Jeff Halper “Punitive” demolitions, which have become a trademark of Israel’s latest round of repression against the Palestinians of the Occupied Territory, are not only a pointless lashing out against defenseless families, but are downright counterproductive, even by Israel’s own standards. Since 1967 the Israeli authorities have demolished some 46,000 Palestinian homes in the OPT,… Read more »
News
Right of Reply: Protecting Human Rights is Never ‘Interference’
Aug. 12, 2009 Jeff Halper , THE JERUSALEM POST The article entitled Spain funds ‘summer camp’ for foreign volunteers to rebuild demolished illegal Palestinian homes, which merited the front page of The Jerusalem Post (August 10), would seem somewhat of a non-story. After all, Israel and the US funded NGOs assisting Jews in the Soviet… Read more »
Salim and Arabiya’s Story
Since 1967, 24,000 Palestinian homes have been demolished in the Occupied Territories. Many were demolished in military operations, simply for being in the way or tanks or artillery fire (4000 homes were destroyed in the 2008 invasion of Gaza, almost all as “collateral damage”). Others are destroyed as acts of “deterrence,” collective punishment against families… Read more »
Stop the Massive Demolition of Palestinian Homes in Gaza
Prof. Jeff Halper At this very moment (Friday, May 14), Israel army bulldozers are razing dozens of homes in the Rafah refugee camp in retaliation for the deaths of five Israeli soldiers. Prime Minister Sharon and Defense Minister Mofaz last night authorized the army to demolish hundreds of Palestinian houses at Rafah, on the Gaza… Read more »
The Miserable Occupation on a Miserable Morning
ICAHD staff 21 November 2005 Yesterday, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolition (ICAHD) received information that the Israeli government was planning on demolishing houses in Anata, Beit Hanina and Silwan. Although the demolition of Palestinian homes was supposed to end with the first phase of the Road Map, Israel insists disingenuously that we are only… Read more »
The Power of Saying No
By Jeff Halper 26 March 2006 As the new Hamas government is sworn into power in the Palestinian Authority, we might ask: What would bring a people, the most secular of Arab populations with little history of religious fundamentalism, to vote Hamas? Mere protest at Fatah ineffectualness in negotiations and internal corruption doesn’t go far… Read more »
The Problem with Israel
By Jeff Halper Here is the question: If Israelis truly crave peace and security—“the right to be normal,” as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert put it recently—then why haven’t they exhausted each and every opportunity for resolving the conflict? Why do Israelis continually elect governments that aggressively pursue settlement expansion and military confrontations with the… Read more »
The Rachel Corrie Verdict: Justice Denied
Jeff Halper Tuesday, 28 August 2012 For those who hoped for a just verdict on the death of Rachel Corrie, the American college student and ISM activist killed by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza in 2003 as she was defending a Palestinian home about to be demolished, this is a sad day – not… Read more »
The Russell Tribunal on Palestine
By Jeff Halper The Russell Tribunal is what happens when governments abrogate their responsibilities towards their own citizens and peoples under their control. States (plus the UN) are obligated to enforce international law and human rights conventions. When they don’t, as in their failure to apply the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of… Read more »
The Palestinians: Warehousing a “Surplus People”
Jeff Halper So rapid is the pace of systemic change in that indivisible entity known as Palestine/Israel that it almost defies our ability to keep up with it. The deliberate and systematic campaign of driving Palestinians out of the country in 1948 was quickly forgotten, the plight of more than 700,000 refugees becoming an… Read more »