“It’s quite possible that, until two days ago, [President Joe] Biden had no idea what the Jewish National Fund is. Now, however, the old, established organization has turned itself into a major nuisance for his presidential agenda.” With this sarcastic note, Alon Pinkas, the former Israeli consul general in New York, concluded an article he wrote for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that was published Feb. 14.

His remarks referred to a dramatic decision made by the group, which was created in 1901 with the mission of purchasing lands for Jews to settle in Ottoman Palestine. Over the years, and after the establishment of the state of Israel, it continued to purchase land throughout the country for Jewish settlement (as opposed to West Bank settlements). Today, the Jewish National Fund owns 15% of all the land in Israel. Throughout its history, the fund raised money from rich Jewish donors across the Diaspora, who regarded its mission as a worthy act necessary to “redeem” the Land of Israel.

Once the State of Israel was created, the Jewish National Fund became a powerful arm of the ruling center-left Mapai party (later Labor) and an icon for parties on the Israeli left. As right-wing rule became increasingly entrenched over the last decade, the fund turned into a major arena for political and ideological clashes between the two conflicting worldviews. Representatives of the right in the group’s governing bodies gained more and more control over the organization, with the goal of taking everything the fund had done until then far beneath the radar (through a subsidiary company) into official Jewish National Fund policy. As of this month, it has become an organization devoted to the advancement of Jewish settlement in the West Bank.

This dramatic shift culminated with a formal decision made Feb. 14 by the fund’s executive board. It changed the group’s official policy and reorganized its activity in the West Bank. This included expanding efforts to purchase land there for the purpose of Jewish settlement.