Man whose father saved Jews from Nazis asks Israel to take his name off 'ethnic cleansing' memorial

Son of Dutch freedom fighter executed by Nazis has donated trees for a new olive grove in the West Bank 'to make amends for the way in which his family name was exploited' by Israel

Hawzah News Agency-The son of a Dutch couple who hid Jewish people from the Nazis has asked for his father’s name to be removed from a monument built on the site of a destroyed Palestinian village.

Erik Ader, whose parents, Bastiaan Jan and Johanna Ader, are believed to have helped at least 200 Jews escape during World War II, said he considered the monument to be an abuse of his father's memory and that his family name has been exploited to cover up "an act of ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians.

A Jewish National Fund (JNF) monument bearing Bastiaan Jan Ader's name currently sits in a forest, planted on the ruins of Bayt Natiff, a Palestinian village about 13 miles southwest of Jerusalem which was destroyed by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) during the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948.

Until a decade ago, Mr Ader said he had no idea a razed village lay underneath the trees.

Bayt Natiff was destroyed during Operation Ha-Har, an IDF campaign against villages south west of Jerusalem, launched at the end of October 1948.

Mr Ader told he was especially angry with the JNF, an international Zionist charity with semi-governmental authority in Israel, which had raised funds from Dutch Jews to plant the trees. He said those who made the donations had been deceived and did not know what their money was used for. He also criticised the Dutch government, which took part in the original dedication ceremony of the forest, and according to Mr Ader must have known about the village beneath the trees.

“It is scandalous what JNF did,” he said. “These trees served both as a way to prevent the refugees from returning to their homes and to conceal the act of ethnic cleansing that was committed against them in 1948.”

He added: “The fact that they used the name of my father, who paid with his life for upholding human rights, to carry this out makes it all the more shameful. They have made him complicit in the village’s ethnic cleansing."

More than 500 villages were razed, after 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes. Forests have been planted by the JNF on many of these sites.