Canadian may be deported
A Canadian According to the report, Victor McDiarmid, a volunteer for the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), was detained on Wednesday at a demonstration by women from Naalin, where Israel plans to build the next section of its security barrier.Awww..... And like his inspiration, St. Pancake, his parents are supporting him.
CBC News said McDiarmid, 23, was arrested after taking photographs of Israeli soldiers who were breaking up the protest by villagers, who say the barrier will separate them from their farmland.
"He was taken by Israeli soldiers whilst at the front of the demonstration and was taken off towards the jeep. And then he has reported to us that for 20 minutes they were punching, kicking and spitting in his face," Adam Taylor, ISM's media co-ordinator was quoted by CBC News as saying.
His parents told CBC News they support their son and the work he was doing in Israel to expose human rights violations.Hey Robert - why don't you keep your spoiled brat at home or let him go someplace where there are real human rights violations like Iran? (Answer - because there the kid would disappear and you would never hear of him again).
Robert McDiarmid said he is outraged his son could still be sitting in a detention center.
"I'm angry at the human rights abuses in the West Bank. I'm angry that the Canadian government's aborting," McDiarmid told CBC News, adding that his son has said he wants to stay in Israel and fight his deportation.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:49 PM
6 Comments:
What the hell makes you think we want him back here.
This aint fishing "catch and release"
You caught him, you keep him.
Harry
Carl - you have to wonder why Israel allows acknowledged anti-Semites and Israel haters entry into the country to stir up trouble. Besides the deporting the lot ISM lot along with Victor McDiarmid, Israel should kick out all the Jewish anti-Semites too. The country would be a lot better off.
ISM
The most dangerous of these groups is the Palestinian-financed ISMThe ISM
recruits anti-Israel radicals, primarily from Europe and American college
campuses, and sends them to Judea, Samaria and Gaza to disrupt Israeli
military operations. The presence of these foreign civilians in the midst of
the Palestinian population obstructs the IDF's ability to fight Palestinian
terrorists. By interfering with Israeli counter-terrorism operations, the
ISM directly endangers the lives ofIsraeli civilians.
In April 2003, Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that: "ISM
members take an active part in illegal and violent actions against
IDFsoldiers. At times, their activity in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip
isunder the auspices of Palestinian terrorist organizations."
In the past, ISM members have been arrested vandalizing and destroying
Israeli security fences and equipment. In March 2003, fugitive Islamic Jihad
terrorist, Shadi Sukiya, was arrested in a house in Jenin rented by the ISM
ISM
Excerpts: International Solidarity Movement (ISM) 23 July 2004
Excerpts: International Solidarity Movement (ISM) 23 July 2004
+++Solidarity With Terror
By Lee Kaplan
FrontPageMagazine.com | July 2, 2004
** The "Jamie" referred to in the article is a
leading ISM trainer. She is Jamie Spector who is being held at Ben Gurion
Airport for security considerations. Ann Robinson-Petter, also of
International Solidarity Movement, was also arrested but was given
prospective conditional entry to Israel. Jamie Spector is still being held.
An excerpt from the 23 July Haaretz story on Ann Robertson-Petter also
follows.]
EXCERPTS
This June I attended a "training session" of the International Solidarity
Movement (IMS) ... The ISM was set up by the Palestinians after Arafat
broke off the Oslo peace talks and launched the second intifada. Its
organizers were Ghassan Andoni, a physics professor from Bir Zeit University
in the West Bank, and Palestinian activists George Rishmawi and George
Qassis. The idea was to bring in international volunteers, mostly radical
students from the United States, Canada and Europe, as "nonviolent peace
activists" .... If the volunteers were injured or arrested, the
international repercussions would be detrimental to Israel.... The operation
costs the Palestine Authority very little since many of the radical
volunteers pay their own transportation costs and live in the homes of
Palestinians ... .
. . .
Adam Shapiro and Huwaida Arraf of the ISM
The most visible American figure in the International Solidarity Movement is
Adam Shapiro, a Brooklyn Jew and college radical,who became a human shield for Yasser Arafat when the Israeli army surrounded Arafat's Ramallah compound following the massacre of 30 Israelis ...at a Passover seder, shortly after the Intifada was launched. When I interviewed him last year, Shapiro told me ...he does not consider himself a Jew. He is married to Huwaida Arraf, a Palestinian-American activist from Michigan whose father holds Israeli citizenship. .... In articles on the ISM website where they discuss their goals of dismantling Israel by supporting Palestinian terrorists they use euphemisms such as "legitimate resistance" or support for "legitimate armed struggle" while claiming that they are nonviolent. The ISM uses as its motto "by any means necessary."
Such means include the hiding of terrorists like Shadi Sukiya, who was
arrested in an ISM office in the West Bank. An arms cache was also found in an ISM office. Two suicide bombers gained entry for their murderous agendas under the auspices of the ISM. These Pakistani Muslims from Great Britain entered Israel through Jordan as clients of the Alternative Tourism Group, an operation set up by Andoni to aid ISM volunteers coming to Israel. They then met with the ISM at their offices for an entire day in Gaza before proceeding on to Tel Aviv where they bombed a popular beach bar, Mike's Place, killing three people.
