22 Facts About Jeff Halper

Jeff Halper is an Israeli-American anthropologist, author, lecturer, and political activist who has lived in Israel since 1973.

Jeff Halper is the Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and a co-founder of The One Democratic State Campaign.

Jeff Halper is a supporter of the BDS movement and the academic boycott of Israel, and considers Israel to be guilty of "apartheid" and of a deliberate campaign to "judaize" the occupied Palestinian territories.

In 1997, Jeff Halper co-founded ICAHD to challenge and resist the Israeli policy of demolishing Palestinian homes in the Occupied Territories and to organize Israelis, Palestinians and international volunteers to jointly rebuild demolished Palestinian homes as political acts of resistance.

Jeff Halper was born in Boston in 1946 but grew up in Hibbing, Minnesota.

Jeff Halper served as an adjunct lecturer in anthropology at the University of Haifa and at Ben Gurion University, though most of his academic career was spent at Friends World College.

Jeff Halper was director of FWC's Middle East Center in Jerusalem, and when FWC merged with Long Island University in 1991, he became Director of its International Academic Operations and was promoted to the rank of associate professor.

Jeff Halper spent ten years as a community volunteer in Jerusalem's inner city neighborhoods, and was a founder of Ohel - a social protest movement of working-class Mizrahi Jews.

Jeff Halper served as the chairman of the Israeli Association for Ethiopian Jews, having been active in the 1960s in championing the rights of Ethiopian Jews and in researching the history of the Jewish community in Ethiopia.

Jeff Halper co-founded the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions in 1997 to resist Israel's occupation and to work for a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Jeff Halper has faced IDF bulldozers coming to demolish Palestinian homes, and he organizes, in the framework of ICAHD, Palestinians, Israelis and internationals to rebuild demolished Palestinian homes.

Jeff Halper has been arrested numerous times by Israeli authorities for protesting the demolition of Palestinian homes.

Jeff Halper has frequently appeared alongside Rev Naim Ateek, the head of Sabeel, a Palestinian Liberation Theology group based in Jerusalem.

Jeff Halper has taught at universities in Israel, the US, Latin America and Africa.

Jeff Halper participated in the first Free Gaza Movement voyage in 2008 which broke the Israeli siege of Gaza.

Jeff Halper was arrested by Israeli authorities after the trip when he tried to reenter Israel.

Jeff Halper was one of the four Israeli citizens on the ship.

In March 2010, Jeff Halper was a keynote speaker at Israel Apartheid Week in Glasgow.

Jeff Halper's lecture was entitled "Israeli Apartheid: The Case For BDS," during which he described the way that Palestinians are 'warehoused' in Gaza.

Jeff Halper has often suggested that Israel is seeking to establish "facts on the ground," as he routinely puts it, that would render territorial concessions in any peace agreement inconceivable.

Jeff Halper takes a critical view of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Jeff Halper has stated that "during the process where you're supposed to be negotiating peace" Israel, in fact, "doubled its settlement enterprise".