Jeff Halper, co-founder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) http://www.icahd.org/eng/ , will be speaking at the Steynberg Gallery on Wednesday March 3rd 2010, 1531 Monterey Street, San Luis Obispo, 805-547-0278, 7 p.m.
The title of the talk is "Israel/Palestine: Reframe the Conflict – Change the Discourse!"
Admission is open to the public and free.
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Jeff Halper has been a peace and human rights activist for more than three decades. Born in Minnesota in the United States, he participated in the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements of the 1960s. Halper immigrated to Israel in 1973 after attending rabbinical school and resisting military service in the Vietnam War.
In Israel, Halper taught anthropology at Haifa and Ben-Gurion Universities. His academic research has focused on the history of Jerusalem in the modern era, contemporary Israeli culture, and the Middle East conflict. He is the author of Between Redemption and Revival: The Jewish Yishuv in Jerusalem in the Nineteenth Century. During his mandatory Israeli military service, he refused to bear arms or serve in the occupied Palestinian territories. In 1997, Halper co-founded the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions (ICAHD) to challenge and resist the Israeli policy of demolishing Palestinian homes.
Israel has pursued a policy of expanding its civilian population into the Occupied Palestinian Territories (which includes the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and East Jerusalem) through settlement construction and land confiscation. At the same time, Palestinian population growth has been severely limited, confined to shrinking enclaves.
Under the guise of urban planning and civil law, the natural development of Palestinian towns and villages has been frozen by land expropriation, discrimination in planning and zoning policies, restrictions of building permits, and the demolition of Palestinian homes. According to ICAHD research, the Israeli military or civil authority has destroyed more than 18,000 Palestinian homes since 1967. This constitutes a massive violation of international law both by inflicting collective punishment on a civilian population, and by pursuing a goal of territorial acquisition through force.
“We think, as Israelis, that Jews and Arabs should live together,” Halper says. “Palestinians have rights of self-determination just like we have. We have to fight also for their rights. One of our slogans is ‘we refuse to be their enemies.’”
As the Coordinating Director of ICAHD, Dr. Halper has organized and led nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience against Israel’s occupation policies and authorities. He has put his own personal safety on the line, facing bulldozers in front of Palestinian homes and confronting Israeli soldiers. He also organizes Israelis, Palestinians, and internationals to help rebuild demolished Palestinian homes.
A tireless writer and speaker, Halper travels extensively to build international support for ICAHD and its international sister organizations, ICAHD-USA and ICAHD UK. He realized early on that the Israeli government did not intend for the Oslo peace process of the 1990’s to lead to the recognition of Palestinian rights. He developed the “Matrix of Control” framework that accurately predicted the course the Israeli Occupation would take as the Oslo process collapsed and Israel continued to build settlements, settler-only highways, and the Separation Wall. Dr. Halper was an early voice warning about the development of Israeli apartheid policies in the Occupied Territories, a subject on which he frequently speaks.
His book, Obstacles to Peace, is a resource manual of articles and maps on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and is published by ICAHD. Dr. Halper will be publishing An Israeli in Palestine in 2008, which follows his work against the Israeli Occupation.
For this work, the American Friends Service Committee nominated him, along with Palestinian activist Ghassan Andoni, for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. Dr. Halper has also served on the steering committee of the United Nations Conference on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.
ISRAELI COMMITTEE AGAINST HOUSE DEMOLITIONS
ICAHD is a non-profit organiation in Israel.
Registration # 58-032-757-5
ICAHD is a non-violent, direct-action group originally established to oppose and resist Israeli demolition of Palestinian houses in the Occupied Territories. As our activists gained direct knowledge of the brutalities of the Occupation, we expanded our resistance activities to other areas - land expropriation, settlement expansion, by-pass road construction, policies of "closure" and "separation," the wholesale uprooting of fruit and olive trees and more. The fierce repression of Palestinian efforts to "shake off" the Occupation following the latest Intifada has only added urgency to our efforts.
As a direct-action group, ICAHD is comprised of members of many Israeli peace and human rights organizations. All of our work in the Occupied Territories is closely coordinated with local Palestinian organizations.
Since its founding, ICAHD's activities have extended to three interrelated spheres: resistance and protest actions in the Occupied Territories; efforts to bring the reality of the Occupation to Israeli society; and mobilizing the international community for a just peace. Our activities include:
* Resisting the demolition of Palestinian homes. ICAHD members physically block bulldozers sent to demolish homes. We also mobilize hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians to rebuild them as acts of resistance. In addition to its effectiveness as a means of raising awareness of the workings of the Occupation, house rebuilding has proven an effective vehicle of grassroots peace-making.
* Disseminating information and networking. Our familiarity with realities "on the ground" gives us special authority and insight in our frequent contacts with diplomats, fact-finding missions, the public and the media. We work closely with other peace and human rights organizations in Israel, in Palestine and internationally on campaigns to end the Occupation and secure a just peace for all. ICAHD also conducts informational tours of the Occupied Territories from a critical peace perspective, sends speakers on informational tours and participates in international conferences and gatherings.
* Providing strategic practical support to Palestinian families and communities. ICAHD aids Palestinians in filing police claims, in dealing with the Israeli authorities, in arranging and subsidizing legal assistance, and in general coping with the traumas and tribulations of life under Occupation. In this way we learn about the internal workings of the Occupation, which we then convey to the broader public. ICAHD also cooperates with other human rights organizations to present legal challenges to Israeli actions and policies in the Occupied Territories.
The Goal: A Just and Sustainable Peace
As Israelis, we believe that the only chance for a genuine peace is one that enables the Palestinians to establish what we have, a viable and truly sovereign state of their own. A just peace will also provide all the peoples of our region with the security, dignity, freedom and economic opportunities they deserve The future may witness the emergence of a regional confederation enhancing the viability of each of our societies to cope with a global reality.
