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.
Gosh, the anti-Israel brigade on this site are really going for it at the moment, aren’t they? It’s truly pitiful, like an old toothless dinosaur in its death throes, refusing to admit its done and defeated. The Palestinians were offered their own state 8 times and rejected it each time. Now the world, especially the Arabs, are sick of them. A shame, as the ordinary Palestinian people have been badly betrayed by their billionaire leaders, who want to keep creaming it. By one state, Griffiths, using all the tired old accusations in the BDS lexicon, means, of course, the demographic suicide of Israel as a Jewish state. This clinches what a total fantasy land you people inhabit.
“israel as a Jewish State… ”
And therein lies the rascism that built the apartheid wall around Palestinians. There in a nutshell is why Israel can never be considered a democracy for all the bleating about it being the only true democracy in the Middle East. “Israel as a Jewish State immediately disenfranchises all non Jews. And interestingly it is only Zionism which sees the Israeli State in these terms. The vast majority of Jews are not Zionists and many of these see no place for a State reserved solely for Jews. Because the obvious point is what to do with the inconvenient fact of people who already exist in the land claimed as Israel? No way to include them in a Jewish State so they must be harassed to whatever degree it takes to remove their inconvenient presence. Bulldoze their houses snd shoot their children and grandparents. Make movement difficult and time consuming and destroy their water and agriculture. This is the only outcome possible for “Israel as a Jewish State”
Has it occurred to you that there are many visitors to this site who want to be kept abreast of the accumulating human rights breaches, disregards of UN resolutions and war crimes of the apartheid Zionist state of Israel. There are few other NZ sources of informed commentary and discussion of the oppression of Palestinians in the NZ media. Please stop polluting TDB with your inane comments and dumps of shallow and usually disingenuous Zionist propaganda. Surely there are other Israeli-centric echo chamber sites that you can inundate with your comments, or have you bored them to death already?
Firstly, 90% of Israelis are Zionists and 80% of American Jews support Israel. The Jewish people have as much right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland as any other people; the existential horrors they have suffered over the centuries from people with attitudes such as yours makes it a necessity. It is actually obliging of Lois, as a staunch BDS advocate, to chillingly reveal the true aim of this ad other anti-Israel groups: the elimination of Israel, one way or another. You consider yourselves ‘human rights campaigners’ but this is a joke, because you exclusively focus only on the Jewish state masquerading your hatred behind terms like ‘Zionists’ when you really mean Jews. So transparent. here’s some sensible reading for you.
file://localhost/Users/eeldridge/Desktop/Response%20To%20Common%20Inaccuracy_%20Bi-National_One-State%20Solution.html
Some of us are heartily sick and tired of your unsubstantiated statistics, distortions of history, disregard of international laws and norms and repeated use of disingenuous, self-serving ‘definitions’. IINZ must be calling you Gaby. Since their site is down, it may be because they need another Zionist cheerleader or two to support their limited pool of contributors.
When I say Zionists, I mean Zionists. When I say Jews, I mean Jews. Generally, thats how languages work. It is not I but you that equate the Zionist philisophy with a race, the Jews. I have plainly stated the difference on many occasions but I guess that if you wish them to be the same its difficult for you to comprehend the difference. So heres a wee starting point for you. See if you can comprehend how difficult it is for many Jews to even contemplate Zionusm. One of the key drivers of the Jewish religion is pacifism. In NZ we had a local version of this at Parihaka where some of their principals of non violence came from the old testament. Zionism is not even slightly pacifist. It is completely at the opposite extreme and advocates for violence to achieve its aims. Anyone who doesn’t see such a difference is just willfully ignorant
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
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