... ISM has developed an extensive presence in the United States, while
operating under several organizational names .... One of these entities, Al
Awda (the Return in Arabic), is also known as the Palestine Right to Return
Coalition (PRRC). It is led by Mazen Qumsiyeh, a Yale geneticist. There are Al Awda chapters all over the United States, particularly in the vicinities of U.S. college campuses. Other ISM groups under the name SUSTAIN (Stop U.S. Taxpayer Assistance to Israel Now) operate in Los Angeles and New York. In New Jersey, the ISM supporters call themselves Palsolidarity. When the volunteers go to the Middle East to aid the PLO they go under the umbrella name of the International Solidarity Movement When they hold events in the U.S. and Canada they call themselves the Palesyine Solidarity Movement.
... Adam Shapiro told me that the ISM has Palestinian "handlers," or
undercover supervisors at all demonstrations against Israel. These
supervisors direct attacks against the separation fence that is being built
to keep suicide bombers and armed terrorists from infiltrating into Israel
... . One of the handlers leading the current attacks on the security fence
at the start of this summer's campaign is a veteran of the Marxist terrorist
group PLFP named Hisham Jam Joun. The ISM website, www.paLSOLIDARITY.ORG ,
openly proclaims that the organization is "Palestinian-led."
I signed up for the ISM training session, after seeing their Internet
announcement calling for volunteers for their new campaign, ..."Freedom
Summer 2004," ,,,
The phone number... put me in touch with Paul LaRudee, a 68 year-old retired Berkeley professor who, along with his Lebanese wife, has been a leader of the ISM movement in the Bay Area. LaRudee assured me that they welcomed everybody, no matter how old or inexperienced. "Most of our volunteers are in their sixties," he said. I was advised if I wanted to train with the ISM
I needed to attend an orientation lecture at The New College of San
Francisco ... by an Arab-American named Jess Ghannam, a psychoanalyst and
professor at the University of California Medical School.
. . .
... June 12th, I arrived for ... training. The session was held at 2263
Mission Street in San Francisco, ...a rundown area of the city ... .
About ten of us showed up coynting both volunteers and trainers. ...we had to go through a simulated interrogation by an "Israeli border guard"
impersonated by a woman named Jamie ...a social worker for the city of San Francisco.
... We learned later that she was an ISM veteran, having been a volunteer in
Israel two years earlier as a member of San Francisco's Jews For A Free
Palestine (JFFP) and would be going again this summer.
. . .
After everyone passed through the interrogation ritual, the gate was secured
with a big padlock so nobody could get in or out. ...
. . .
Jamie then handed out ISM training manuals, big thick white notebooks
containing eight sections, a text designed for would be infiltrators and
subversives. Inside were articles authored by radical groups like the War
Resisters League, Act Up, Direct Action and a several "anti-global"
organizations. There were also internal ISM documents. They contained
valuable information on how to disrupt the Israeli law enforcement and
defense officials ... . Jamie admonished us, "You see what it might be like
when you try to enter Israel. Don't bring your manuals with you!"
Mahera
We then introduced ourselves. The first ... was Mahera, a
Palestinian-American woman in her late twenties who ... would also be
training us.
Mahera ...works for the San Francisco office of the American-Arab
Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). I learned later that our orientation
lecturer, Jess Ghannam, was on the Board of Directors of the San Francisco chapter of the same organization, ... a non-profit civil rights advocacy
group for Muslims and Arab-Americans. Glancing through my manual I noticed
it referred us to "the ADC reader."
. . .
... the group was told that the ISM is a Palestinian-led movement ... under
the leadership of the Palestinians who had professional handlers to oversee
what we would be doing. Once we were in the West Bank there would be veteran
ISM leaders to guide us, but that the Palestinian handlers had ultimate
control.
Scott
... Scott identified himself as Jewish and even claimed to have family in
Israel. He said he was a supporter of Israel until he attended classes in
Middle East Studies at Stanford University. "I used to support Israel until
I took some classes with Joel Beinin ..." he volunteered. Beinin is a
former president of the Middle East Studies Association and a
self-proclaimed Marxist and supporter of the Palestinian struggle to
liberate Israel by dismantling the Jewish state.
. . .
Hanoi Arlene
Arlene, a 62 year-old Jewish woman from Oakland, was more vocal than the others. She told us that she had a lifetime of activism. ...She told us
that she was estranged from her parents and had used the excuse of their
funeral to get into Israel the last time she was there. Despite her age she
was ready to do things to attack the Israeli soldiers such as throwing tear
gas canisters back at them during riots and putting sugar in the gas tanks
of their security vehicles. ... "We're going to win," she glowed. "Like Dr.
Ghannam said at the lecture the other day, the demographics are on our
side."
... Jamie shared with us ... methods used by previous ISM volunteers to
fool the Israeli border police. "Make a reservation in a hotel in Israel
even if you don't use it." "Bring guidebooks for Israel that look dog-eared
... Give them the name of a hostel if you are young enough, these will fool
the border guards."
[IMRA:Quote from " ISM activists use Birthright to get to Israel", Haaretz
16, July '04: "The ISM website advises potential volunteers 'to have a
really good story about why you are coming ... [and] play it as though your visit is for other , Israel-based reasons, like tourism, religion, visiting
an Israeli friend, etc."]
Mary Erwin
... "If you use the name of someone in Israel as being the reason for your
visit, they will call that person. Make certain you have a story thought out
who that person is." If that person were an Israeli leftist, the task was a
lot easier. Mary Erwin, another trainer from Oakland, interjected ...that
our allies from the Israeli anarchist and communist movements were ready to lie to the border guards when called on the phone. ... "If the border guards become suspicious, an Israeli contact will be set up to lie and say you are visiting them," Mary summarized. She mentioned the leftist Israeli group B'tselem as providing such false witnesses. Among its leaders is Anat Biletzski [Chair, Board of Directors], the former head of Israel's Communist Party.
