JNF halts most funding for at-risk youth in West Bank over settler violence links

Fund’s chairman says money was supporting activities leading to expulsion of Palestinians, vows not to back extremist outposts set up by far-right ministers

Jewish National Fund-KKL said on Tuesday it had ended most of its funding to West Bank programs for at-risk Israeli youth after realizing that they were tools for expelling local Palestinians.

“Regretfully, under the guise of education, it turned out we were supporting activities aimed at bringing youth at risk to the settlements to help dispossess Palestinians from their land,” JNF-KKL chair Eyal Ostrinsky told Haaretz.

“These outposts being set up by [Bezalel] Smotrich and [Orit] Strock we won’t be part of it anymore,” said Ostrinsky, referring to the far-right Religious Zionism party ministers who have championed farming outposts as a tool for expanding the Israeli settler grip on the West Bank at the expense of Palestinians.

Ostrinsky said JNF-KKL’s executive committee unanimously passed a decision earlier this month to end the funding to farming outposts, which have also hosted programs for at-risk youth. Last year, the same board passed a decision to temporarily halt the funding as reports mounted revealing the extent to which the farming outposts have become hotbeds for settler violence.

Ostrinsky, who took over JNF-KKL in January, said that funding for a small number of West Bank-based programs will continue after it was determined that they were indeed “purely educational.”

The JNF-KKL chairman also told Haaretz that the organization will cease its purchase of lands in the West Bank, conduct that exposed the group to criticism that it was taking part in dispossessing Palestinians of lands they own.

According to a late 2024 report published by the left-wing Peace Now and Kerem Navot organizations, JNF-KKL gave NIS 4.7 million ($1.5 million) to “shepherding outposts, under the guise of funding volunteer programs supporting at-risk youth,” since 2021.

Nearly NIS 4 million were contributed to the settler group Artzenu, which recruits volunteers to the violent settler outpost Moshe’s Farm, and the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council, according to the report.

Settler attacks take place on a near-daily basis in the West Bank, and have accelerated during the war with Iran that began on February 28 and entered a truce on April 8. During that time, the left-wing Yesh Din human rights organization recorded 378 incidents of settler violence against Palestinians and their property in the West Bank.

Eight Palestinians were shot and killed, and 200 were injured during that period, the organization said.

Extremist settlers, often in mobs, have been recorded assaulting Palestinians, torching cars, and damaging property.

Critics accuse the government of turning a blind eye to violent attacks by settlers, which have become increasingly deadly in recent years.

Arrests in such cases are rare, and convictions are even less common, though the attacks take place on a daily basis.

The Israel Defense Forces has also faced criticism for often standing by while attacks unfold — with troops sometimes actively participating — or failing to prosecute those responsible.

Some critics claim that the overwhelming impunity enjoyed by attackers demonstrates that the violence is sanctioned, if not encouraged, by the government.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir last month issued a sharp condemnation of settler violence, calling attacks against Palestinian civilians and soldiers in the West Bank “morally and ethically unacceptable” and a major strategic impediment.