Jeff Halper’s nomination for this most prestigious prize alongside the Palestinian Ghassan Andoni, co-founder of International Solidarity Movement (ISM) (to be featured later), is well deserved.
Jeff Halper is founder and coordinator of Israeli Committee Against House Demolition (ICAHD) and a widely respected analyst of the Israel/Palestine situation as well as a leading Jewish activist. He is also an Israeli professor of Anthropology at Ben Gurion University. A Vietnam War resister in America, he emigrated to Israel in 1973. Although he insists that Jews have a legitimate place in Israel/Palestine, he has always rejected the exclusivity of Jewish claims to the country that has led to the displacement of Palestinian refugees and to the Occupation. As an Israeli citizen he has refused to bear arms even during his military service, and refused to serve in the Occupied Territories. Two of his children have been imprisoned as conscientious objectors.
Jeff co-founded ICAHD in 1997, which was among the first Israeli peace groups to work with Palestinians inside the Occupied Territories. ICAHD works closely with other critical Israeli groups such as Bat Shalom, Rabbis for Human Rights, Gush Shalom and the Alternative Information Center, as well as with Palestinian partners such as the Land Defense Committee, Rapprochement, and the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee (PARC). ICAHD resists the demolition of Palestinian homes, actions in which Jeff often displayed immense courage, sitting in front of bulldozers, confronting Israeli soldiers and suffering arrest. He and ICAHD also organize Israelis and internationals to rebuild demolished homes with Palestinians as acts of political resistance to the Occupation. Through resistance to Israel’s house demolition policy, ICAHD exposes the injustice of the Occupation and asserts the crucial role of the international civil society in bringing about change, just as Ghassan Andoni has done with the founding of the International Solidarity Movement.
ICAHD has been well ahead of other peace organizations in its appeal to the international community, disseminating information and networking, analyzing what Jeff calls the “matrix of control” employed by Israel in its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza — the framework created by strategic settlement blocs, settler-only highways and the Separation Wall. In ways that parallel the development of Rapprochement, ICAHD has come to see that reconciliation cannot be placed ahead of the restoration of justice — a justice to be brought about through nonviolent direct action and adherence to human rights.
Jeff Halper has in recent years spent a great deal of time traveling abroad to inform the public about the “realities on the ground,” and has established ICAHD chapters in the US (Chapel Hill, NC), the UK and elsewhere. His travels and writings have added to his international stature. Ghassan and Jeff are currently working on a book about nonviolent resistance to the Occupation. They share a fundamental belief that Palestinians and Israelis who stand for human rights, international law, peace, justice and reconciliation are on the same “side.” This is what makes their message relevant and universal, and why their voices – the seldom-heard voices of critical advocates of peace and non-violence – are acknowledged in this nomination.
The American Friends Service Committee nomination:
http://www.icahduk.org/documents/AFSC%20announcement.htm