Jeff Halper
Jeff Halper | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1949 |
| Nationality | Israel, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | professor, director of Israeli NGO |
| Known for | founder and Director of Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions |
| Website | http://www.icahd.org/eng/ |
Jeff Halper (born 1949 in Minnesota) is the co-founder and Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) and a retired Professor of Anthropology. In 1997, Halper co-founded ICAHD to challenge and resist the Israeli policy of demolishing Palestinian homes, and to organize Israelis, Palestinians and international volunteers to jointly rebuild demolished Palestinian homes. He is credited with forging a new mode of Israeli peace activity based on nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience to the Israeli Occupation authorities.[1] Professor Halper was nominated by the American Friends Service Committee for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, together with the Palestinian intellectual and activist Ghassan Andoni, for his work "to liberate both the Palestinian and the Israeli people from the yoke of structural violence" and "to build equality between their people by recognizing and celebrating their common humanity."[2] Halper is the author of several books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and is a frequent writer and speaker about Israeli politics and culture, focusing mainly on nonviolent strategies to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Academic positions
Born in Minnesota, Halper was educated in the U.S. and was involved in the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements of the 1960s. He immigrated to Israel in 1973 after attending rabbinical school. In Israel, Halper taught anthropology at Haifa University and Ben Gurion University in Beer Sheva. He was the head of Friends World College, an international university program. His academic research has focused on the history of Jerusalem in the modern era, contemporary Israeli culture, and the Middle East conflict.
Founding of ICAHD
In 1997, Halper co-founded the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions to challenge and resist the Israeli policy of demolishing Palestinian homes and severely restricting Palestinian growth. According to ICAHD, since 1967 more than 18,000 Palestinian homes in the Palestinian Territories have been destroyed by the Israeli military or civil authorities.[3] Because of the Israeli military occupation, the natural development of Palestinian towns and villages has been frozen by various means, including land expropriation, discriminatory planning and zoning policies, restrictive granting of building permits and the demolition of Palestinian homes. The reason for this, according to Halper, is purely political: to confine more than three million residents in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza to small, impoverished and disconnected enclaves, effectively foreclosing any viable Palestinian entity and ensuring Israeli control.[4]
As ICAHD Israel’s Coordinating Director, Professor 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.[1] He also organizes Israelis, Palestinians, and internationals to help rebuild demolished Palestinian homes.[2] ICAHD uses dialogue between groups to open communication, foster reconciliation and challenge stereotypes. In acts of political resistance, ICAHD works in coalition with a wide range of Israeli human rights organizations including: Bat Shalom, Rabbis for Human Rights, Gush Shalom and the Alternative Information Center, as well as Palestinian groups such as the Land Defense Committee, the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee (PARC) and Rapprochement.[2]
For his work as Director of ICAHD, Professor Halper was nominated in 2006 for the Nobel Peace Prize. American Friends Service Committee, winner of the 1947 Nobel Peace Prize for its humanitarian work during World War II, nominated Halper and Palestinian intellectual and activist Ghassan Andoni, explaining that both "have worked to liberate both the Palestinian and the Israeli people from the yoke of structural violence - symbolized most clearly by the Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza," and stating further that "they have worked to build equality between their people by recognizing and celebrating their common humanity."[2]
Upon receiving the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize nomination, Professor Halper stated:
- In my view, however, the nomination is not merely of two individuals but, through them, of the critical voices they represent -- voices loud and clear in the cause of universal human rights yet only faintly heard in the corridors of power or in the mainstream media.
- ...
- Ghassan the Palestinian and I the Israeli Jew refuse to be enemies. We are not on opposite “sides” of a conflict, but are united in our common struggle is to achieve a peace between our peoples based on human rights, international law and reconciliation – the only kind that addresses the inequalities of power and the underlying causes of the strife that pits our peoples against one another. This is what makes our message relevant and universal, for virtually every conflict in the world today arises from oppression and exploitation of one “side” by another of superior strength. As an advocate of a just peace, I consider Ghassan my partner and comrade, and am proud to be sharing this nomination with him. And I am especially proud and honored to be nominated by the AFSC. May the voices of the critical peace-makers acknowledged in this nomination be amplified.[5]
Social activism
In addition to his work with the Israeli peace movement, Professor Halper has been active on issues of social justice within Israel. He worked as a community volunteer for ten years in Jerusalem’s inner city neighborhoods, where he was one of the founders of the Ohel social protest movement of working-class Mizrahi Jews. He served as the Chairman of the Israeli Association for Ethiopian Jews, having been active on the issue of Ethiopian Jewish rights and researching the community in Ethiopia in the mid-1960s.
Professor Halper also serves on the steering committee of the UN Conference on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.[2]
Published books
- An Israeli in Palestine: Resisting Dispossession, Redeeming Israel, Pluto Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0745322261
- Between Redemption and Revival: The Jewish Yishuv in Jerusalem in the Nineteenth Century, Westview, 1991, ISBN 978-0813378558
Selected published articles
- When the Roadmap is a One Way Street, Counterpunch.org, November 28, 2007
- Whose Road Map?, Jerusalem Post, November 7, 2007.
- A Just Israeli-Palestinian Peace: Towards an Integrated Strategy, MiddleEastWindow.com, 2005
See also
References
- ^ a b "Dr. Jeff Halper, Coordinator". Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. Retrieved 2008-05-16.
- ^ a b c d e "AFSC's nomination for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize: Ghassan Andoni and Jeff Halper" (Press release). American Friends Service Committee. 2006-02-14. Retrieved 2008-05-16.
- ^ "Jeff Halper". American Friends Service Committee. Retrieved 2008-05-19.
- ^ "A Conversation with Jeff Halper". Catholic New Times. 2005-11-20. Retrieved 2008-05-19.
- ^ "Jeff Halper's Statement Upon Receiving The 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Nomination From The American Friends Service Committee". American Friends Service Committee. 2006-02-06. Retrieved 2008-05-19.