JNF has responded, through Haaretz, to an article in an Israeli business publication, about the investment in the Arava Power Company.

JNF sheds light on solar deal

Keren Kayemet L’Israel-Jewish National Fund slammed a report this month in Globes that slammed its contract with a local solar energy company.

Calling it “one of the strangest deals in its 110-year history,” the Israeli business paper Globes last month described alleged problems in KKL-JNF’s $3 million investment in APC, a company located in Kibbutz Ketura that builds photovoltaic solar farms in the country’s south. The report lists factors that turned the deal “from exceptional to almost mysterious.” For example KKL-JNF never issued a tender before making the investment; its management never brought the deal before the board of directors for approval and the cooperation never publicly announced the deal.

KKL-JNF deputy chairman Menachem Lebovic rejected the criticism. “The agreement between Arava Power and the landholders was made directly with the Kibbutzim and the Moshavim of the Arava, which is in accordance with historical decisions made by the ILA allowing this,” he stated in a written response…