Simon Winters, chief executive of JNF-UK, said there is no problem with JNF auditing its books.
“Our accounts are published, and are available for anyone to see,” Winters said from London. “They are audited accounts from a large firm of auditors, and we have nothing to hide.”
As for the use of the name “JNF,” Winters said it is not JNF-Israel’s domain.
“It’s our name in the U.K., that’s the name that we trade by. What he hasn’t understood is that JNF is our contractor in Israel, that carries out work on behalf of the JNF Charitable Trust in the U.K.”
When informing JNF on March 18 that it no longer would associate with the 98-year-old organization, JNF-UK asked to audit JNF’s books, in order to determine the value of land that the JNF-UK says it owns.
JNF has been the organization through which world Jewry acquired land in the former Palestine since the turn of the century and owns some 17 percent of Israel’s land.