"We are beginning to use a term that goes beyond “apartheid”: warehousing Palestinians"
An interview with Jeff Halper and Ofer Neiman of The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD)
1952
di Mara Carro
Ofer Neiman is a member of ICAHD, The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, ICAHD.
(With contributions from Jeff Halper, co-founder and director of ICAHD).
Briefly, would you summarize what your organization does and its mission?
The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) is a non-violent Israeli direct-action organization established in 1997 to end Israel’s Occupation over the Palestinians. ICAHD takes as its main focus, as its vehicle for resistance, Israel's policy of demolishing Palestinian homes in the Occupied Territories – more than 30,000 homes and livelihood structures destroyed since 1967.
ICAHD operates on several levels:
· Resistance “on the ground.” ICAHD members physically block bulldozers sent to demolish homes, resisting their demolition while also mobilizing diplomats and journalists in their campaign to end demolitions. Raising funds abroad, ICAHD also mobilizes Israelis and Palestinians to rebuild demolished homes as political acts of resistance; we have rebuilt 187 homes. The focus on house demolitions has proven an effective vehicle of grassroots peace-making and international mobilization, as well as a means of resistance. Over the years ICAHD's resistance “on the ground” has extended to other manifestations of the Occupation as well: land expropriation, settlement expansion, the construction of Israeli-only highways, the closure, the building of the Separation Barrier/Wall, the wholesale uprooting of fruit and olive trees, and more.
· Advocacy within Israel. ICAHD attempts to reach the wider Israeli society with its message of a just peace – and the possibility of achieving a just peace, a belief Israeli Jews have mostly lost. We produce materials in Hebrew, network with other Israeli organizations and conduct Hebrew-language tours of the Occupied Territories.
· International Advocacy. ICAHD’s familiarity with realities “on the ground,” combined with its political analysis rooted in Israeli politics and society, gives it a special authority and insight into the sources of the conflict. Our views are frequently sought by diplomats, journalists, political delegations and fact-finding missions, church and Jewish groups, and the general public. ICAHD conducts extensive and systematic advocacy campaigns abroad – supported by ICAHD USA, ICAHD UK, ICAHD Germany, ICAHD Norway, ICAHD Finland, ICAHD Australia and many other partner organizations around the world – as well as critical briefings and tours for international visitors to Israel/Palestine. ICAHD also initiates campaigns abroad and participates in international conferences.
· Cooperation with Palestinian organizations and communities. ICAHD can only operate in the Occupied Territories in close collaboration with its Palestinian partners. Be it in strategizing, in launching joint campaigns and projects or in rebuilding activities, ICAHD has managed to retain trust and a close working relationship with Palestinians throughout the extremely difficult years of Intifada and repression. ICAHD has been the catalyst behind Beit Arabiya, a center for strategizing among Palestinian, Israeli and international activists located in a demolished home in the West Bank town of Anata. In certain cases we also provide strategic practical support to Palestinian families and communities, including legal assistance to families facing demolition.
People often compare the struggle in Palestine to the one in South Africa several decades ago. Do you think this is a useful comparison to make and can one learn from the successes in South Africa and use those same strategies in Palestine?
The regime in Israel has always been based on ethnic separation. Moreover, there is clearly a "typical" apartheid situation in the occupied Palestinian territories: Israeli settlers are as privileged as white South Africans in the old South Africa, while millions of Palestinians are living under a military regime, occupation and siege. When one looks at the amount of water an Israeli settler has, in comparison to what his Palestinian neighbor has, the conclusion that this occupation also amounts to apartheid should follow. Moreover, Israel's Palestinian citizens are viewed as a demographic threat. The state has seized most of their land over the years, pursuing a policy shamelessly named "judaization". Right now, violent uprooting of Bedouin communities is taking place in Southern Israel, to make way for (predominantly) Jewish towns.
“Apartheid” highlights some of the most salient elements of the system of domination, control and displacement that has been constructed by the Jews in Palestine over the past century, a system close to completion. It identifies “separation” based on national/religious grounds as the basis of Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians. Hafrada (apartheid in Afrikaans) is the official Hebrew term for Israel’s vision and policy towards the Palestinians of the Occupied Territories – and, it could be argued (with qualifications), within Israel itself. It raises the image of a bantustan as Israel’s conception of what a dependent and truncated Palestinian “entity” would look like. It highlights some essential features shared by the two systems: an exclusivist claim of one particular group to the entire country, based on complete separation of the dominant group from the indigenous "others;" displacement of the local population by the dominant settler one, seizure of its lands and properties, limiting its presence to small areas of the country, and transforming it into a permanent "underclass;" formalization of unequal power relations through an extensive system of discriminatory laws and policies, enforced by the police, military and a variety of "security services;" and the development by the dominant group of a compelling "meta-narrative" that supports its claims to the land while excluding those of the native "others," even going so far as to demonize them so as to completely nullify any moral as well as historical or political claims they may have. Most important, the term “apartheid” conveys the notion of a system, not merely a policy.
