not most 500 odd Palestinian Arab rural and urban localities ethnically cleansed by the Israeli army in the course of and in the wake of the 1948-49 war; preparation of land for agriculture, settlement, tourist enterprises and for housing for immigrants (for Jews only) and the needy (Jews only), road-building in border outlying areas (ethnically cleansed from its native Palestinian Arab inhabitants.

The JNF is also engaged in construction of water reservoirs and dams to expand available water resources – mostly for settlements designated in law for Jews only, and in environmental conservation and scenic enhancement – again of lands ethnically cleansed by the Israeli army in the course of and in the wake of the 1948-49 war.

And finally, the JNF claims inter alia a central role in rolling back the desert. The way it exercises this role is illustrated inter alia in its activities at Al-Araqib where the JNF is currently engaged in partnership with the Christian Evangelist in planting the GOD-TV Forest on the lands of and over the ruins of this ten-times destroyed Al-Araqib Palestinian Arab Bedouin village.

Whereas until the establishment of the apartheid State of Israel the World Zionist Organization (WZO), the Jewish Agency for the Land of Israel (JA) and the Jewish National Fund (JNF) could claim to be voluntary private organizations – following the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the establishment of the apartheid State of Israel and the passage of the passage of Israeli’s strategic apartheid legislation, including the Law of Return of 1950; Absentees Property Law of 1950; Development Authority Law of 1950;World Zionist Organization - Jewish Agency Status Law of 1952; Keren Kayemeth Leisrael (Jewish National Fund) Law of 1953; Land Acquisition (Validations of Acts and Compensation) Law of 1953; Covenant between the Government of Israel and the Zionist Executive, also known as the Executive of the Jewish Agency for the Land of Israel of 1954; Prescription Law of 1958; Basic Law: Israel Lands; Israel Lands Law; Israel Lands Administration Law of 1960; and Covenant Between the Government of Israel and the Jewish National Fund of 1961 – the WZO, the JA and the JNF are officially chartered by the government of Israel to execute critical functions of political-Zionist settler colonial projects in the country of Palestine.

By projecting itself internally and externally as a charitable establishment, committed since its establishment and until this day to the development of the land in Israel by way of afforestation project, preparation of land for agriculture, settlement, tourist enterprises and for housing for immigrants and the needy, road-building in border outlying areas, construction of water reservoirs and dams to expand available water resources, environmental conservation and scenic enhancement, rolling back the desert, river rehabilitation and the fostering of Zionist education aimed at strengthening the ties of Jewish youth in Israel and the Diaspora to the land on the one part, while refraining from pointing out that most of the above is being carried out on the lands of and over the ruins of the 500 odd Palestinian Arab rural and urban localities ethnically cleansed by the Israeli army in the course of and in the wake of the 1948-49 war – the JNF represents a critical plank in the misrepresentation of the apartheid State of Israel (where some 93 percent of the territory of pre-1967 Israel is reserved in law for "Jews" only) as "the only democracy in the Middle East."

On the basis of the said projection, the JNF is registered as a charity in many member states of the United Nations Organizations. Thus, donations to the JNF are tax-exempt. Persons who, having made a donation to the JNF, take their JNF receipt to their tax office receive a corresponding tax deduction. The said tax deduction is taken out of the common weal where the said persons are resident – thus rendering every tax-paying individual in the said state inadvertently complicity with the cover-up of the crime against humanity of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Currently legal briefs are being prepared in the UK and in Canada with the view to challenge this abomination in the said two states with reference to the JNF British Park (planted and developed on the lands and over the ruins of the Palestinian villages of Zakariyya and Ajjur) and JNF Canada Park (planted and developed on the lands and over the ruins of the Palestinian villages of 'Imwas, Yalu and Bayt Nuba).

Sometime in January 2010 I met Bashar Masri in person at his Ramallah Bayti/Diar/Massar offices, where I outlined before his much of the above, pointing out that by accepting the said donation of 3,000 tree saplings from the JNF, additional to renders our Palestinian Authority Council of Ministers and our President complicit with one of World Zionist Organizations (WZO) and Israel’s ugliest apartheid instruments, the Jewish National Fund (JNF), and with the "greenwashing" of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by the Israeli army in the course of and in the wake of the 1948 and the 1967 wars (e.g., "greenwashing" the crime against humanity of the ethnic cleansing of the three Latrun villages of 'Imwas, Yalu and Bayt Nuba by planting and developing Canada Park on their lands, over their desecrated cemeteries and over the ruins of their homes).

I believe I made it crystal clear to Bashar Masri that I deem the JNF contribution to the "greening" of the Palestinian new city of Rawabi to be highly suspect, and I believe Bashar Masri fully understood what I was saying.

In his defence Bashar Masri claimed that the JNF donation was made through the Rawabi website; that neither himself nor the moderator of the Rawabi website had any inkling of the above with reference to the JNF; and that as standard measure of courtesy the moderator was advised to acknowledge with thanks all tree donations made to Rawabi through the website.

In response, I told Mr Bashar Masri that to my mind, the said JNF contributions stinks of a likely tacit or explicit deal between the JNF and the Government of Israel in terms of which the JNF is given a splendid opportunity to manipulate its contribution of tree saplings to Rawabi in post-1967 Palestinian occupied territories as part of its continuing attempts to placate before the international community, notably the UN, its complicity with the crime against humanity of the Palestinian Nakba in the 1948 Palestinian ethnically cleansed territories, and an effective vehicle to support its ongoing efforts to suppress the growing demand in the UK and Canada to divest the JNF of its charitable registration and tax exempt status as well as eventually have the JNF declared an illegal organization.

I added that my normative point of departure is the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and assuming that he likewise adheres to the values of the said Declaration, I strongly suggested to Bashar Masri that Rawabi as a corporate body and himself in individually nullify forthwith all contact with the JNF; make public a statement of regret for having carelessly accepted to JNF donation of tree saplings to Rawabi; and make amends for their ignorance, by extending a generous donation of olive-tree saplings (say, 3,000 olive tree saplings) to the Association for the Defense of the Rights of Internally Displaced Persons in Israel (Lajnat Al-Muhajjarin) for planting in and around the sites of their 1948 ethnically cleansed localities inside pre-1967 apartheid Israel, whose remaining ruins are veiled from obvious view by JFN afforestation projects and non-segregated recreational facilities.

Bashar Masri has chosen to ignore the above.

Given that a year has since past, and given that I have since become aware of the danger to the integrity of my FATH Movement, the PLO and the Palestinian Authority such as is represented in the information given above – I now additionally ask that Mr Bashar Masri in personal capacity and Rawabi as a corporate body uproot the JNF tree saplings planted in the areas designated for Rawabi and replace them with olive tree saplings, as well as make an additional generous donation of olive tree saplings (say, 3000 olive tree saplings) to the Araqib Defence Committee.