From Occupied Palestine

Palestinian displacement: a case apart?
University of Oxford's Refugee Studies Centre
Forced Migration Review 26 (September 2006)

complete issue: PDF; Doc; single article PDF

Paralysis over Palestine: Questions of strategy
JEFF HALPER
Journal of Palestine Studies, January 2005, Vol. XXXIV, No. 2: 55-69.

This essay by a prominent Israeli activist grows out of concern that advocacy efforts in support of the Palestinian cause have remained stuck at the protest-informational stage of combating disparate manifestations of the occupation. What is needed, the author argues, is a strategy to mobilize the vast range of civil society groups - Palestinian, Israeli, and international - to forge an effective lobbying and advocacy force that can lend the Palestinian leadership public support and a measure of parity with Israel. Intended as a starting point for debate, the essay explores the possibilities of a "middle range" strategy that would articulate the essential "red line" elements crucial to any just and sustainable settlement, provide a coordinated strategy of advocacy, and explore a range of "endgames," including a regional approach to resolving the conflict if the "two-state solution" is found to be impossible because of irreversible "facts on the ground." - JPS

A Palestinian prison-state?
JEFF HALPER
Boston Globe, 11 April 2005

In peace-making, as in law, business, and other areas of life, the devil is in the details. The crux of the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians is not over a Palestinian state. The Quartet of the Middle East road map -- Europe, Russia, the United Nations, and the United States -- all agree that a Palestinian state must emerge. Even Ariel Sharon himself, the father of the settlements and a fervent proponent of the Greater Land of Israel ideology, has come to understand the need for a Palestinian state in order to relieve Israel of the 4 million Palestinians living in the occupied territories. No, the problem is not a Palestinian state, but a viable Palestinian state.

E-1: The end of a viable Palestinian state
JEFF HALPER
ICAHD, 27 March 2005

The fatal flaw in most analyses of the Israel-Palestine conflict is the assumption that if the Palestinians can just get a state of their own, then all will be fine. A state on all the Occupied Territories (UN Resolution 242), on most of the Occupied Territories (Oslo and the Road Map to the Geneva Initiative), or even on half the Occupied Territories (Sharon's notion) - it doesn't matter. Once there's a Palestinian state the conflict is over and we can all move on to the next item on the agenda.

Israel and the Empire
JEFF HALPER and JON ELMER
FromOccupiedPalestine.org, 20 September 2003

[an excerpt of this interview appears in "Documents and Source Material", Journal of Palestine Studies vol XXXIII no. 2 (Winter 2004), p. 102-108.]

Jon Elmer, FromOccupiedPalestine.org: You use the term 'matrix of control' to describe the Israeli occupation. Can you explain exactly what that is and how it functions?

Jeff Halper: The Israel-Palestine conflict is often framed in terms of territory: ending the occupation, a viable Palestinian state, and what that means in terms of territory. But two states and a complete end of the occupation, even in the best scenario, is not really the best solution. The whole Palestinian state would be on only 22% of the country, divided between the West Bank and Gaza. The State of Israel today, within the 1967 borders, represents 78% percent of the country. So even in the ideal situation, if the entire occupation ended and Israel pushed back to 1967 borders, the Palestinian state would be in only 22% of the country. Israel can't compromise on any more than that - even that is a question mark.

One State: Preparing for a post Road-Map struggle against apartheid
JEFF HALPER
UN International Conference on Civil Society in Support of the Palestinian People
New York, 5 September 2003

Everyone pooh-poohs the road map. From State Department and other "quartet" officials through the office of Ariel Sharon to international activists and the average person on the streets of Palestine and Israel, one would be hard-pressed to find a single believer in the "road map." From the start it has been dismissed as another failed initiative, joining a long line from Mitchell and Tenet to Gunnar Jarring and the Roger's Plan. But is it? In my view the road map possesses a significance that has been lost even on its adherents.

A test of the Road Map
JEFF HALPER
ICAHD, 29 July 2003

Even as I write this Israeli Prime Minister Sharon is meeting with representatives of AIPAC, Israel's powerful lobby in Washington, in preparation for his meeting with President Bush tomorrow (Tuesday). According to news reports, the American Administration is looking to Sharon to "give a boost" to the Road Map by offering some "humanitarian gesture." Freeing 100 more Palestinian prisoners, perhaps, or dismantling a couple of its hundreds of checkpoints, or altering slightly the route of the Separation Wall. What it is not looking for, apparently, is Israeli compliance with one of the most crucial elements of Phase I of the Road Map: ending the wholesale demolition of Palestinian homes. The language of the Road Map is clear -- and deliberately broad so as to avoid Israeli attempts to trip it up on technicalities:

A Middle Eastern Confederation: A regional 'two-stage' approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
JEFF HALPER
ICAHD, 31 December 2002

The time has come to begin "imagining" a truly New Middle East. Bereft of a peace process (if there ever was one), faced with an Occupation spewing violence and suffering in all directions, the inhabitants of both Palestine and Israel have sunk into a fatalistic hopelessness.

The message of the bulldozer
JEFF HALPER
Counterpunch, 13-19 August 2002

The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) deplores this week's decision by the Israeli High Court of Justice against permitting judicial review for families of Palestinians whose homes are targeted for demolition because a family member has been involved in (or even suspected of) terror attacks. True to the pattern of many years, the Court has accepted the argument of the army that such demolitions take place as integral parts of military operations.

Israeli violations of human rights & international humanitarian law in the Occupied Territories
JEFF HALPER
Presentation, 20 June 2002

Hearing on "EU-Israel Bilateral Relations in the Framework of International and European Law" at the European Parliament:

I would like to begin my presentation by talking about "sides." There is a perception -- indeed, an expectation -- that Israelis and Palestinians will be on separate, conflicting and irreconcilable "sides" of what is called the "Israeli-Palestinian Conflict." There is a committee of the European Parliament that liasons with the Palestinian "side," and another that liasons with the Israeli "side." I would like to declare at the outset that I do not locate myself on either of those "sides." For me, as an Israeli Jew, "sides" mean something different altogether. I am on the "side" of Israelis and Palestinians who seek a just peace that addresses Palestinian rights of self-determination as well as Israeli concerns of security and regional integration. I am on the "side" that stands for equality, human rights, democracy, peaceful co-existence and regional economic development. To be sure, there is another "side," those Israelis and Palestinians that advocate exclusivity, conflict, a win-lose mentality and continued injustice and suffering. That is the way the "sides" divide, not Palestinian-Israeli.