From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, January 6, 2026
Lapid announces vote tomorrow on nationalizing JNF over ‘corruption of the worst kind’
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleSam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Slamming his partners in the anti-Netanyahu bloc, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid announces that he will bring a bill to nationalize the Jewish National Fund (JNF) to a vote in the Knesset tomorrow, calling the political maneuvering around appointments to positions in the national institution “corruption of the worst kind.”
“It is very surprising that opposition parties are still partners to the corrupt deal in the national institutions, under which jobs are handed out to the [Shas chairman Aryeh] Deri[‘s] family in exchange for job arrangements for associates — in a camp that calls itself liberal — and hundreds of millions of shekels are given to extremist initiatives of [Settlements and National Projects Minister] Orit Strock in exchange for job arrangements for friends,” Lapid declares.
“This is a disgraceful, shameful agreement, corruption of the very worst kind. As we committed, Yesh Atid will not take part in the corrupt jobs enterprise and will act to nationalize the JNF and shut down the national institutions. I expect all parties to enter the plenum tomorrow and vote in favor of the bill,” he says.
In November, Lapid announced that his party will no longer take part in any of the negotiations over the appointment of new leadership roles at the large Zionist institutions, decrying a system he said was steeped in “a culture of corruption and political appointments.”
Lapid took particular issue with the appointment of relatives of political figures to senior appointments, including a proposal (which ultimately did not succeed) to give Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son Yair a position with the World Zionist Organization that came with an office, a car, and a salary commensurate with that of a government minister.
He also objected to the nomination of Shas chairman Aryeh Deri’s brother as JNF co-chair. Deri’s son Yanki was appointed to a senior position in the World Zionist Organization in 2020.
KKL-JNF owns approximately 13% of the total land in Israel (roughly 2.5 million dunams or 620,000 acres), and commands an annual budget of more than a billion dollars to be used for Jewish causes. (KKL-JNF is a separate organization from Jewish National Fund-USA.)
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