...inside Israel we were told we could make our way to the West Bank even though we were also informed that to go there is illegal. Jamie told us to email ourselves instructions so we would not need our manuals. We were assured the "ISM corps" was working on legal proposals to challenge the Israeli government at every turn if illegal entrants were discovered. "We are asking also if people are willing to resist if they are caught and told they will be deported." ...
We were also given alternative ways to get into Israel besides through Ben Gurion Airport. "You can take a taxi from Amman in Jordan to the Allenby Bridge (Jordan's border entry). Even if you are turned back from that entry, you can go to the other border crossing because they usually don't know you were turned away from another one first," Jamie counseled. "Rehearse your story," she continued. "They will interrogate you also when you leave. If they interrogate you, you can miss your plane. Don't buy anything because it will give them things to look through."
As for luggage, she told us if could pass as students we should just use a
backpack. "A duffel bag on wheels does well at the airport. Remember that Israel needs tourists. Their economy is in shambles and they are anxious for tourism. And they are not organized."
" .... If they ask you questions such as 'What are you doing here? Don't you know there's a war?' you should reply, 'I thought it was better now.'
...If you are Jewish, know your Hebrew name ... Wear your Star of David
especially if you are Jewish."
...on the West Bank and under the Palestine Authority we were to attend
another mandatory two-day training session where we would be assigned to "affinity groups." She then began making a bulletin board of how we were to function by setting up rules. The first rule was "Confidentiality."
Volunteers would be assigned to unknown affinity groups where they would function as teams to disrupt the Israel soldiers in military zones.
. . .
Brian Malovany
When one of the trainees asked if we as ISM volunteers favored a two-state solution to secure peace, Brian Malovany, another senior trainer from Oakland ... explained, "The idea of a two-state solution is pretty much dead." ... "There can only be one state called Palestine," explained
Molvany echoing the line of Hamas and other terrorist organizations. "And
the Right of Return is non-negotiable. If people ask you about a two-state
solution just tell them it's a human rights issue. .. do not dictate to the
Palestinians what they should not do."
I asked Molvany, "But what if we see kids throwing stones at tanks or
putting themselves in danger. Shouldn't we tell them not to and urge them to stay away?"
Brian Malovany responded: "We can't tell kids not to throw stones! It's not
our place to tell them what to do." Obviously the same rule applied to
suicide bombers as we were advised that we might be used as human shields inside houses slated for demolition ... .
...I looked at my manual and found this ISM wisdom:
"Some pacifists are uncomfortable with property damage. For myself...I see it as a great tool."
"[Some] settle for tactical nonviolence, but given the right historical
circumstance, armed struggle would be justified..."
"When VIOLENCE is mentioned, say RESISTANCE or RESISTANCE TO INJUSTICE."
"When TERRORISM is mentioned, emphasize STATE TERRORISM."
"Instead of OCCUPATION say MILITARY OCCUPATION to make people think the
occupation is a MILITARY DICTATORSHIP." ...The page this appeared on was
supplied by the Muslim Public Affairs Council, yet another purportedly
Muslim "civil rights group" ... .
. . .
... we were given the activities schedule for the "Freedom Summer"
anti-Israel campaign (see the ISM website for details). It included marching
onto an Israeli army base to free captured terrorists and trying to tear
down the security fence. Violent attacks by the "nonviolent" ISM had alreadybegun when we met. Every member of our group knew that what they were really being asked to do was illegal.They just didn't care
... the ISM manual stressed that the volunteers were not in any real danger from Israeli security forces and advised them to inconvenience and disobey them in every way possible. The manual also advised those who were arrested to contact the Bay Area chapter of the National Lawyer's Guild, an organization created by the American Communist Party with a half century of legal experience in supporting Communist and totalitarian causes.
A list of instructions was given on how to deal with possible arrests ... .
If a Palestinian was arrested for something serious like throwing a Molotov
cocktail, we were told to show "prison solidarity" with him. We were told
that international demonstrators usually get released quickly by the police
once they reach the police station. But if we refused to leave without our
Palestinian companion, the police might release him also just to get rid of
all of us.
Not once all day, in any way, did members of our group - trainers or
trainees - express a negative word about suicide bombings, or the shooting of women and children by Palestinian terrorists. But we were told repeatedly not to tell the Palestinians how to "resist."
+++HAARETZ 23 July '04:"Detention `like a roller coaster,' " ISM activist
says
By Yuval Yoaz
EXCERPTS:
Activist Ann Robinson-Petter may be released today after a month-long
detention at Ben-Gurion Airport and permitted to enter Israel, with some
restrictions.
The court ruling on Wednesday, allowing the American International
Solidarity Movement member into Israel, overturned a decision by Interior
Minister Avraham Poraz preventing her entry. However, the court agreed to hold Robinson-Petter until today to give the prosecution time to decide
whether to appeal the ruling.
Robinson-Petter was detained by Israeli police on her arrival at the airport
and was held in immigration detention awaiting deportation. Based on
classified material, Poraz decided to bar her entry into Israel because she
belonged to "a left-wing organization." He said there was "a well-founded
suspicion that she would take part in terrorist activity."
