ICAHD UK conference hears one-state message

Israeli activist Jeff Halper and academic Ilan Pappe had a clear message for delegates at the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) UK conference this weekend: the two state solution is dead, and the failure of the Kerry initiative is a moment of dangerous opportunity.

With a focus on the theme of ‘Rising from the Ruins’, around 150 ICAHD UK supporters gathered Saturday to celebrate a decade of campaigning, spending a day of education, reflection, and strategising at Amnesty International UK in central London.

Following a morning AGM, director Linda Ramsden got the conference proper underway with a presentation about the achievements of ICAHD UK, established 10 years ago to support the work of the Jeff Halper-led, Jerusalem-based NGO. Over a decade, the organization grew from a handful of members to lobbying parliamentarians and securing UN ECOSOC consultative status.

Halper himself spoke next, updating participants about Israel’s on-the-ground strategies for advancing Judaization of different parts of the country. Halper unpacked the way Israel’s ‘settlement blocs’ have served to divide up the West Bank into cantons, and urged attendees that not only was the two-state solution gone, but that it was important to stop talking about it.

Halper addressed the Kerry initiative, and claimed that its failure would produce two benefits: firstly, in terms of clearing the air with regards to the impossibility of a two-state solution, and secondly, as a trigger for a series of events that will expose Israeli policies stripped of the pretence of negotiations and a ‘peace process’ between ‘two sides’.

Halper also stressed the need for a conversation about a post-collapse agenda, and for Palestinians, and their Israeli partners, to be thinking proactively and strategically.

Ilan Pappe echoed many of Halper’s comments, though began with an emphasis on analysing Israeli policies from 1948 onwards as forms of ethnic cleansing. Pappe stressed how a Jewish state in Palestine necessitates ethnic cleansing, and that the same logic informs policies where the Palestinian population is corralled and supervised.

Pappe was scathing about the mainstream Israeli peace camp, and talked about the importance of reframing the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians as one between settlers and natives. Out with the language of ‘peace process’ and a paradigm of parity, Pappe argued, to be replaced by a language of apartheid, ethnic cleansing and settler colonialism.

The day’s third main speaker was John McCarthy, journalist and author of ‘You Can’t Hide the Sun: A Journey through Israel and Palestine’. McCarthy was interviewed by Ramsden about his experiences as a hostage in Lebanon, and what drew him to write about Palestine.

All three speakers then took questions as part of a panel, addressing topics on the one-state solution and national rights, as well as the need for pressure through strategies like Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).

After the talks and panel session, delegates watched a documentary about the successful ‘Bethlehem Unwrapped’ festival, and also spent time in break out groups, strategising about different ways forward for the organisation.