2 ICAHD webinars, Iran, Wholesale Expulsion, Palestine Action

Israeli security forces from the Kfir Brigade during a military raid on the Nur Shams refugee camp in the West Bank city of Tulkarem, on March 12, 2025. 972 Magazine - (Moshe Shai/Flash90)

Newsletter - June 2025 * What is Happening in the Middle East & Where Is It Headed? * Israel, the Palestinians, The Middle East & the World After the American Attack on Iran * Wholesale Palestinian Expulsion Escalating * Human Rights Defenders: Resisting Settler Terrorism – Webinar 15^th July * In Sweltering Heat, 350,000 March for Palestine * Support Palestine Action from Proscription * Dates for Your Diary

If you are not already a member of ICAHD UK, please join us to enable our campaign to spread at this critical time in history. Global Palestine: What Is Happening in the Middle East & Where Is It Headed? On 25^th June, ICAHD UK presented a webinar that featured Jeff Halper, ICAHD’s director, moderating presentations from our guest speakers Mouin Rabbani, a leading Palestinian political analysist, researcher and writer, and Abdel Takriti, a Palestinian historian and Professor of Modern Arab History.

At this critical time in the Middle East, layer upon layer of US/Israel-incited wars threaten the entire region with subservience to Washington, Tel Aviv and their allies, the repressive Arab regimes. They also threaten the Palestinians’ ability to continue struggling for their own national rights – indeed, for their very survival.

Watch this webinar for insights not only about the history of the Middle East but to also understand the current reality with the Gulf countries competing for US favour. Western governments maintain that Israel has a right to resist attacks on it and that it should maintain dominance in the Middle East therefore Israel must be provided with more weapons.

However, we are now in a time of transition. There is low-level mobilization in the Arab world with its leaders not even trying to do anything significant to support the Palestinian struggle.

For more analysis from Mouin Rabbani see Jadaliyyaand Middle East Council on Global Affairs .

Listen to Abdel Takriti on the Thawra series on The Dig podcast .

Photo: Nathaniel St Clair

Jeff Halper’s latest article has just appeared in Counterpunch and is about how the Israeli/American neutralization of Iran and its proxy militias strengthens an emerging co-hegemony over the Middle East, one in which a militarized Israel protects the economic dominance of Saudi Arabia and to a lesser extent the Emirates and Qatar -- all sites to American military bases.

All this is not merely an interesting "process" or "development"; it signals - together with Israel's genocidal pacification campaigns against the last remnants of Palestinian resistance in Gaza and the West Bank - the rise of a new, "peaceful" era in the region reflects not broad-based prosperity and the democratic visions of the Arab Springs but rather repression: repression of the Palestinian struggle, of course, to be soon formalized when the Abraham Accords are completed and Zionism's 130-year project of Judaizing Palestine is normalized, but also the suppression of the Arab peoples under their autocratic regimes, protected economically by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, and securitized by Israel.

What is missing is the Big Picture: impending normalization, the greatest threat to the Palestinians since the Nakba and a threat to popular progressive forces throughout the region. Jeff Halper’s latest article has just appeared in Counterpunch and is about how the Israeli/American neutralization of Iran and its proxy militias strengthens an emerging co-hegemony over the Middle East, one in which a militarized Israel protects the economic dominance of Saudi Arabia and to a lesser extent the Emirates and Qatar -- all sites to American military bases.

All this is not merely an interesting "process" or "development"; it signals - together with Israel's genocidal pacification campaigns against the last remnants of Palestinian resistance in Gaza and the West Bank - the rise of a new, "peaceful" era in the region reflects not broad-based prosperity and the democratic visions of the Arab Springs but rather repression: repression of the Palestinian struggle to be soon formalized when the Abraham Accords are completed and Zionism's 130-year project of Judaizing Palestine is normalized, but also the suppression of the Arab peoples under their autocratic regimes, protected economically by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, and securitized by Israel.

What is missing is the Big Picture: impending normalization, the greatest threat to the Palestinians since the Nakba and a threat to popular progressive forces throughout the region. Read the article here

Over the last couple of weeks, the spotlight has been on Israel’s attack on Iran and what unfolded following it. Therefore, little notice was taken of violent happenings within the West Bank and the Naqab/Negev with Israel’s determination to crush Palestinian resistance and demolish entire communities as it presses towards its goal of erasing the indigenous population. Despite this being a grave violation of international law, no one is stopping Israel from acting with impunity.

UNRWA reports that in recent days dozens of homes and building have been demolished in Jenin, Tulkarm and the Nur Shams refugee camps as they are reduced to rubble. At the beginning of 2025, more than 40,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced as now even more Palestinians from the north are made homeless.

Last week, terrible news was received by Palestinians living in Masafer Yatta, the South Hebron Hills. Israel’s Civil Administration Central Planning Bureau affirmed that “Firing Zone 918” is essential for military training, and that all civilian presence and planning requests are to be denied. Firing Zone 918 was created to clear Palestinians from the area of South Hebron Hills. Twelve Palestinian villages (of the 20 within Masafer Yatta), which are home to 2,800 people, are now at imminent risk of mass demolition and forcible displacement. This is all part of far-right Bezalel Smotrich’s, Israel’s Finance Minister, to consolidate control over the West Bank to “deepen the settlement project across the Land of Israel and prevent the establishment of a (Palestinian) terror state.”

