The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) is a group opposed to Israeli settlements,[2][3] which describes itself as "an Israeli peace and human rights organization dedicated to ending the occupation of the Palestinian territories and achieving a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians."
ICAHD was founded by eight activists (see box), among whom was Jeff Halper, a long-time human rights advocate and professor of anthropology, who serves as ICAHD's Director. Halper describes ICAHD as "a critical, 'radical' organization which can envision a single democratic state in Palestine/Israel."[5]
ICAHD also organizes the rebuilding of demolished Palestinian houses using a network of Israeli, Palestinian and international volunteers.[11][12][13] In April 2012 founding member Meir Margalit estimated that the organization had rebuilt 1,000 homes including 200 in East Jerusalem.[14]
In addition to rebuilding demolished Palestinian houses, ICAHD often takes legal actions on behalf of Palestinians whose houses have been demolished or are threatened with demolition (see example of Aqabah).[citation needed] Members of ICAHD have been arrested numerous times by the Israeli army and police for attempting to prevent the demolition of Palestinian homes. Most recently, on 3 April 2008, ICAHD Coordinator Jeff Halper was arrested for the eighth time while nonviolently protesting the bulldozing of the home of the Hamdan family in a Palestinian neighborhood of Jerusalem – a house that had already been torn down once by Israeli authorities and had been rebuilt by ICAHD.[15]
In April 2012 one of ICAHD's founders, Meir Margalit was questioned by the Israeli Interior Ministry. Margalit, who admitted being involved in the rebuilding of over 200 homes, later commented, "I was asked if I did it on purpose and answered that I do not recognize the Interior Ministry's right to question me about my activities in East Jerusalem, which is occupied territory and where Israeli law is not valid". Margalit, a Jerusalem City Councilor, felt that he was being singled out for political reasons stating "we're in the McCarthy era, and it will get to everyone sooner or later." In response, the Interior Ministry spokesperson said that "Mr. Meir Margalit was summoned for questioning on suspicion of building without a permit, which is a criminal act."[14][16]
ICAHD sends out action alerts and activists from different groups go out and engage in civil disobedience by stopping the bulldozers.[15] In January 2005, the group called for a campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions "until the occupation" is over.[17] ICHAD supported the "Jewish Boat to Gaza" in 2010.[18]
International chapters
ICAHD has set up chapters in several countries. ICAHD-USA is headquartered in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and is incorporated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. The United Kingdom branch, ICAHD-UK, is located in London, and the Norwegian branch is located in Tromsø.[citation needed]. A German chapter is located in Bremen.
Funding
In November 2012, Halper announced that ICAHD is in "financial collapse", which included "eviction from our office, due to over-dependency on a few major donors," and that they would return to solicit "grassroots" support.[19]
According to ICAHD's website, its "activities... depend on assistance from individuals and organizations in Israel and abroad. ICAHD also receives financial support from the European Union." In 2005, the EU provided ICAHD with €472,786 for a project called "Re-framing: Providing a Coherent Paradigm of Peace to the Israeli Public" under the Partnership for Peace program.[20][21]
In 2006, the American Friends Service Committee, a non-profit advocacy group that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947, nominated Jeff Halper for the Nobel Peace Prize due to his ICAHD-related work, citing ICAHD's work "to liberate both the Palestinian and the Israeli people from the yoke of structural violence" and "to build equality between their people by recognizing and celebrating their common humanity."[23]
Writing in The Independent, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown described the ICAHD as "valiant, peaceful activists trying to stop bulldozers that daily demolish Palestinian homes and who tenaciously campaign against the occupation and land grabs by their own nation, their own people."[24]
In 2007, Seth Freedman wrote in The Guardian that after a day touring with ICAHD, while the visitors "had not been fed any factual inaccuracies [by ICAHD] as far as I could tell, the complete glossing over of the other side of the story should set alarm bells ringing". Freedman felt that Halper and ICAHD should have been willing to condemn wrongdoing "on both sides".[26] Freedman changed his mind about ICAHD in 2008, and wrote in The Guardian that "the likes of Halper, ICAHD and all the others who are prepared to bring the truth into open should be praised to the skies for the invaluable work that they do." The article rues the fact that Freedman himself earlier condemned ICAHD and its work.[27]
NGO Monitor, a right-wing pro-Israel organization, notes a number of positions taken by ICAHD that it considers objectionable.[28] Its President, Gerald Steinberg, included ICAHD in a list of 11 "key local NGOs supporting radical pro-Palestinian (and anti-Israeli) positions".[29]
In a July 2012 letter to the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, Steinberg wrote that ICAHD is a "fringe political NGO that fuels conflict by frequently accusing Israel of 'apartheid' and 'ethnic cleansing'. ICAHD officials are also active in promoting BDS [boycotts, divestment and sanctions] campaigns, particularly in churches in Europe and North America."[30] Steinberg said that "In reality, ICAHD does nothing to advance coexistence and instead promotes extreme views which fuel the conflict."[31]
↑ Hermann, Tamar S. (2009). The Israeli Peace Movement: A Shattered Dream. Cambridge University Press. p.163. ISBN978-0-521-88409-9. ICAHD functions through two parallel tracks: legal – appealing to the courts, thereby forcing the state to explain why the demolition is unavoidable, and nonviolent resistance.
