The ICAHD UK Annual Conference 2020

Saturday 30 May 2020 at the Amnesty International UK Human Rights Action Centre, 25 New Inn Yard, Shoreditch, London EC2A 3EA
11.15am-5.00pm

Since 1967, when Israel’s occupation began, more than 55,000 Palestinian homes and structures vital for living have been demolished in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza in violation of international law, less than 1% for security reasons.  ICAHD UK invites you to attend its annual conference to hear Atta Jaber relate how demolitions of his home and settler violence have impacted on his family.

In the conference we will explain the legal status of demolitions and what is being done in the Israeli courts and at the United Nations to challenge Israel’s demolition policy in both the occupied territory and in Israel.

Living under Israel’s brutal military occupation and apartheid policies has resulted on ongoing trauma Learn about how demolitions affect the members of Palestinian families in different ways and impact the wider community. Find out what is being done to provide mental health support and build resistance.

We will also address how Israel’s ongoing settler-colonial project has given rise to one de facto state in all historic Palestine, and how ICAHD UK’s campaigns must reflect this reality.

The afternoon with continue with news about our next rebuilding camp and the strategic Palestinian and Israelis partners who are joining us for this powerful political act of non-violent resistance to Israel’s demolition policies. Information will be shared about our unique study tours that have proved life-changing for participants amd will end with an except of a new play by Norma Cohen, written after her involvement in the November 2019 study tour to Palestine/Israel.

Participants in the conference will include:

Atta Jaber, Palestinian from the West Bank. A violent campaign by extreme religious settlers has been waged against Palestinian farmers in one of the most fertile agricultural areas of the West Bank, the Baka Valley, which is steadily being encroached upon by large suburbs of the settlement of Kiryat Arba, in Hebron. The Jaber family has experienced multiple house demolitions, and their wells and irrigation systems have been destroyed many times by settlers just before harvest. The family has experienced other forms of settler violence, yet they are determined to remain on the land that has been in their family for generations.

Suhad Bishara, senior lawyer with Adalah, Legal Centre for Minority Rights in Israel, where she has worked since 2001. She previously served as a legal consultant to the Association of Forty, the Arab Steering Committee for Urban Planning in the Galilee Society, and the Hotline for Battered Women. Suhad was the first Palestine & Law Fellow at Columbia University Law School (2014-2015) and she is currently pursuing a PhD at Kings College London. Adalah has ECOSOC status at the United Nations where it regularly submits oral and written reports including to the Human Rights Council.

Jeff Halper is the co-founder and director of ICAHD, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and a Professor of Anthropology. He was born in 1946 in Minnesota and emigrated to Israel in 1973. Halper taught at Haifa and Ben Gurion Universities in Israel, and was the head of Friends World College, an international university programme in the States. He has been a tireless advocate for justice and civil rights for all Israelis and Palestinians. He spent ten years as a community worker in Jerusalem aiding low-income Mizrahi families. He co-founded ICAHD in 1997 to help resist Israel's strategy of house demolitions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. He is the author of four books, Between Redemption and Revival: The Jewish Yishuv in Jerusalem in the Nineteenth Century, An Israeli in Palestine: Resisting Possession, Redeeming Israel, Obstacles to Peace: A Reframing of the Palestinian - Israeli Conflict and War Against the People: Israel, the Palestinians and Global Pacification. In 2006 Dr. Halper was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, citing ICAHD's 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." Jeff is co-founder of the One Democratic State Campaign.

More speakers to be confirmed.