Jeff Halper

Jeff Halper (Hebrew: ג'ף הלפר; born 1946[1]) is an Israeli-American anthropologist,[2] author, lecturer, and political activist who has lived in Israel since 1973.

The ultimate goal of TPYN is to generate a conception of a just, inclusive, pluralistic and sustainable post-capitalist, "human-centric" (or "life-centric") world system and to help create the global movement that would bring it into being.

That alone seemed enough to me to justify the existence of Israel as a Jewish state while subordinating Palestinian claims to the historical necessity of Jews to control their own destiny.

He spent ten years as a community volunteer in Jerusalem's inner city neighborhoods, and was a founder of Ohel - a social protest movement of working-class Mizrahi Jews.

ICAHD thereupon sends out an action alert, in response to which activists from different groups turn out and engage in civil disobedience by standing up to the bulldozers.

[4] In addition, under Halper's leadership, ICAHD encourages dialogue between groups in an effort to open communication, foster reconciliation and challenge stereotypes.

Stage 1, "Inside Israel" (1948-1960s), involved the destruction of Palestinian villages and urban neighborhoods " so that the refugees could not return and their lands could be turned over to the Jewish population."

ICAHD says that the "overall objective" of its "intergovernmental organization work is to ensure that the protection and promotion of Palestinian rights and a just peace become an essential component of international relations in a consistent, principled and effective way."

[23] In 2007 he argued that, on the evidence of 40 years of occupation, Israel’s strategy ‘is the status quo, delay, while quietly expanding the settlements,’ which in his view 'deliberately and systematically’ aims to create apartheid 'in the strict sense' of that word.

[25] Contesting Ehud Olmert’s declaration of willingness to withdraw from 100% of the occupied territories, Halper argued that, following Bush’s acceptance of settlements, which at the time effectively extended over 20% of the West Bank, would not leave Palestinians with a viable state but a series of sterile swatches of land whose border s would be controlled by Israel.

[26] By 2012 he argued that in complicity with the Palestinian National Authority, Israel appeared to be readying to annex Area C, creating a ‘viable apartheid’.

[28] Halper supports the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement, saying in a July 2013 article that BDS has "generated meaningful pressure on governments to justly resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

[30] Halper has often suggested that Israel is seeking to establish "facts on the ground," as he routinely puts it, that would render territorial concessions in any peace agreement inconceivable.

"The demolition of Palestinian homes and other structures, forced or resulting displacement, and land expropriation are politically and ethnically motivated," the ICAHD has declared.

The ICAHD explains that "Judaization refers to the view that Israel has actively sought to transform the physical and demographic landscape to correspond with a vision of a united and fundamentally Jewish land under Israeli sovereignty in historic Palestine.

For one thing, "the facts on the ground – the settlements, the wall, the highways and the fragmentation of the territory – are all just so massive and so permanent and are constantly being expanded that there's no more place for a coherent, functional, viable, sovereign Palestinian state."

He also proposes a further possibility: "the idea of a Middle Eastern Economic Confederation that looks something like the European Common Market of 30 years ago" and that would include "Israel/Palestine, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

In 2017 he co-founded the Palestinian-led One Democratic State Campaign (ODSC), whose 10-point program envisions an inclusive democracy between the River and the Sea, including the return of the Palestinian refugees.