On Thursday evening, 26th June, Channel 4 News broadcast a strong 12-minute report entitled Beyond the West Bank: the new frontier of Israel's settlement expansion filmed over three years about the demolition of Palestinian homes both in the West Bank and within the state of Israel, locations all highlighted by ICAHD over the years. Watch this important documentary; forward it to your networks and to your MP. Then congratulate Channel 4 News for telling this story. Leave comments on the page or write to C4Nstories@itn.co.uk . ICAHD UK Webinar Human Rights Defenders: Resisting Settler Terrorism Photo: Settler violence in Masafer Yatta - Palestine Return Centre

The attacks often result in injury, damage to homes, and structures vital for living. Even schools and mosques have been targeted. Fields have been burned, trees uprooted, and animals have been stolen. In some situations, the violence has become so intolerable that the Palestinians have left which is the goal so that more land is cleared for the expansion of Jewish-only settlements.

But setter violence does not only occur in Area C. Extreme religious settlers seek to displace Palestinians living in Hebron and in H2 and where Tel Rumeida neighborhood, near the Ibrahimi Mosque (the Tomb of the Patriarchs) is located. Even Hebron’s main street, Shuhadah, has been closed off to Palestinians who live there so they cannot access their front door from the street.

Attend this one-hour webinar to receive the latest updates on settler violence, why it has intensified, and how this phenomenon is being resisted.

Rabbi Arik Ascherman is a Reform rabbi who led Rabbis for Human Rights for 21 years and since 2017, has led Torat Tzedek. Rabbi Ascherman’s niche has been to work for universal human rights as a Jewish religious obligation, and to present the foundation for this obligation in Jewish sources. Rather than remaining behind a desk, he has always believed that in the human rights field we must have one foot in the grassroots, and the other among the decision and opinion makers. Where necessary, Rabbi Ascherman is willing to put his body on the line. He has been attacked and injured by Israeli settlers and has been tried for civil disobedience. He is the recipient of several humanitarian and peace awards.

Register for this webinar here In Sweltering Heat, 350,000 March for Palestine

Photo: National Demonstration for Palestine - London - 21 June 2025

The hottest day of the year didn’t deter the more than 350,000 demonstrators as they assembled in London in support of Palestine on Saturday, 21st June. In addition to calls for Israel to stop the genocide and the deliberate starvation in Gaza, there was more of a focus on Iran than ever before. Many called for a complete de-escalation of the Middle East and blamed Keir Starmer for not calming it down.

Speakers Ben Jamal from Palestine Solidarity Campaign and MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Zara Sultana MP spoke about how the world has turned upside down as the government tries to convince us that what we know and view on our television screens is not genocide. Examples were given of the staggering hypocrisy of the UK government where one minute it says “never again” to genocide and yet the arms sales to Israel continue. Politicians should be using every ounce of their energy to bring about a peaceful solution. Instead, we live in a parallel universe.

Humza Yousaf, the former SNP leader, said that the Government was abusing anti-terror laws against pro-Palestinian activists and he compared the current crisis to the run-up to the Iraq war.

Singer-song writer Paloma Faith said that those “who facilitate these crimes against humanity need to be made accountable”.

The march happened when news that two members of Palestine Action had broken into RAF Brize Norton and sprayed red paint, symbolizing Palestinian bloodshed, on two military planes in a high-profile security breach at the UK’s largest airbase. The targeted planes, Airbus Voyagers, can carry military cargo and are used to refuel Israel/UK military aircraft and fighter jets that go to Gaza.

Palestine Action called for emergency mobilisation in response to government plans to designate it a terrorist organisation. Some marchers carried posters reading We Are All Palestine Action.

Jeremy Corbyn finished his speech saying, “All we have are ourselves with our humanitarian instincts …. We are the global voice for peace and humanity, and we won’t go away.”

Photo: Activists from Palestine Action hold up a banner on top of Elbit Systems factory in Oldham, northern England. August 2021. (Palestine Action)

Palestine Action (PA) believes that when governments remain indifferent to Israeli apartheid, direct action needs to be taken. Those involved in PA know that many attempts have been made to campaign through traditional methods, but they have been ignored with Israel’s apartheid and genocidal policies allowed to continue. Therefore, it uses disruptive tactics to target corporate enables of the Israeli military-industrial complex and seeks to make it impossible for these companies to profit from the oppression of Palestinians.

Earlier this month, two members of PA broke into the RAF’s Brize Norton airbase and defaced two military aircraft with red pain before escaping the site without being detained, causing embarrassment to the government for its security failure.

The government, instead of taking steps to prevent genocide, wants to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation. This is part of a wider crackdown on members of civil society who are involved in demonstrating their solidarity for Palestinians in their call for justice. Such a move is a threat to our civil liberties and democratic freedoms and will only serve to degrade the meaning of terrorism.

As a matter of urgency, we encourage everyone to contact their MPabout this unlawful action. Read Amnesty’s press releaseabout this issue and use it as a basis for your letter. Alternatively, use the petition prepared by the Palestine Solidarity Campaignwhich will go directly to the Home Secretary. Also consider signing this letter to the Home Secretary. What youneed to know Dates for your Diary

From all at ICAHD UK. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Israeli-Committee-Against-House-Demolitions-UK/366423593418140 Facebook https://www.twitter.com/ICAHDUK/ Twitter http://icahduk.org Website mailto:info@icahduk.org Email