The Canadian branch of the so-called Jewish National Fund (JNF), one of the country’s oldest Zionist organizations, has officially lost its status as a “registered charity” after a Canadian federal court rejected its final legal appeal.
The ruling, issued on May 30, confirmed the government’s decision to revoke JNF-Canada’s “charitable designation,” and effectively forced the organization to begin shutting down operations after 57 years of activity.
The decision marked a major legal and political setback for the JNF, which had faced growing scrutiny over its use of Canadian tax-exempt donations to fund projects tied to Israeli military activity and displacement of Palestinians.
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) first announced revocation of the body’s status in August 2024, citing violations linked to the organization’s overseas funding practices.
The JNF challenged the decision in court, but the May 30 ruling definitively upheld the CRA’s findings and cemented the group’s loss of its legal status.
With the court’s rejection of its appeal, JNF-Canada is now legally defunct as a “registered charity,” bringing an end to decades of financial support from Canadian donors for controversial programs inside the occupied Palestinian territories.
Human rights groups and pro-Palestinian advocates have long denounced the so-called fund for channeling donations into projects that support the Israeli military, saying the body’s activities contribute to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
Critics have also condemned the organization for “greenwashing” — planting forests over the ruins of depopulated Palestinian villages to obscure the history of displacement.
While the organization has marketed its self-proclaimed environmental and land development activity as “charitable,” rights groups and campaigners have argued that its activities in occupied territory served only to entrench illegal Israeli settlements and erase Palestinian identity.
Founded in 1901, the body has played a central role in the Zionist movement’s efforts to arrogate and settle land in historic Palestine.
In the years leading up to and following the 1948 Nakba (Catastrophe), when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forcibly displaced during a heavily-Western-backed war, the JNF was instrumental in appropriating territory for exclusive use by the Israeli regime’s illegal settlers.
In recent decades, the JNF has maintained a quasi-official role within the Israeli regime, while presenting itself abroad as a private “charitable entity.” This has allowed it to operate with fewer restrictions under the international law, while advancing agendas aligned with Tel Aviv’s policies, including illegal settlement expansion and military education.
Internationally, the JNF has drawn criticism for its lack of transparency and its marked and aggressive pro-Israeli lean.
The JNF’s operations have come under investigation in the United Kingdom too. The UK Charity Commission has previously raised concerns about the organization’s military-linked activities and its political alignment with a foreign regime.
Senior figures associated with JNF-UK have also faced scrutiny for making Islamophobic remarks, leading to public backlash and investigations by regulatory bodies.
Despite these controversies, the organization has historically enjoyed support from prominent political figures in the West, including former British prime ministers and senior Israeli intelligence officers.
Observers, however, say the recent Canadian court decision represents one of the most significant legal challenges to the JNF’s international operations to date, potentially setting a precedent for other jurisdictions reviewing the activities of organizations with “charitable status,” but political agendas.