. . .
"I am an American citizen, and I'd say Israel still has a long way to go [in
terms of civil rights]. Any state that can lock a person up on the basis of
confidential material of its security services, which the defendant cannot
see and cannot defend himself from, cannot call itself a democracy."
Robinson-Petter refused to be deported and her attorneys appealed the
decision first to the Administrative Court and then to the Supreme Court.
MKs Yossi Sarid and Roman Bronfman (Yahad) submitted statements to the court testifying that the purpose of the ISM - an Israeli-Palestinian organization acting to help the Palestinians - is to administer humanitarian aid and that it engages in nonviolent protests.
. . .
About two weeks ago, Administrative Court Judge Oded Mudrik rejected
Robinson-Petter's appeal and ordered her deportation, ruling that "the real
purpose of her visit is taking part in ISM activity." He issued this ruling
despite the fact that the Shin Bet prevented him from looking at the
classified material on which banning her entry to Israel was based.
Mudrik conceded that the ISM activity is not violent, but said it was
disruptive to the fence's construction. Robinson-Petter's lawyers, Shamai
Leibowitz, Leah Tsemel and Yael Barda, appealed to the Supreme Court, which returned the case to Mudrik, instructing him to read the privileged material before making a decision.
In Wednesday's ruling, Mudrik reiterated his confidence in the confidential
material about the ISM, but called the Interior Ministry's report of the
refusal to let Robinson-Petter into Israel "embarrassing." Mudrik permitted
Robinson-Petter to enter Israel but banned her entry into the West Bank and Gaza Strip. She is also forbidden from going within a kilometer of the
security barrier and from participating in demonstrations where there is a
chance of clashing with the Israel Defense Forces. She was also obliged to
deposit NIS 50,000 to guarantee she doesn't violate the restrictions.
Subject: The ISM-London Bombing Connection
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=19145
By Lee Kaplan and StoptheISM.com
Among the less publicized details of the July 7th Londonbombings is the connection of one of the possible terrorists, Muhammad Sadique Khan, to the preeminent group of the pro-terrorist “solidarity” movement, the International Solidarity Movement (ISM).
Consider the available information: Khan is suspected of delivering the explosives that were used to carry out the Londonattacks. Recent evidence shows that the explosives used in the Londonsubway attacks were found by British and Israeli intelligence officials to be remarkably similar to those used in a 2003 bombing of the “Mike’s Place” pizzeria in Israel. Related to this, Israel National News recently reported that British and Israeli intelligence reports show that Khan, who had a British passport, arrived in Israel on February 19, 2003, and stayed for only one day. During his stay, he may have met with Asif Hanif and Omar Sharif. Both of the men, with the assistance of Hamas, would later become suicide bombers. Hanif and Sharif traveled from Britainto Israelunder the auspices of the ISM’s Alternative Tourism Program. One of their final acts, just prior to departing on their murderous mission, was to meet with ISM activists in Gaza. This connection is only one measure of the unheralded threat posed by the self-proclaimed “peace” group, ISM.
At present, Israelis the only nation to have recognized the danger the ISM presents to Western democracies. Sadly, it took a tragedy and a maiming injury as the last straw for the Israelis finally to start clamping down on ISM activities within their borders. These were, respectively, the death of an Ethiopian Jewish Israeli soldier, killed by a rock hurled during a “peaceful demonstration” conducted by the ISM in the villageof Bi’lin; and another Israeli soldier, who lost an eye to a stone thrower shielded by the ISM elsewhere in the West Bank.
On July 19th, 130 ISM anarchists from around the world were stopped at the Jordanian border and refused admittance into Israel. My organization, Stop the ISM, had advised Israeli authorities months in advance that an ISM-sponsored “Caravan for Palestine” was in the works. For once, Israelacted proactively and stopped these radicals from entering its borders. They have learned the hard way that ISM members intend to create havoc and provide cover for terrorism, vandalism, and violence under the guise of being “peace activists.” The organizers had their passports specially stamped by Israeli authorities, meaning that they cannot use them to enter Israelfor five years. Meanwhile, the ISM caravan went back to Syria.
Why Syria? Syria is the main support base for Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the PLO’s Communist Party wing. The PFLP’s General Command affiliate is believed to have between 500 and 1,000 members there as well, maintaining offices in Damascusand the Yarmouk refugee camp outside the Syrian capital, as well as several major military bases around the country. That the ISM caravan turned around and headed to Syriais telling: it hints at a possible collaborative connection between the PFLP and the ISM.
That would not be altogether surprising. After all, the ISM was created with the assistance of PFLP activists, with the blessing of the late Yasser Arafat, during the second Intifada in 2001. Significantly, the PLO is not a single organization. Rather, it is an umbrella group of organizations sharing the same ultimate goal: the dismantling of Israel. While Hamas (one wing of the PLO) blows up innocents in Israel, Fatah (another wing) pretends to be the negotiator and peacemaker so as to exact concessions. The PFLP is one of the more violent factions of the PLO and has also inspired other groups in the PLO umbrella such as the “Democratic” (as opposed to Communist) PFLP and the PFLP General Command. The largest segments of the PFLP are communists/anarchists who have allied with American and European anarchists.
