Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions - Reception

Reception

In 2006, the American Friends Service Committee, a non-profit advocacy group that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947, nominated Jeff Halper for the Nobel Peace Prize due to his ICAHD-related work, citing ICAHD's work "to liberate both the Palestinian and the Israeli people from the yoke of structural violence" and "to build equality between their people by recognizing and celebrating their common humanity."

In 2007, ICAHD received the Olive Branch Award from Jewish Voice for Peace.

In 2008, Seth Freedman wrote in The Guardian that "the likes of Halper, ICAHD and all the others who are prepared to bring the truth into open should be praised to the skies for the invaluable work that they do." The article rues the fact that Freedman himself earlier condemned ICAHD and its work.

Writing in The Independent, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown described the ICAHD as "valiant, peaceful activists trying to stop bulldozers that daily demolish Palestinian homes and who tenaciously campaign against the occupation and land grabs by their own nation, their own people."

The pro-Israel advocacy groups CAMERA and NGO Monitor have criticized ICAHD for its activities. CAMERA contends that Halper has made misstatements about Palestinian economic and agricultural growth, and has criticized Halper's view that a Jewish state with "exclusive "ownership"" is "politically, and in the end, morally untenable".

In addition, Malcolm Hoenlein, in 2007, then executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said ICAHD was "trying to talk about demolitions without presenting the reason or truth for it. They couch it in more moderate terms but the anti-Israel purpose is clear."

In 2007, Seth Freedman wrote in The Guardian that after a day touring with ICAHD, while the visitors "had not been fed any factual inaccuracies as far as I could tell, the complete glossing over of the other side of the story should set alarm bells ringing". Freedman felt that Halper and ICAHD should have been willing to condemn wrongdoing "on both sides". Freedman changed his mind about ICAHD in 2008 (see above).

NGO Monitor says that ICAHD "consistently ignores the context of ongoing Palestinian terror attacks, promotes the “Durban strategy” of demonizing the Jewish state, campaigns against the two-state solution, and partners with radical NGOs. In addition, NGO Monitor says that "ICAHD routinely refers to Israel as an "apartheid" state, while its director promotes a one-state solution, which would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state." Prof. Gerald Steinberg, president and founder of NGO Monitor, said, "In reality, ICAHD does nothing to advance coexistence and instead promotes extreme views which fuel the conflict." Steinberg included ICAHD in a list of 11 "key local NGOs supporting radical pro-Palestinian (and antiIsraeli) positions". In a July 2012 letter to the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, Steinberg wrote that ICAHD is a "fringe political NGO that fuels conflict by frequently accusing Israel of ‘apartheid’ and ‘ethnic cleansing.’ ICAHD officials are also active in promoting BDS campaigns, particularly in churches in Europe and North America."