Photo:Jeff on a panel with the heads of the Palestinian Youth Movement - Canada and a representaive of Independant Jewish Voices in Canada
FROM GENOCIDE IN GAZA TO DECOLONIZING PALESTINE: TOWARDS A DEMOCRATIC STATE FOR ALL BETWEEN THE RIVER AND THE SEA
Jeff Halper, ICAHD’s Co-founder and Director, spent three weeks on a speaking tour of southern Ontario (Toronto to London & Barrie) and Minnesota. Trying as always to connect immediate events with the Big Political Picture, Jeff entitled his talks “From Genocide in Gaza to Decolonizing Palestine: Towards One Democratic State (ODS).” While each presentation differs according to the audience’s familiarity with the issue, you can view his briefing at the Mennonite Central Committee’s office in Waterloo, Canada here.
In addition to the public meetings, Jeff budgets two-three days for cities he visits or, in the case of southern Ontario, a week and a half in the area, in order to meet local activists, students, local community and religious leaders and the media. He held a number of strategy meetings with activists, including leaders of the Palestine Youth Movement – Canada. At the University of Waterloo encampment the students invited him to hold a teach-in.
In his meetings with the Palestinian community, Jeff addresses the need to bridge what he calls a “disconnect” between efforts of Palestinians in Palestine to formulate a national political program and to organize around it and the movement in the Diaspora to support Palestinian rights and protest what is happening in Gaza, since each is acting in isolation from the other. If all the scattered segments of the Palestinian population can find the space to meet together and mobilize around a political program – undoubtedly some version of a one democratic state – that will give activists abroad a political focus to their actions currently lacking. And if the Palestinians in Palestine can mobilize the millions that have come out to support their struggle for national rights, they can at last become major political players. Helping to create those spaces, completely lacking in the repressive environment that Israel enforces, could be a key contribution of the Diaspora to the liberation struggle. (Jeff spoke about this at length in his July update).
Talking strategies in Canada
Brainstrorming over dinner in Canada
One of the many public meetings