Like the PLO itself, the PFLP organizes an international conglomerate of smaller radical communist/anarchist cells on behalf of the PLO, particularly on U.S.college campuses. No central organization exists in any one place: Al Awda (Arabic for the right of return); SUSTAIN (Stop U.S. Taxpayer Assistance for Israel Now); Middle East Children’s Alliance; Duke Divest; Students for Justice In Palestine; the Alternative Palestinian Agenda; and many differently named groups prevent our government from defining any centralized authority. Its leadership and guidance comes from the PFLP, with the aid of Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and other terrorist groups. Whatever the names used, the central goal of the ISM is the destruction of the democratic state of Israeland its replacement with an Arab-dominated state, “by any means necessary.”
Similar motives propel the ISM. Among some ISM members' long-term goals is dismantling the democratic, capitalist government of the United States. This was confirmed at the Duke University National Palestine Solidarity Movement Conference in 2004. At that event, Abe Greenhouse -- an ISM activist from RutgersUniversitywho smashed a pie in the face of former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky -- explained that the International Solidarity Movement’s activities are the training ground for the American Anarchist Movement. Stop the ISM once intercepted an ISM message discussing effective methods of public relations. One proposal was that the American branch of the ISM should adopt the moniker ISM-USA, in order to invoke patriotic sentiments. The proposal was roundly rejected: the discussants decided they hate the United States too much to feign patriotism.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the ISM has never been shy about making common cause with terrorists. A parallel example may help shed light on the ISM’s sinister motives. In July, Ali Al-Timimi, a Virginia-based imam, was sentenced to life in prison by a U.S.federal court for inspiring and urging his Islamic students to train as jihadist warriors. His disciples trained in the United Stateswith paintball weapons. The purpose of that training was to go to Afghanistanand fight American soldiers. Even as he was conspiring to kill Americans, however, Al-Timimi maintained that he was against violence and terrorism. The ISM favors a kindred strategy, deploying its dissembling rhetoric in precisely the same way as Al-Timimi. Listen to Paul LaRudee, the Northern Californiahead of the ISM. LaRudee’s recent interview with an al-Jazeera interviewer on public radio was a classic form of ISM doublespeak—affirming a commitment to non-violence while cutting a loophole for terrorism. Explained LaRudee:
We believe in the application of international law. Although we are totally dedicated to nonviolence, we recognize not everyone in the Palestinian community is dedicated to nonviolence and under international law we recognize that violence is necessary and it is permissible for oppressed and occupied people to use armed resistance and we recognize their right to do so.
International law, of course, proscribes blowing up women and children on buses or in subway trains in Jerusalemand London. The fact that LaRudee is a piano tuner by trade and not an international attorney does not allow him to plead ignorance. It was LaRudee, after all, who once boasted of sleeping in the bed of a suicide bomber. Then, too, it is LaRudee who recruits ISM “volunteers” to go to the Middle Eastand provide cover for terrorists. (This writer has attended ISM training sessions where ISM volunteers are trained to provide cover for stone throwers of the PLO.)
Preview Image
Paul LaRudee of Norcal ISM
Huwaida Arraf, one of the leaders of the ISM (even though they always claim they have no leadership), has been even clearer in elucidating the ISM’s policy toward terrorist groups. At last October’s national Palestine Solidarity conference at Duke University, she was recorded as she explained that the ISM engages in “collaborative efforts” with Palestinians aimed at “encouraging more people to believe again that civilian resistance can overcome an international military force.” Stipulating that, “We only engage in and actively support the unarmed resistance,” Arraf admitted that in actuality the group goes much further:
There are elements out there that try to say, you know, we support terror. We don’t refuse to work with anybody. So, often times I am asked if, you know, “What’s our position on Hamas or the Islam Jihad?” We’re willing to work with anybody, but we’re not willing to engage in military assistance. We’re not going to win that way, but Hamas are some of the key forms of organizers, the PFLP, anyone who wants to organize and help us in our struggle really is our friend and we’ll work with.
All this is in accordance with the ISM’s policy of obstructing the demolition of bomb making factories by the Israeli army. The reason: they double as the homes of known terrorist groups. Nor should one make much of the ISM’s claims that “peace” will come with the end of the Israeli “occupation.” Having attended ISM meetings, both undercover and openly as a reporter, I can attest that the word “occupation” is used to describe all of Israel and its Jewish population, the American liberation of Iraq—and, incredibly, even the United States government itself.
So what does the U.S.government make of the ISM’s activities? There are laws on the books about conspiring to break laws against allies like Israeloverseas and consorting with terrorist organizations. And yet, with the exception of Sami al-Arian’s high-profile arrest as the U.S.head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, few terror-supporters have actually been brought up on charges. (Indeed, Stop the ISM was created to remedy this paucity of prosecutions.)
Part of the problem is that our government looks upon ISM activities in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute as separate from our fight with terrorism. The same PLO leadership that receives U.S. tax dollars to ostensibly create another Middle East democracy works in the same coalition as the ISM to perpetuate unending war with Israel and dismantle that state to set up another Muslim Arab theocracy.
Every ISM rally for “Palestine” is also a rally against U.S.forces and goals in Iraq. The ISM openly supports the Ba’ath Party terrorists who kill U.S.troops, Iraqis, and even children. With its ceaseless demonstrations, divestment programs at colleges and churches, fundraising to send money abroad that is never accurately accounted for, and the enlistment and training of college radicals as “volunteers” to assist terrorist goals overseas, the ISM is not a “peace” movement but a war movement adept at subterfuge and subversion. What’s more, it can count on a broad base of financial succor: The “solidarity” movement benefits from Saudi largesse and has learned to exploit such left-wing funding sources as the Ford Foundation, the Davis-Putter Scholarship program, Echoing Green, and other foundations.
