Jeff Halper: 'Ordinary people can do something'

The view from the boat
Ofri Ilani, Ha'aretz, August 25, 2008
Haaretz spoke last night by phone with Jeff Halper, an Israeli professor who was among the activists who sailed to Gaza.

"We proved that ordinary people can do something and succeed," he said. "Even Tony Blair can't go to Gaza, but ordinary people with drive can. The welcome was amazing. There were tens of thousands of people. People came out in boats and on windsurfers to meet us. Children swam out to sea and flashed the victory sign. I feel like we're fresh air entering a prison where a million and half people are living.

"I tell myself: We're in the modern world, the 21st century, and yet such excitement - over what? Over something we take for granted, that two boats arrived. Here it's a national holiday. Their isolation is so complete," he said.

Halper said that Gazans were eager to speak Hebrew with him, and to reminisce about the years they spent working in Israel. "Our impression that Gaza is Hamas, that there is only hatred there, is mistaken," he said, adding that he learned that "we are more of an obstacle to peace than the Palestinians."

VIDEO: Is a Two State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Still Possible?

http://www.archive.org/details/Is_the_Two-State_Solution_Still_Possible

Rev. Naim Ateek and Jeff Halper discuss how Israel's policy of apartheid in the West Bank and Gaza make a two-state solution unlikely and even impossible. The Rev. Dr. Naim Ateek is the founder and director of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem. Halper is the founder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.

They spoke at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, on Monday, February 12th, 2007. The event was sponsored by the Council for the National Interest Foundation and the Washington Interfaith Alliance for Middle East Peace.