Still, the term does have its drawbacks and limitations. “Apartheid” is South African specific. If it highlights a system of separation and domination, it also suggests a racial rather than a national or religious basis for separation, which is not the issue between Israelis and Palestinians. It generates opposition and defensivity, serving as a “red flag” deflecting attention from the issues involved rather than considered discussion. But even if a case can be made to apply it to Israel and the Occupied Territories, it is not dynamic or comprehensive enough. “Apartheid” emphasizes the domination and control of one group over another, but it is too static for the Israeli case. Because Black Africans constituted the vast majority, the whites could not actually displace them; they could only create a system of domination and control, and then try to maintain it. In Israel/Palestine a different situation pertains whereby one group (the Jews) claims exclusivity and has the ability – demographically, assisted by grossly unequal uses of military power and economic resources – to carry out a successful century-long campaign of displacement (nishul). The Jews of Israel today constitute the majority (though barely) in the country. They effectively control all the land, as well as mechanisms of demographic control, such as Jewish immigration, revoking Palestinian residency, deportation and exile, as well as denial of the Palestinian Right of Return. Unlike Apartheid, which was a system created and then maintained until its collapse, Nishul is an ongoing process involving not merely domination, control and confinement, but actual displacement -- a process, not only a system.
We are beginning to use a term that goes beyond “apartheid”: warehousing Palestinians. Apartheid has two elements: (1) a dominant population separates itself from the others; and (2) that population then establishes a permanent and institutionalized regime of domination over the others. Israel has done that, but has gone beyond to warehousing: without even the pretense of establishing “independent” Bantustans or acknowledging the national existence of another people in the Land of Israel, it is basically imprisoning the Palestinians permanently, with no political process or “resolution.”
On 8 July 2014, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip. After Gaza withdrawal in 2005, Israel and Hamas have clashed in three wars. Do you agree Israel cannot win this war, primarily because it is fighting only the symptoms of the conflict with the Palestinians — rocket launching — not the underlying causes, which are the Gaza blockade and the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories?
Absolutely. The unjustified Israeli siege is the root cause of the current round violence. In the broader context, one should also recall that many of the inhabitants of Gaza are (the descendants of) refugees who were ethnically cleansed from places in Israel where rockets are landing now.
Jeff Halper, co-founder and Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), supports the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement and the one-state solution, arguing that the possibility of a two-state solution has long been dead. Do you believe that a one-state solution is the only possibility to create a just peace in Palestine?
Jeff Halper, co-founder and Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), supports the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement and the one-state solution, arguing that the possibility of a two-state solution has long been dead. Do you believe that a one-state solution is the only possibility to create a just peace in Palestine?
A two state solution could only be a component of a just solution, since one would have to discuss the plight of Israel's Palestinian citizens and the rights of Palestinian refugees. Even within the so-called one state solution, there are various paradigms. for example, would that be a bi-national one state solution or a democratic (non-national) one state solution, etc.
Many argue that change will only come about in Israel/Palestine if the international community puts enough pressure on their policy makers to take action. Do you not think there is any chance of change coming about from within Israeli civil society itself?
Judging by the past, most Israelis are not likely to become dissidents. Most Israelis seem to think that the status quo is better than any future scenario. ICAHD holds that only international pressures will bring about a just peace – and so our work is mainly doing advocacy, mobilization and BDS abroad.
The western world remained silent, entrenched in its financial and economic crisis and in its confrontation with Russia over Ukraine. I know your team traveled abroad to share the results you achieved and to sensitize the international community. Is there a plea or a thought you want to share?
Governments are not our friends; the Western one are basically fronts for corporations, those of the Global South of elites out for themselves. They will certainly not promote peace and international relations based on human rights, international law or justice. It is therefore up to us, the people, to pressure our governments to do the right thing.
We urge good people all over the world to join the global movement for justice for the Palestinian people (for us, justice for the Palestinian people also means a better future for Jewish Israelis). We encourage people to join local BDS groups, pressure their local governments if they are complicit in Israel's occupation and war crimes. Israeli and international companies which profit from Israel's racist policies should be boycotted. Senior Israeli officials suspected of war crimes should be brought to Justice in international tribunals. Racist organisations such as the Jewish National fund or the Jewish Agency should not receive tax benefits from governments. This is only a partial list, and people can learn more by contacting us or the Palestinian BDS organizers. We also encourage people to take action against fascist Islamophobia in the west, often promoted by supporters of the Israeli government, especially in Italy.
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