ICAHD-USA Holiday Greetings

HOLIDAY GREETINGS FROM ICAHD-USA
I first met Jeff Halper on June 11, 2006, at the consecration of Anglican priest-troubadour, Garth Hewitt, as Honorary Canon of St. George’s Cathedral, East Jerusalem.  I had already been active in the struggle for Palestinian rights through the Palestinian Christian community, but Jeff and ICAHD introduced me to an entire other sector of the struggle – civil society and a political framework – than the theological and humanitarian work I had been a part of.  My own approach changed from then on.

How, when, did you first meet Jeff and ICAHD?

Since then, there’s not been a “Solidarity Tour” I’ve led (17 so far, the next one in May 2025), or a personal visit to Palestine and Israel where I have not met with Jeff and been the recipient of his personal generosity, his incisive analysis, his passion for justice, and as his book describes, decolonizing Israel, liberating Palestine.  Jeff’s continuing questions, “Yes, BDS, but BDS to what end?”  “What happens after the Palestinians win?”  And his – and ICAHD’s close personal relationships with so many individuals, organizations, and sectors of the Palestinian resistance movement, remain so critical.  He continues to emphasize that the One Democratic State Campaign, of which ICAHD is a part, is Palestinian-led.
ICAHD remains committed to its role as an Israeli voice of creative resistance, an Israeli voice of conscience within Israel, in partnership and concert with many Palestinian partners.

THANK YOU for being a part of that journey, a journey of solidarity and unity, a journey of sacrifice and joy, a journey that has gone against-the-grain, a journey that has brought us into relationships with Palestinians, Christian and Muslim, and Jews of conscience in Palestine and Israel and all around the world.

In 2025, Jeff and ICAHD will be tackling the normalization of apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and genocide predicted – and already taking place – under the incoming US administration (as Jeff has outlined in his latest video update (https://icahd.org/2024/12/17/jeff-halpers-december-2024-update/ ) ).   And we’ll continue to be active in the US as part of the subversive movement against US criminal complicity in the extinction of the Palestinian people.

So during these days of horrific ethnic cleansing and genocide perpetrated upon the people of Palestine by Israel and by our own government,
it is our many, many friends in Bethlehem and Jerusalem and Hebron and Gaza and Jenin and Nablus and Ramallah and others, and the Jewish voices of conscience within Israel, too, who continue to witness to us of faith and courage and sumud, their steadfast and resilient hold to dignity and the cause of freedom.

In this season of Light, they are the bearers of Light for me.

And you, too, together on this journey of sumud and solidarity, you, too, are bearers of Light for me.  Thank you for that.  We are with them.  We are with each other.  We are not in this alone.

Thank you for your continued support for the work of ICAHD-USA!
So not only our thoughts, not only our prayers, but I vow, we at ICAHD-USA vow our increased, our ever-more-impassioned commitment to them our friends in Palestine and their liberation.

Wishing you and your loved ones a happy holiday.

Michael Spath, on behalf of the board of ICAHD-USA
Thank you for your continuing support

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— ICAHD (icahd.org)
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