JEWISH TREES
The Jewish National Fund constitutes the oldest and, in the long run, per-haps the most problematic environmental institution for Israel's Arabs. The inherent tension of a particularistic Jewish player endowed with govern-ment functions in a purportedly democratic nation has yet to be resolved. Most Israeli Arabs see the JNF as the perpetrator of systematic exploitation and discrimination against Israel's Arab community and a tool for hege-mony in the occupied territories.[57] Although the JNF has a large number of Arab employees, they are limited to positions of manual labor and do not participate in policy making. Fifty years after land acquisition from Arab effendis ceased to be the primary JNF priority, the organization's ongoing concern about Jewish domination of land resources continues to engender animosity.[58]
Many Jewish Israelis agree that forests serve a role that goes far beyond ecology and recreation. For Arabs, the trees are often perceived as a not-so-subtle ploy to constrain the expansion of their villages. Planting is interpreted in a strictly nationalistic light—a declaration of Jewish sover-eignty. The JNF's controversial involvement in West Bank afforestation ef-forts and land acquisition initiatives in East Jerusalem served to reinforce those who see the JNF in a purely political rather than ecological context. Israeli Arabs resent the quasigovernmental status accorded JNF lands and see its discriminatory policies as a festering sore on the face of Israel's democracy. These are lands owned by Jews, for the Jews—and are off lim-its to many of Israel's citizens.[59] A small, less-than-flattering literature has sprung up in which a few historians and sociologists consider the political implications of the JNF's work.[60]
There is an ugly ecological side to the political acrimony. Israel's trees have paid a price for Arab disenfranchisement. Even before the 1980s, when the Intifada marked JNF forests as a priority target for Palestinian violence, politically motivated arson was a constant threat to the country's wood-lands, in particular during the dry summer months. Forest fires in Israel are political events that dominate headlines.[61] Indeed, many Israeli Arabs per-ceive arson in the JNF forests as a legitimate form of political expression. An ambush by JNF foresters uncovered an underground network from the Galilee village of Jilabun in 1998. The gang went so far as to print up an elaborate forest-burning battle plan, complete with maps, timetables, and a breakdown of responsibilities.[62] The most famous literary work that takes place in a JNF forest is A. B. Yehoshua's 1968 novel Opposite the Forest,in which a Jewish graduate student working as a watchman exhibits growing empathy for the destroyed Arab village over which the forest is planted. Ultimately, he does nothing to prevent its immolation by an arsonist.
In the world of nonfiction, however, Israeli foresters were never sympa-thetic. They were resolute and resourceful. Along with the fire lines separat-ing the trees into modular compartments, the network of watchtowers established in 1958 has probably proven to be the JNF's most effective response. The forty towers and two hundred vehicles (see Figure 29) used today by the forestry department provide sufficiently early detection to re-duce the impact of fires enormously.[63] The arson that blazed throughout the second half of the 1980s, however, changed the dimensions of the problem. In 1976 there were 320 events per year in JNF forests; by 1987 the number tripled to a thousand. Although the source of most fires remains unsolved, at least 25 percent of the conflagrations have been determined to be politically motivated. The actual proportion may exceed 60 percent.[64]
The JNF was quick to respond, beefing up its monitoring capacity to meet the challenge. Despite the dramatic rise in the number of fires, the damage to forests was halved by the end of the 1980s.[65] Today, a remark-able 32 percent of the five hundred annual events are extinguished with only one to five dunams damaged. Almost half of the fires were nipped in the bud completely, with only one dunam of woodland affected. Still, roughly 10 percent of the fires are categorized as forest crown blazes, in-volving total loss.[66]
Like soldiers fighting against guerrilla warriors, the JNF foresters are limited to offering tactical holding measures. The Israeli public continues to donate generously in highly publicized campaigns to replace burned forest segments.[67] A strategic solution may be linked to a larger, geopolit-ical reconciliation. Even when a more peaceful climate in the region takes
Most Israeli Arabs would never openly support the acts of arson, but they identify with the motives. The JNF is perceived as an organization that is out to grab every square centimeter of land that Arabs are willing to relinquish. The level of alienation runs high. “The Arab community derived no benefit from these forests,” complains one Israeli Arab conser-vation leader. “The very least they could have done was call the forests by the names of the places they took the land from. Even the JNF can't say that Arabs don't like to go to parks. So why isn't there an Um el-Faham Forest or a Wadi Rabba Forest? That way there might be a chance that Arabs could feel attached to these places.”[68] The JNF has begun to explore what a new relationship with Israel's Arab community might look like through some community consultation exercises in and around the re-gion of Sakhnin sponsored by the JNF Community and Forestry Department.[69] But these efforts remain embryonic in character. Until the JNF's agenda is environmental rather than political, such differences may be irreconcilable.