Professor Jeff Halper

Law Theatre, Fellows Rd, ANU

“Addressing the Israeli-Palestinian confl ict is an urgent priority. It is a conflict with global ramifi cations in a part of the world crucial to Western, and especially American, political and economic interests. The Israeli Occupation fuels anger and alienation among Muslims – as well as among peoples beyond the Muslim world, including Europe – towards the US and its European allies. Only when a just solution is reached that genuinely addresses their grievances and needs will the Palestinians signal to the rest of the Arab and Muslim worlds that the time has come to normalize relations with Israel and its American and Western patrons.”

Professor Halper seeks to de-code the “standard” Israeli security framing of the Palestine-Israel conflict, in which Israel is an innocent victim, and re-frame it as one which holds Israel accountable as the Occupying Power and opens new possibilities for a just peace consistent with international humanitarian law and the recognition of human rights. Pleading for a view of Israel as a living country which must by necessity evolve and change, Dr Halper asks whether the idea of an ethnically pure ‘Jewish State’ is still viable and offers ways in which Israel can redeem itself through a cultural Zionism upon which regional peace and reconciliation can be attained.

Until his recent retirement, Dr Halper was a professor of anthropology at Ben Gurion University, Israel.
His teaching and research focused on the history of Jerusalem in the modern era, contemporary Israeli culture, and the Middle East confl ict. He is the author of several books, the latest of which is titled “An Israeli in Palestine” (Pluto Press, 2008).