A talk by Dr. Jeff Halper
Executive Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
Thursday, Feb 22
6:30 pm
Kimmel 804
60 Washington Square South
New York University
Light refreshments served
Jeff Halper, 2006 Nobel Peace Prize candidate, nominated with Palestinian intellectual and activist Ghassan Andoni by the American Friends Service committee, is the Executive Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). ICAHD, a grassroots activist NGO in Jerusalem resisting the Israeli occupation on the ground and one of the first Israeli peace groups to work inside the Occupied Palestinian Territories, struggles to stop the demolition of Palestinian homes and helps rebuild those homes previously demolished. In acts of political resistance, ICAHD works in coalition with a wide range of activist Israeli organizations including: Bat Shalom, Rabbis for Human Rights, Gush Shalom and the Alternative Information Center, as well as grassroots Palestinian groups such as the Land Defense Committee, the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee (PARC) and the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People. ICAHD also sponsors an annual Summer Rebuilding Project that brings together internationals, Israelis and Palestinians to rebuild the demolished home of a Palestinian family.
A professor of Anthropology, Halper has written extensively on the Israeli occupation in periodicals such as The Journal of Palestinian Studies, Counterpunch, and Tikkun Magazine and has published Obstacles to Peace: A Re-framing of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict where he discusses at length and illustrates in detail what he calls “The Matrix Of Control.” Halper joins other Israeli and U.S. activist groups in calling for an end to U.S. economic and political support that underwrites the Israeli occupation and applauds President Carter’s courage for writing his new book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Halper’s next book, An Israeli in Palestine, is forthcoming from Pluto Press.