Those funds, in turn, bankroll some of the most extremist elements of the “solidarity” movement. Take Fayyad Sbaihat, the lead organizer of the Palestine Solidarity Movement on U.S.campuses and a chemical engineering major at the Universityof Wisconsin. The government knows that all of Fayyad Sbaihat’s brothers are members of the PFLP. Jetting all over the United Statesand Canada, he organizes yearly conferences at major universities. At one campus in Canada, Hisham Jam Joun, a PFLP trainer, was flown in to lecture to conference attendees. Although the U.S. State Department considers the PFLP an illegal terrorist group, nothing has been done to curb the recruitment efforts of its ISM allies at American universities (although the government insists that it is “watching” the PFLP).
Then there is George Rishmawi, a Canandian-Palestinian who was one of the co-founders of the ISM with Adam Shapiro, husband of and pictured above with the previously mentioned Huwaida Arraf. Rishmawi has home bases in Pasadena, California, as well as the West Bank, where he works to get students college credit in Arabic for their ISM activities. Rishmawi also supports the PFLP mantra of dismantling Israeland has been a communist/anarchist revolutionary for years.
Huwaida Arraf is an American citizen of Palestinian-Arab ancestry from Michigan. Her father has Israeli citizenship as an Arab-Israeli, so she can travel to Israel. There she goes to the West Bank and, as an ISM leader, provides cover for the PLO, vandalizes the Israeli security fence, or stands between Israeli soldiers and those who throw stones (like the one that killed an Israeli soldier). Arraf has been in and out of Israeli jails because Israel’s democratic government is just as befuddled as America’s when it comes to defining lawful dissent as opposed to intentional subversion that jeopardizes the lives of law-abiding citizens. Only recently, Arraf refused to be released from jail “in solidarity” with a PLO terrorist who was jailed along with her at one of the ISM’s activities in the West Bankvillageof Bi’lin. That too is part of the ISM’s training: to be arrested with violent criminals, then refuse to leave jail unless they are accompanied by the terrorists brought in with them. She was offered freedom with the proviso that she stay out of the West Bankfor 15 days. She refused before eventually relenting. Doubtless she will not be kept away for long.
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Adam Shapiro/Huwaida Arraf
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George Rishmawi
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Fayyad Sbaihat
The relative impunity by which activists like Arraf seemingly aid the terrorist cause demands action from authorities. Some proactive steps are in order. Fayyad Sbaihat and George Rishmawi are not American citizens. Huwaida Arraf is a U.S.citizen. However, if she and other ISM activists collaborate with terrorists, that would be against the law of the United Statesand subject to prosecution. Federal law (18 U.S.C. § 2339A(b) ) stipulates that aiding terrorists by giving them any form of lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, providing safe houses, or false identification is illegal. Arraf, heedless of the law, has already told her acolytes at Duke University that the ISM is willing to do—and already has done—many of these things: In the past, the ISM has prevented the Israeli army from demolishing bomb-making factories and weapons smuggling tunnels located in Palestinian homes. Hisham Jam Joun was flown in to Canadafor a Palestine Solidarity Conference and the former PFLP terrorist who served in Lebanon also trains ISM volunteers in the West Bank. How much longer can it be before our security services take action?
If the United Statesgovernment can give a life sentence to Ali Al-Tamimi for training paintball warriors in the War on Terror, why are the so-called “solidarity” foot soldiers still free to invade U.S.campuses, enlisting college students as “volunteers” to go the West Bankand assist Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the PFLP? And why are they doing this with the aid of college administrators who, evidently, know no better in time of war? Why aren’t the leaders of the ISM in the United Statesindicted for aiding and abetting terrorist organizations?
Wiser to the ways of ISM activists, Israelis starting to arrest or deport ISM members and ban their activities. Our own government might be wise to follow in their footsteps.
If you’d like to volunteer to help Stop the ISM, please email us at StoptheISM@att.net.
ISM -- A FALSE LEGACY
For many, the International Solidarity Movement's blatant support for Palestinian incitement and rejectionism is the antithesis of a human-rights organization. Charges of harboring terrorists , endangering the lives of foreign 'peace volunteers,' and sabotaging sensitive military operations have prompted the Israeli government to limit the activities of members of this organization. The Israeli Chief of Staff even singled out ISM as a direct threat to his soldiers' lives.
The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) mobilizes the power of the rhetoric of human rights to justify its position and cries suppression and brutality. Its website defines itself 'an international citizen's peace-making campaign formed in August 2001, using the proactive tactics of non-violent direct action epitomized by Gandhi, Archbishop Tutu, Dr. Martin Luther King, and other practitioners of creative non-violent resistance.' A claim to such an ideological legacy encourages journalists to publish and promote the ISM's pronouncements with little scrutiny, and gives the movement a voice in humanitarian NGO activities and even "human rights film festivals".
