American-born anthropologist, author of An Israeli in Palestine and War Against the People, lecturer, and political activist Jeff Halper moved to Israel in the 1970s. He became aware that that situation in Israel wasn’t what he had been led to believe, growing up in the US. When he met a Palestinian whose house was about to be demolished by the regime, for no reason, nothing to do with ‘security’, Jeff realized that the injustice inherent in Israeli society needed exposure.
Jeff formed the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.(ICAHD). He felt that having your own house demolished by the State, was an issue people could relate to.
ICAHD gives educational tours, explaining the realities of the cruelty imposed on the Palestinian people. That’s how we got to know Jeff.
Many former ICAHD participants went home determined to learn more about the realities of the plight of the Palestinian people, determined to form or join juctice movements: protests, activism, BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) and other campaigns and actions .
Jeff believes that all of the activities are important in themselves but there must be, in his words, a political ‘end game’.
“There is no substitute for a political settlement that will finally end the oppression and violence. One cannot be in a political struggle without an end-game”
The 2 state solution is dead and gone. It died at Oslo really. Any possibility of a viable Palestinian state has long been buried under the massive ‘facts on the grounds.’ Palestinian-Australian poet Samah Sabawi, when in Christchurch, described the situation as a ‘One State Reality.’
Government officials and others who continue to call for a ‘two-state solution’ are advocating for yet more negotiations, negotiations over negotiations, negotiations that lead nowhere but can be dragged on indefinitely.
Jeff Halper fears that without a campaign for a justice outcome, activists around the world will tire of the Palestinian sitution and ‘move on’ to other struggles.
Jeff is one of the founders of the One Democratic State Campaign (ODSC).
“This is the only way we will end the ongoing the ongoing colonization, racism and hatred that are destroying our lives, to prevent and reverse the takeover of Palestinian land and its burial under settlements. Only an inclusive democratic state, thoroughly decolonized, will provide for a future for all our children, a future of peace, justice and equality in all of historic Palestine. “
There is a role for all supporters of the cause of the Palestinian people.
The Israeli regime is a one-State reality..a rogue State, a State that is contemptuous of UN Resolutions and of international laws. The Israeli regime is an apartheid State whose cruelty shocks South Africans.
The Israeli regime should be strongly condemned by civil society. The public should pressure our Government to expel the Israeli ambassador.
New Zealand should demand NOW that the siege on Gaza be lifted. New Zealand should demand that the child detention policies, exposed by Defense of Children International Palestine and by American Friends Service Committee in their No Way to Treat a Child campaign, be dropped NOW.
New Zealand could provide the inspiration and impetus for international pressure to be put on Israel to reform.
The One Democratic State Campaign is vital.
Israel is a ONE STATE REALITY!!!
Lois Griffiths is a human rights activist
Something has to be done to overcome the Israeli / Zionist grip on the USA who upholds the crimes perpetrated in the greater historic Palestine.
The voice of NZ has been heard in the UN once and brought Israeli threats that we should have ignored.
Govt has to be strong on this as business NZ will respond to the local Israeli pressure from some powerful people in the Jewish community who are Zionists.
If BDS is adopted as firm Govt policy then we will be setting up NZ for US pressure or even worse.
But we do not have to support and should not support what Israel is doing to its citizens and neighbours throughout the Middle East and state protest about the inhumanity and illegality where those are observed.
The Palestinians are one victim group but there are others.
Ok. Ive got that a little wrong. Jews are a people not a race in the sense that I can become a Jew but not become a Scotsman since this is based on ancestral heritage.
A Scotsman “could very feasibly become a Jew, however….Their race or heritage has absolutely nothing to do with whether they could be accepted for the conversion process. There is one absolute condition and only one. Wholehearted acceptance of the Torah and the One who gave it. German Orthodox thinker Rav Shamshon Rafael Hirsch stated unequivocally, “Land and soil were never Israel’s bond of union…””
And on Zionism:
“The Zionist Enterprise has created a secular, nationalist identity that exists in and of itself. It has no normative content. In the process, they’ve robbed generations of Jews of the only thing that historically characterized them, exchanging an eternal mission for a cheap, bellicose nationalism.”
https://www.truetorahjews.org/shavous-making-nation
It may be right that Zionist Jews outnumber anti Zionists but this is very much debatable. No polls have yet been conducted with the aim of trying to find this out. The term “Israel” has so many meanings that it is impossible to gauge Zionism simply by asking about attachment to Israel as you can get an idea from the quote above. And anyhow, who that has ever spoken up in support of Palestinians has ever been concerned about being a minority? Being on the right side is way more important and by the way Gaby I would like to say thanks because thanks to you I have just found some Jewish friends
Comments are closed.