{"id":10939,"date":"2015-02-27T00:08:10","date_gmt":"2015-02-27T08:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=10939"},"modified":"2015-02-26T21:08:17","modified_gmt":"2015-02-27T05:08:17","slug":"halper-talks-across-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2015\/02\/27\/halper-talks-across-canada\/","title":{"rendered":"Halper talks across Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Jeff Halper speaks at the University of Manitoba on Feb. 9. (photo by Rebeca Kuropatwa)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Dr. Jeff Halper, an Israeli anthropologist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, spoke on four different occasions in Winnipeg over two days, Feb. 8 and 9, as part of a cross-Canada speaking tour, which also brought him to Vancouver Feb. 10-12. He is the head of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), an organization self-described as \u201cdedicated to ending the Israeli occupation and [that] advocates for a just peace between Israel and the Palestinian people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first of Halper\u2019s Winnipeg talks was An Israeli in Palestine, and it was held at Crescent Fort Rouge United Church. He then spoke at the University of Manitoba on Academic Freedom and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, reprised An Israeli in Palestine at the University of Winnipeg and, finally, did an interview with Jewish Post & News<\/em> editor Bernie Bellan at the Free Press News Caf\u00e9 (which can be found at icahd.org\/node\/568<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The U of M lecture on Feb. 9 was sponsored by the department of history, the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics, and the Global Political Economy program. Halper began this talk by saying that \u201cthe side\u201d most people are aware of is the one that \u201conly demolishes houses of terrorists and that is trying really hard to make a fair peace with the Palestinians.\u201d But, he said, people are not very aware of the side that is \u201cbuilding settlements in the West Bank and refusing to issue building permits to Palestinians in the West Bank.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Halper, Israel has been working for years to physically eliminate the proposition of a two-state solution by creating in the West Bank a Palestinian territory that is so fragmented with Israeli settlements that such an option is no longer viable. \u201cA solution that the Israeli peace camp, including myself, supported for many years \u2026 the solution accepted by the international community \u2026 U.S., Canada, the UN, the Palestinians and every Arab country, is gone,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Halper believes that the two-state solution is \u201ctremendously pro-Israeli.\u201d He said, \u201cIf Israel in fact wants peace and security, it could have had that 27 years ago. And, it could have kept 78 percent of the country. This two-state solution was adopted unanimously by the Arab League. Every Arab country said that if Israel relinquishes the occupation, we will not only make peace with Israel, we\u2019ll integrate Israel into the region. There was even talk of Israel joining the Arab League.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Halper\u2019s view, \u201cIsrael has always said no and never seriously considered a two-state solution\u2026. In 1993, there were 200,000 settlers. By the year 2000, after seven years of negotiation, there were 400,000 settlers. Today, there are 600,000 settlers. In four years from now, there will be a million Israelis living in the occupied territory.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Israel has done to ensure its permanent control, to ensure that the Palestinians are imprisoned in areas, is not a bi-national state \u2026 heaven forbid, because it has to be a Jewish state\u2026. There\u2019s no chance Israel will be forced out of the occupied territory. Israel has laid over the West Bank what I call \u2018a matrix of control.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Halper argued, \u201cThere is no more West Bank: it\u2019s gone. There are today more Israelis living in east Jerusalem than there are Palestinians. And whether it\u2019s east Jerusalem or the West Bank, Palestinian territory is completely fragmented.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlso, out of the 600 checkpoints in the West Bank, only 17 are actually between the West Bank and Israel. All the others are inside the West Bank, preventing Palestinian movement, confining them to these islands.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow will a Palestinian state emerge from this?\u201d he asked. \u201cThe whole idea of the two-state solution was based on a north\/south axis, here\u2019s Israel and, alongside, it\u2019s a Palestinian state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Halper sees Israel as \u201cworking to force Palestinians out of homes located in the \u2018wrong\u2019 place, largely through house demolition. None of those homes had anything to do with security.\u201d<\/p>\n

As an example, Halper used the house of ICAHD member Salim Shawamreh. To date, said Halper, that home has been demolished and rebuilt by the ICAHD six times. \u201cThey bought a small plot of land in the town of Anata, which is right next to Jerusalem,\u201d said Halper. \u201cThe land is registered. When they went to apply for a building permit, the answer was \u2018no.\u2019 Israel has zoned the entire West Bank as agricultural land so, when a Palestinian comes to build a home on land he owns, the answer is \u2018Sorry, but this is agricultural land.\u2019 It applies to Jews and Arabs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beside Anata is the Israeli town of Ma\u2019ale Adumim, which, Halper said, is built on the same agricultural land with a permit. \u201cYou have 50,000 Israelis living in government-built cities on the same land,\u201d said Halper. \u201cIf you want to rezone from agricultural to residential, it takes a second.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many families build without a permit, said Halper, and Shawamreh \u201cdecided to build his house without a permit and the Israeli authority sent a demolition order with a dozen solders. They aren\u2019t coming to arrest him. They\u2019re coming to demolish his home\u2026. Salim resisted and was taken out by force. His wife, Arabiya, managed to lock the door and stayed inside with the children. So, the soldiers broke the windows and threw in tear gas to flush the family out. Arabiya was taken out unconscious, the kids running and screaming in every direction. We get into the act if we can. She managed to call us \u2026 [and] we resist the demolition of homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe rebuild homes as political acts of resistance,\u201d he continued. \u201cWe\u2019ve rebuilt 587 homes over the last 14 years or so \u2026 587 joint acts of resistance. We refuse to be enemies. That\u2019s one of our slogans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Halper\u2019s tour, organized by United Network for Justice and Peace in Palestine\/Israel and Independent Jewish Voices-Canada, as well as various local groups, fundraised for ICAHD\u2019s building of a house for a Palestinian family whose home was demolished. Admission to events was free, though donations were welcomed.<\/p>\n

Rebeca Kuropatwa<\/strong> is a Winnipeg freelance writer.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Jeff Halper speaks at the University of Manitoba on Feb. 9. (photo by Rebeca Kuropatwa) Dr. Jeff Halper, an Israeli anthropologist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, spoke on four different occasions in Winnipeg over two days, Feb. 8 and 9, as part of a cross-Canada speaking tour, which also brought him to Vancouver Feb. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10909,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3274,4330,1673,3275,1172,3276],"class_list":["post-10939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","tag-icahd","tag-israel","tag-israeli-palestinian-conflict","tag-jeff-halper","tag-palestinians","tag-salim-shawamreh"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}