The press attention dedicated to ISM is the fruit of the strategy of exploiting the language of morality, ethics and human rights to de-legitimize Israel. The organization was first thrust into the limelight after two of its activists, an American citizen, Rachel Corrie, and a British citizen, Tom Hurndall, were respectively killed and seriously wounded in separate incidents as they positioned themselves in the center of clashes between the Israeli army and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. ISM members have announced that they believe that Israel not only targets Palestinians but has also begun targeting international volunteers. This led to a flurry of diplomatic activity and damning anti-Israel reporting in the international press. This came despite the fact that ISM was discredited by the way it presented Rachel Corrie's death on its website - a sequence of photographs of Rachel Corrie was posted to 'prove' that the death was deliberate. The photos, however, were clearly taken at different times of the day, and the real story of her death was deliberately distorted by the ISM as part of this public relations effort.
As a direct result of this incident, Israel issued a waiver form for foreign nationals entering the Gaza Strip. It stated the Israeli army is not able to guarantee their safety because international activists have endangered their own lives and those of Israeli soldiers by interfering in legitimate counter terror operations designed to protect Israel's civilian population. The Israeli move, standard procedure in times of urban warfare all over the world, in turn, generated a heated campaign by six well-known humanitarian NGOs, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, EMHRN and the French NGO, FIDH.
There are a number of inherent contradictions in ISM's claimed objectives. The following five points illustrate ISM's tactics of promoting 'non-violent action' but in fact pursuing a far more violent agenda;
1) ISM's 'non-violent' declarations and 'pro-freedom' proclamations are followed by the sentence on its website, "we recognize the Palestinian right to resist Israeli violence and occupation via legitimate armed struggle." It also calls for "direct-action methods of resistance that will oppose the Occupation and force Israel to withdraw from the West Bank East Jerusalem, and Gaza." Such "direct actions" include literally placing volunteers between the Israeli army and Palestinians, some of whom are known terrorists. When volunteers are wounded, Israel is falsely blamed as having deliberately targeted them.
2) The organization declares that it "supports the unarmed, civilian-based intifada" and aiding the provision of humanitarian help. In violation of its commitment to 'non-violent methods', however, it effectively endorses the tactics that the Palestinian leadership and the main political factions of Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad that have employed indiscriminate murder of Israeli citizens. Their methods include suicide bombings in public places with no warning, shooting indiscriminately at women and children, sometimes in their homes, sometimes on the roads.
3) ISM employs uses the term 'martyr' - even for those killed in suicide missions attacking Israeli citizens, thereby legitimizing these attacks.
4) ISM chooses to ignore historical context in order to undermine Jewish legitimacy. For example, its website contains a report on Nablus (the Biblical Shehem), which was placed in control of the Palestinian Authority during the Oslo Process. With complete absence of context and in gross distortion of history, ISM announced that the "Occupational Army [Israeli army] causes damage to the Old City of Nablus by injuring and killing people, putting curfews over the population, demolishing houses without any reason or as a collective punishment to the families of martyrs.…" The simplistic summary "without any reason" demonstrates that ISM's agenda is far from the promotion of 'freedom', but rather the legitimization of the violent Palestinian uprising and an indirect endorsement of terror against Israeli civilians. The report also failed to mention that the city is a Hamas stronghold, home to many bomb factories and a large proportion of suicide bombers emanate from there. Elsewhere, talking of the history of the city, ISM fails to mention its importance in Jewish and Biblical tradition. It refers to it simply as a 'Palestinian city.'
5) The ISM is silent on Palestinian terror attacks, and the deliberately targeting of Israeli civilians, thereby tacitly endorsing these crimes against humanity.
The ideological and political agendas of ISM are camouflaged through the faחade and discourse of human rights and the heritage of freedom fighters such as Martin Luther King. Although ISM does have the courage to criticize the Palestinian leadership and no doubt attracts many genuine volunteers, it does not promote an honest agenda. Its lack of acknowledgement of the suffering of both sides, its whitewashing of Jewish tradition and its endorsement of Palestinian terrorism prove the NGO is far from committed to universal human rights.
Summary Reports on NGOs: A-
http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2008/07/man-gets-jail-for-funding-hamas-ism-frea/
Man Gets Jail for Funding Hamas -- ISM Freaking, May be Placed on Terror Sponsor List
Our story begins with one, Richard David Hupper, who was already serving time for passport fraud -- looks like he tried to get a new passport under a false name in order to get back into Israel after he was banned for his activities with the International Solidarity Movement -- then they dragged him out of his cell and charged him with "giving about $20,000 to a group he knew supported Hamas.": Local man aided Hamas
A York County native who traveled to the war-torn Middle East to work with Palestinians will be sentenced in federal court this month for aiding a terrorist organization.
Richard David Hupper, 32, was charged with giving about $20,000 to a group he knew supported Hamas, the Palestinian military and political organization, according to court documents and his defense lawyer.
It is a crime to give money to Hamas, or to groups that support it, because it is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. Hupper pleaded guilty in May.
The Leader Heights, York Township, native likely will be sentenced to about five years, his lawyer said.
Hupper's defense attorney, Neal R. Lewis, a Reading native who works in Florida, said the charges stem from Hupper's donations to a nonprofit agency that, in turn, supports Hamas.
He saw his mission as a humanitarian cause and wanted his donations to support the families of Palestinians who had been detained or killed, Lewis said...
...The charges against Hupper came more than a year after he pleaded guilty to attempting to obtain a passport using false information, a case that is related to his work with the Palestinians, Lewis said.
Hupper had been in Israel working with Palestinians, but the Israeli government kicked him out.
He wanted to go back, so he tried to get a passport using someone else's name, Social Security number and a forged birth certificate, and he was arrested, according to court documents...