↑ Terry Meade (February 2011). "Violence and domestic space: demolition and destruction of homes in the occupied Palestinian territories". The Journal of Architecture. 16 (1): 71–87. doi:10.1080/13602365.2011.547011. S2CID145642443. a non-violent direct-action organisation, which specifically opposes the policy of house demolitions and questions the laws, rules, planning policies, security measures and language that allows or enables such violence to occur.
Rachel Aliene Corrie was an American nonviolence activist and diarist. She was a member of the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and was active throughout the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. In 2003, Corrie was in Rafah, a city in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli military was demolishing Palestinian houses at the height of the Second Intifada. While protesting the demolitions as they were being carried out, she was killed by an Israeli armored bulldozer that crushed her.
The International Solidarity Movement is a Palestinian-led movement focused on assisting the Palestinian cause in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. ISM is dedicated to the use of nonviolent protests and methods only. The organization calls on civilians from around the world to participate in acts of nonviolent protests against the Israeli military in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The ISM participates in the Free Gaza Movement.
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HaMoked is an Israel based human rights organization founded by Dr. Lotte Salzberger with the stated aim of assisting "Palestinians subjected to the Israeli occupation which causes severe and ongoing violation of their rights." HaMoked states that it works for the enforcement of the standards and values of international human rights and humanitarian law.
Ghassan Andoni is a Palestinian activist.
Jeff Halper is an Israeli-American anthropologist, author, lecturer, and political activist who has lived in Israel since 1973. He is the Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) and a co-founder of The One Democratic State Campaign (ODSC). He is a Jewish Israeli.
Occupation 101: Voice of the Silenced Majority is a 2006 documentary film on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict directed by Sufyan Omeish and Abdallah Omeish, and narrated by Alison Weir, founder of If Americans Knew. The film focuses on the effects of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and discusses events from the rise of Zionism to the Second Intifada and Israel's unilateral disengagement plan, presenting its perspective through dozens of interviews, questioning the nature of Israeli–American relations—in particular, the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and the ethics of US monetary involvement. Occupation 101 includes interviews with mostly American and Israeli scholars, religious leaders, humanitarian workers, and NGO representatives—more than half of whom are Jewish—who are critical of the injustices and human rights abuses stemming from Israeli policy in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza.
Israel is an associated state of the European Union. The relations between the two are framed in the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, and the Union for the Mediterranean.
Rebuilding Alliance (RA) is a non-profit organization based in Redwood City, California, founded by electrical engineer Donna Baranski-Walker in 2003, that rebuilds homes and communities in regions of war and occupation. It developed from the Global Campaign to rebuild Palestinian Homes Organization, which had been dissolved a year earlier.
Demolition of Palestinian property is a method Israel has used in the Israeli-occupied territories since they came under its control in the Six-Day War to achieve various aims. Broadly speaking, demolitions can be classified as either administrative, punitive/dissuasive and as part of military operations. The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions estimated that Israel had razed 55,048 Palestinian structures as of 2022. In the first several months of the ongoing Israel–Hamas war, Israel further demolished over 2,000 Palestinian homes in the West Bank.
The Oslo II Accord divided the Israeli-occupied West Bank into three administrative divisions: the Palestinian enclaves as "Areas A and B" and the remainder, including Israeli settlements, as "Area C".
Since 2001, Palestinian militants have launched tens of thousands of rocket and mortar attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip as part of the continuing Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The attacks, widely condemned for targeting civilians, have been described as terrorism by the United Nations, the European Union, and Israeli officials, and are defined as war crimes by human rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. The international community considers indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets to be illegal under international law. Palestinian militants say rocket attacks are a response to Israel's blockade of Gaza, but the Palestinian Authority has condemned them and says rocket attacks undermine peace.
Michael Sfard is an Israeli lawyer and political activist specializing in international human rights law and the laws of war. He has served as counsel in various cases on these topics in Israel. Sfard has represented a variety of Israeli and Palestinian human rights and peace organizations, movements and activists at the Israeli Supreme Court.
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Gerald M. Steinberg, a professor of politics at Bar Ilan University, is an Israeli academic, political scientist, and political activist. He is founder and president of NGO Monitor, a policy analysis think tank focusing on non-governmental organizations.
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Events in the year 2019 in the State of Palestine.
Events in the year 2020 in Palestine.
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