• Website: www.icahd.org
  • Founded in 1997, located in Jerusalem.
  • According to its mission statement, “ICAHD is a non-violent, direct-action group originally established to oppose and resist Israeli demolition of Palestinian houses in the Occupied Territories.” However, a significant portion of the group’s activities deal with politicized issues other than house demolitions.
  • Updated funding information is not available due to a lack of transparency. The 2007 (last year of public reports to Registrar of Non-Profits) ICAHD’s operating budget was 4,810,765 NIS. Independent research by NGO Monitor reveals that ICAHD has received funding from the NDC ($80,000), the European Commission, and Spain (€105,000). Folksinger Pete Seeger donates 45% of the royalties from the song “Turn, Turn, Turn” to this NGO.
  • Under the Partnership for Peace program, ICAHD received a two-year grant of €473,000 from the European Union, which provided at least half of ICAHD’s total annual budget in 2006.The organization’s grant wasn’t renewed, but in 2010 the EU began funding ICAHD via the EIDHR program.
  • Demonization of Israel: ICAHD’s rhetoric includes accusations of “ethnic cleansing,” “genocide,” “collective punishment,” and “apartheid.”
  • ICAHD participated in “Israel Apartheid Week” 2010, and Jeff Halper, the group’s director, spoke in Glasgow about “Israeli Apartheid: The Case For BDS,” explaining how “Palestinians are ‘warehoused’ in Gaza” (March 17).
  • Halper regularly refers to a so-called Israeli “Matrix of Control,” “how Israel controls the Palestinians: through incorporating the West Bank into Israel-proper with roads, through connecting electrical systems, water systems, urban systems, and so on. It talks about Israel keeping military control, about Israel keeping control of parts of the country like Jerusalem and parts of West Bank, which in the end will leave the Palestinians with non-viable islands.” Halper linked this to “Palestinian Bantustans” that Israel is creating to “make its apartheid plan work.”
  • Halper is also a support committee member of the Russell Tribunal, a mock court with an anti-Israel and anti-West agenda.
  • ICAHD employee and Jerusalem Council member Meir Margalit published a Spanish-government-funded book, Seizing Control of Space in East Jerusalem. He accuses Israel of “de-Arabizing [East Jerusalem] at the expense of its Palestinian population and Arab heritage,” “ethnocratic policy of contempt for Arabs,” attempting to “wipe the Arab presence off the face of the earth,” and “colonialism.”
  • Boycotting Israel: Since 2005, ICAHD has been active in calls for BDS against Israel. It joined a group of Israeli NGOs that wrote to the Norwegian Government Pension Fund and called “upon the Norwegian people to join us in our efforts and to stop investing in the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.” This letter accused a number of Israeli and international corporations of “provid[ing] specifically designed equipment for the surveillance and repression of Palestinian population through restrictions of movement and collective punishments.”
  • The Finnish chapter of the ICAHD published a petition protesting arms trade between Israel and Finland. ICAHD Finland’s press release about the petition referred to alleged “numerous war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.”
  • Support for the Free Gaza movement: ICAHD supports the “Free Gaza” movement.  Itamar Shapira, an ICAHD activist, was on board the “Jewish boat” to Gaza, and Halper participated in a flotilla in 2008. Halper is also on the board of advisors of the Free Gaza Movement.
  • Rejection of Israel as a Jewish state: Halper claims that a bi-national state is the only remaining option resulting from Israel’s “futile attempt to impose an apartheid regime.” Halper also said, “I think it is impossible to have a Jewish state. I think we have to start talking about Israel and not a Jewish state. Either there is a two-state solution, a state of Israel for all its citizens – including Palestinian Israelis – and a real Palestinian state, or a one-state solution in which we all live together in one democratic country.”

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