...Hupper, who last lived in York County about six years ago, decided to involve himself in the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis while he was in Alabama working as a machinist, Lewis said.
While in Alabama, Hupper was injured at work, and he spent much of his time off watching TV, including international news, Lewis said. Hupper decided he wanted to travel to the Gaza Strip with the goal to help the Palestinian people...
...Hupper traveled to Israel, where he actively worked with a non-governmental agency to aid Palestinians impacted by the Middle East conflict, Lewis said. He was eventually ordered to leave Israel and returned to Florida after a stop in Jordan.
After spending some time in Florida, he decided he wanted to return to his work with Palestinians, and that's when he applied for the passport with false information.
Prosecutors agreed to recommend a light sentence on the passport charges, according to court documents. Hupper, who is in a Miami federal prison, was sentenced to serve a total of 24 months for those charges. His release date is set for November.
With the latest charges, Hupper faces more time in prison -- a maximum of 15 years -- and $250,000 in fines. But because he has admitted to his crime and pleaded guilty, it's likely he will be sentenced to about five years, Lewis said.
Unemployed machinist donates $20k to group working with Hamas...OK... But who are the non-profit and the NGO mentioned in the article? Who was he working with? Well that's where the International Solidarity Movement comes in.
You remember Paul Larudee, the "piano tuner"...oh, and also big-wig with the ISM? (He was also, BTW, one of the last people to speak [see Larudee comment] to Riad Hamad before his suicide.) Well he provides more information, courtesy of an exchange over an ISM email list. Looks like the ISM itself plays in here, and may be either an unindicted co-conspirator in the case, or -- dare we hope -- perhaps something more.
Larudee:
Attached is a proposed letter to send to mailing lists, which can also be adapted for email lists. It refers to information coming out of a case reported in the Leader Heights Daily Record, shown at the end of this message. Tom Nelson, the lawyer for ISM-Northern California and the Free Gaza Movement, has managed to get some additional info, including the fact that ISM is the "nonprofit agency" referenced in the article, and that at least one individual in ISM-Palestine has been named.
ISM-Palestine is doing its own research on this, and it is best if we do not ask them to report back to us until they are ready. It seems that the convicted individual, Richard David Hupper, may have joined ISM as a volunteer and been later asked to leave because his actions were inconsistent with ISM principles, but even that is uncertain. Nevertheless, it seems likely that the U.S. is considering action against ISM, probably with Israeli prodding.
The Free Gaza Movement suspects that this is the latest in a series of attempts (the fifth, to be precise) to thwart and discredit its project to send boats to Gaza. The objective would be to time the placement of ISM on the terrorism sponsor list at the time the boats sail, in order to discredit the effort. [As if the US government would take such a step just to stop their idiotic boats. -S]
Tom suggests that a good way for us to deal with this in the U.S. is to mobilize public pressure on Congress. Hence the attached letter, which has been drafted by him, Greta Berlin and myself. ISM-Northern California is having a Newsletter mailing session Wednesday evening, so I suggest we try to complete discussion of this in time to be able to send out the letters at that session.
List member Patrick Connors didn't think it was a good idea to talk about this:
...I really strongly request that none of this information not be shared any further at this point - the article, this draft letter, etc. - on listservs or with anyone else. And I think it was not a good idea for Paul to have sent this email. Sharing this information on lists about this sensitive information contradicts previous email discussions about holding off until we have more info, and I am troubled to see that people have taken unilateral actions on this nonetheless.
Again, people are gathering information on this at this point, and I request that everyone hold off on any actions or even on emailing on this sensitive topic, especially to email lists, until more information is collected...
Oops. Larudee disagrees:
This is not a unilateral action and in fact it's not an action at all. It's a proposal for action, which is being presented for consensus. Except for two items of information, it is all in the public domain, i.e. published in a newspaper. The remaining two items are that ISM was named, which is essential information that is likely to soon be public anyway, because it was given to me by a reporter, and that a person was named, which is about as vague as it is possible to get...
He clearly thinks ISM is at risk of being put on the terror sponsor list:
...we do not have the kind of information needed to refute allegations, so we shouldn't try to. However, we definitely want to have the opportunity to refute allegations before ISM is designated a terrorism sponsor, not after, and that is what the proposed letter and the campaign is intended to accomplish. All it asks is for ISM to be permitted to remain off the list until an investigation includes ISM testimony, which would include the kind of information that Pat wants to have. There's nothing controversial about this request, and our experience with members of Congress in the Bay Area is that they will not have a problem asking for this...
I frankly think it's a bit much to hope for, but you never know. Here is a PDF copy of the letter they circulated, note that the file name is theirs: ISM in grave danger.pdf
We await further developments. I have always felt that a case could be made for naming ISM as a terror sponsoring group, or whatever the legal term of art is, but questioned whether anyone in government felt it was worth bothering with. Hopefully, if it happens, they'll have all of their evidentiary ducks well in a row. Stay tuned.
Posted by Solomon at 7:38 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBacks
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NormanF,
The problem is that we have agreements with certain countries (like the US and Canada and just about every country in western Europe and recently Russia) that you don't need to get a visa in advance to come in here. So instead of an interview in a consulate in New York, you're trusting the police officers who man the immigration desks to try to deny these people visas - usually with dozens of people lined up behind them.
Unless someone is a known quantity (like Norman Finkelstein), there is no way they will be denied entry the first time they show up at the airport.
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