ISM Co-Founder Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

12 February 2006

ISM Co-Founder Among Duo Nominated for Nobel PeacePrize

Letter from the AFSC nominating GhassanAndoni and Jeff Halper for the Nobel Peace Prize

TheAmerican Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker peaceand social justice organization, has nominated twocandidates for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize: Jeff Halper fromIsrael and Ghassan Andoni from the Occupied PalestinianTerritories.

In a region torn by conflict, thesegrassroots peace activists have resolutely followednonviolence as the path to justice, peace andreconciliation. For decades they have worked to liberateboth the Palestinian and the Israeli people from the yoke ofstructural violence - symbolized most clearly by the IsraeliOccupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

They have opposedevery element of the Occupation, including settlements andthe Separation Barrier, striving for equality between theirpeoples within the framework of sovereign and democraticstates.

Ghassan Andoniis a Palestinian, a physicsprofessor at Birzeit University and a resident of theChristian town of Beit Sahour, next to Bethlehem. He alreadybegan his peace activities while a college student in Iraq,leaving his studies in order to work in the Palestinianrefugee camps in Lebanon during that country's civil war.Returning home to Palestine from Lebanon, he was arrested bythe Israeli authorities and jailed for two years for hismembership in the PLO. He subsequently traveled to the UKwhere, in 1983, he earned his MSc in Physics.

Oncemore back in Palestine, Ghassan was one of the maininitiators of the famous Beit Sahour s tax revolt againstthe Israeli Occupation during the first Intifada(1987-1993), perhaps the most effective broad-basedcommunity resistance to have been organized since the startof the Occupation in 1967. Ghassan understood the power thatnonviolence has in leading a mass movement of liberation andutilized it effectively.

After serving another jail termfor his participation in the tax revolt, he co-founded in1988 The Palestinian Center for Rapprochement BetweenPeoples, which sponsored dialogue and joint activitiesbetween Israelis and Palestinians. As the Occupation woreon, Ghassan and Rapprochement moved from dialogue to directnonviolent action intended to end the Occupation. In thisconnection he co-founded the International SolidarityMovement (ISM), in which international volunteers andPalestinians initiated grassroots nonviolent actions ofresistance to the oppression created by years of occupation.In working with ISM, Ghassan has insisted that allinternational participants commit themselves to nonviolence,both physical and verbal.

As he continued hispeace work, Ghassan proceeded strategically. He realizedthat a nonviolent movement must always be able to respondcreatively and effectively to ongoing developments. Hiscreative, brave and proactive responses have made him one ofthe leading figures of the Palestinian peace movement.

Jeff Halper is an Israeli professor of Anthropology. AVietnam War resister in America, he emigrated to Israel in1973. Although he insists that Jews have a legitimate placein Israel/Palestine, he has always rejected the exclusivityof Jewish claims to the country that has led to thedisplacement of Palestinian refugees and to the Occupation.As an Israeli citizen he has refused to bear arms evenduring his military service, and refused to serve in theOccupied Territories. Two of his children have beenimprisoned as conscientious objectors.

Jeffco-founded The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions(ICAHD) in 1997, which was among the first Israeli peacegroups to work with Palestinians inside the OccupiedTerritories. ICAHD works closely with other critical Israeligroups such as Bat Shalom, Rabbis for Human Rights, GushShalom and the Alternative Information Center, as well aswith Palestinian partners such as the Land DefenseCommittee, Rapprochement and the Palestinian AgriculturalRelief Committee (PARC). ICAHD resists the demolition ofPalestinian homes, actions in which Jeff often displayedimmense courage, sitting in front of bulldozers, confrontingIsraeli soldiers and suffering arrest. He and ICAHD alsoorganize Israelis and internationals to rebuild demolishedhomes with Palestinians as acts of political resistance tothe Occupation. Through resistance to Israel s housedemolition policy, ICAHD exposes the injustice of theOccupation and asserts the crucial role of the internationalcivil society in bringing about change, just as GhassanAndoni has done with the founding of the InternationalSolidarity Movement.

ICAHD has been well aheadof other peace organizations in its appeal to theinternational community, disseminating information andnetworking, analyzing what Jeff calls the "matrix ofcontrol" employed by Israel in its occupation of the WestBank and Gaza - the framework created by strategicsettlement blocs, settler-only highways and the SeparationWall. In ways that parallel the development ofRapprochement, ICAHD has come to see that reconciliationcannot be placed ahead of the restoration of justice - ajustice to be brought about through nonviolent direct actionand adherence to human rights.

Jeff Halper has inrecent years spent a great deal of time traveling abroad toinform the public about the 'realities on the ground, andhas established ICAHD chapters in the US, the UK andelsewhere. His travels and writings have added to hisinternational stature. Ghassan and Jeff are currentlyworking on a book about nonviolent resistance to theOccupation. They share a fundamental belief thatPalestinians and Israelis who stand for human rights,international law, peace, justice and reconciliation are onthe same 'side. This is what makes their message relevantand universal, and why their voices - the seldom heardvoices of critical advocates of peace and non-violence - areacknowledged in this nomination.

The AmericanFriends Service Committee is a Quaker organization thatincludes people of various faiths who are committed tosocial justice, peace and humanitarian service. It was the1947 co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. The AFSC'snational headquarters is in Philadelphia. It has nineregional and 34 area offices in the US and is active in 22countries around the world. Its work is based on the beliefin the worth of every person and faith in the power of loveto overcome violence and injustice. Additional informationabout the AFSC can be found at http://www.afsc.org/.
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