At a time when the genocide in Gaza makes international law seem like a quaint 20th-century idea, long-time Israeli peace activist Jeff Halper and his Palestinian counterpart, Issa Amro, have been nominated for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize.
The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on 10 October and awarded on 10 December 2025, in Oslo, Norway, and while it may seem like something from a bygone era, its timely nomination imbues it with powerful new meaning, much like international law.
Norwegian MP Ingrid Fiskaa nominated Jeff, an Israeli anthropologist, director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, and founding member of the One Democratic State Campaign, alongside Issa, a Hebron-based activist and founder of Youth Against Settlements (YAS), a direct-action group seeking to end the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements through non-violent popular struggle and civil resistance.
Following the nomination, the pair said: "We share a vision for a just and inclusive future for our peoples in a shared homeland. The nomination represents not only recognition of our joint efforts to confront Israeli repression, violence, displacement and the denial of Palestinian national rights, but of the collective resistance the entire Palestinian people have sustained over the past century and more – supported, as our nomination signifies, by Israeli Jews of conscience willing to stand up for Palestinian rights in opposition to their own government and society."
Jeff, who has authored several books, including Decolonizing Israel, Liberating Palestine: Zionism, Settler Colonialism and the Case for One Democratic State, and who participated in the Free Gaza Movement in 2008, breaking the Israeli siege by sailing into Gaza, was also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 alongside International Solidarity Movement co-founder Ghassan Andoni. This year, former Irish politician Brid Rodgers also nominated Palestinian activist and professor Mazin Qumsiyeh.
Jeff told The New Arab: "It will both protect us as we confront the military and settlers in the West Bank and provide a powerful platform for advancing a just peace between our peoples. At this political moment, when colonisation, occupation, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and the prospect of internationally sanctioned apartheid and permanent war are upon us, nominating a Palestinian Muslim and a Jewish Israeli for this year’s Peace Prize sends a powerful and timely message indeed."
He continued: "Only a vision and a political programme in which the country in which we Palestinians and Jewish Israelis are destined to live together will enable us to forge a shared future. This requires the transformation of Israel and its apartheid regime into a democratic state of equal rights for all its citizens."
For his part, Issa stated: "In the face of Israel’s regime of forced evictions, curfews, market and street closures, military checkpoints, random searches, detentions without charge and rampant settler violence, and the harsh application of military law on the city’s residents, we also help Palestinians resist their violent displacement from the Hebron area."
A step toward ending apartheid
As Issa explained, YAS trains youth in peaceful direct action, documents human rights violations, leads tours of Hebron and the surrounding area for international delegations, and provides political briefings for diplomats and journalists.
For such activities, Issa said: "I have been arrested and tortured by the Israeli occupation forces but prosecuted as well by the Palestinian Authority when I took to social media attacking its inaction and corruption."
Still, Issa observed: "Beyond resistance to colonisation in Hebron and throughout Palestine, I lead my organisation in the spirit of strategic cooperation with local and international actors to achieve justice for my people and a shared political future for all."
The courageous pair have just returned from a speaking tour of Norway, with Jeff continuing to Germany and Sarajevo, where he is currently attending a preparatory meeting of the International Tribunal on Gaza. The tribunal, convened by international human rights lawyers, academics and political activists, aims to hold Israel accountable for its genocidal actions and policies.
When the two nominees spoke with The New Arab, Issa said he felt "excited" about the nomination.
"It’s a way of ‘levelling up’ my voice as a Palestinian, which will open many platforms for me to advocate for human rights, peace, justice, and an end to this apartheid regime."
He likened the opportunity presented by the nomination to bring more people into the movement internationally to the Oscar awarded to the film No Other Land.
"It connects Palestine to the wider human rights/international law struggles globally, lending legitimacy to the Palestinian issue," he shared.
Jeff agreed, saying: "It's a great platform – just to be nominated, you know, whether you win or not, the nomination itself is very useful politically."
Dismantling Israeli occupation
While the situation is as dire as it has ever been, the pair see a breakthrough on the horizon.
"Israeli hasbara propaganda is getting very thin on the ground," said Jeff. "The fact that they have to weaponise ‘antisemitism’ kind of shows how desperate they are. Netanyahu is under indictment with the ICC, and Israel's back is to the wall. The people of the world support the Palestinians, but Israel still has the backing of governments, so the question is, how do we translate public discontent and opposition to what Israel is doing into government policy?"
Jeff continued: "The majority of Israelis support what Netanyahu is doing. The left is getting smaller and smaller, and the right is getting bigger and more emboldened. So, we’re talking about maybe 5% of the Israeli population being against government policy."
Issa shared that he is very concerned about his safety. "I’ve been threatened many times, and attacked many times by soldiers and settlers," he told The New Arab.
Whether the nomination will offer him protection or heightened scrutiny remains to be seen. He notes that the Oscar didn’t protect filmmaker Hamdan Ballal, director of No Other Land, who was attacked by settlers after the coveted prize was awarded to the film about the struggle of Palestinians on the West Bank.
As bad as the situation is now on the West Bank, Issa’s thoughts are with the people of Gaza. "Every day I can hear the jets flying overhead en route to bomb schools and civilian populations," he shared. "It’s heartbreaking."
He also remembers photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, who was targeted and killed by the IDF after a documentary about her work was nominated for an award at the Cannes Film Festival.
While the publicity around the nomination makes Issa concerned for his safety in the West Bank, the fact that the Israeli left is a fringe group now works as an advantage for Jeff in terms of security.
"My friends and supporters were happy about the nomination, but we're anti-Zionists, and the right-wingers don't even know we exist. We’re invisible to Israelis. They get upset when Zionists like Peace Now demonstrate, but we are so far out there it’s as if they can’t imagine that creatures like us exist."
When asked if the current situation has reached a South African moment – when de Klerk conceded power and apartheid was abolished – the two responded with a mix of hope and steely pragmatism.
The Israeli government contends Jeff is not going to be "proactive" in dismantling a system where "they’re on top."
"So, we have to create international pressure that makes the Israeli regime collapse, like in South Africa. I'm in favour of one democratic state, but we have to move towards a decolonised postcolonial state. So, the question is not whether it’s possible to have a one-state solution now – it’s what is the optimum solution right now?"
He said: "No solution is possible with the current Israeli fascist government and with the blanket support of many Western countries for Israeli occupation and apartheid."
But on a more optimistic note, Issa pointed to the Syrian example.
"No one imagined that the Assad regime would just disappear overnight," he said. "But it did."
[Cover photo: © @palestinakomiteeninorge]
Hadani Ditmars is the author of Dancing in the No Fly Zone and has been writing from and about the MENA since 1992. Her next book, Between Two Rivers, is a travelogue of ancient sites and modern culture in Iraq. www.hadaniditmars.com