PrintThe International Solidarity Movement and its friends
The entire world woke up Sunday morning to news that a terror attack occurred at a hitchhiking / bus stop in the West Bank area of Gush Etzion. The victims of the attack were identified as Kinneret Mendel and Matat Rosenfeld—Adler, 21 and 23 year—old cousins from the settlement of Carmel, and Oz Ben Meir, 15, from the settlement of Ma'on, two young women, barely girls, and a teenage boy.
Israel has hitchhiking posts where young people can hitch rides in a country where not everyone owns a car. Three terrorists armed with machine guns drove up to the Gush Etzion hitchhiking post just south of Jerusalem and fired machine guns into the crowd, then fled. Another boy, a 14—year—old, was wounded during another attack shortly after, in the community of Eli, when he was shot in his chest and liver and left for dead. He was hospitalized in serious but stable condition.
Wagging tongues even in Israel were commenting on how terror attacks had restarted in the West Bank after the Gaza pullout, and some asked the valid question if these new attacks on Jews in the West Bank will mimic Palestinian actions in Gaza prior to the Disengagement. The PLO was given a waiver by the US State Department just one day earlier to keep their office open in Washington for another 180 days which poses the question if that was taken as a green light by the PLO to resume the killing.
But what has escaped most analysts' eyes is something else that is taking place here in the United States regarding PLO activities which also may point to the International Solidarity Movement's (ISM) involvement once again as a front for PLO terrorism while it poses as a 'peace movement' here in the United States.
Most terrorist attacks of late against Israelis have been carried out by Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants. Fatah, granted a waiver by the US State Department during the 'peace process,' has been relatively quiet. In order to not miss out on all the fun though, Fatah members created a new division of Fatah and changed the name to the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade.
Most Al Aksa terrorists have been Palestinian Authority policemen who were mainly employed through Fatah. Make no mistake about it: they are still Fatah and the name change is for the sake of Americans and Europeans who fund them while looking the other way. The Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade did not openly take credit for this attack on Israeli children, but Fatah did. According to Israel radio reporting on the killings, Shaul Goldstein, an eye—witness, said 'A Palestinian passed by in a car, let off a burst of fire, and struck down people standing at the hitchhiking post.' This sort of thing is classic realpolitik by Palestinian Arabs, and Fatah is still the ruling party in the Palestinian Authority.
Only two says earlier, beginning in New York, the ISM began a nationwide fundraising tour that is set to travel all over the US from New York, to the Midwest, the South and also most of California. Using ISM doublespeak by calling itself 'The Nonviolent Resistance Movement in Palestine: USA Speaking Tour,' they even now call themselves ISM—USA instead of just ISM for publicity purposes when announcing the tour and publicizing it.
One of the two speakers leading this fundraising tour is Yonathon (aka Jonathon) Pollak, a known Israeli anarchist and convicted criminal in Israel who has been arrested over 100 times for staging usually violent protests against Israel's security fence. Pollak is the leader of Israeli Anarchists Against the Wall. His own description of himself as an 'anarchist,' that is, someone who violently seeks to overthrow his own government even by terrorism, does not fit well with the term 'nonviolent' or 'peace activist.' His Palestinian counterpart is Ayed Morrar, a leader of the Committee Against the Wall in the West Bank. Morrar is billed as a 'nonviolent peace activist' but in reality is a convicted Fatah terrorist who served seven years in Israeli jails. And therein is the link to these renewed attacks in the West Bank and what the ISM is doing right now in the USA.
As I mentioned, Fatah has been relatively quiet. Yet as soon as this fundraising tour kicks off its first day here in the U.S., Fatah openly launches an attack that kills Israeli children in the West Bank. Such an attack puts the West Bank at the forefront of the American news media whose coverage of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict has been waning lately. And in doing so, Fatah increases attention and attendance at such fundraisers that helps to gain public attention and increased earnings each time such ISM events are staged here in America.
Speculation on my part, you say? Perhaps. But it's speculation based on understanding how the PLO operates by saying one thing and doing another and how the PLO uses the ISM, which has always boasted even on its own website that it is 'Palestinian—led' and that it must work in coordination with violent attacks on Israelis. One example of this same cynicism is how the ISM determined to add 'USA' in their new name during fundraisers here even after saying in internal emails such as the one Stop the ISM saw (below) that shows how ISM activists hate America:
Subject: Re: [ism—coordinators list] a suggestion: ISM—NA should
be ISM—USA ...
LOL, I can't imagine it would be any worse than
carrying the label of "American" in general at the
moment.Yesterday a Palestinian said to one of the
Bostonians there to pick olives that his religion
keeps him from killing her, after asking her if she
was an American.Lysander Puccio
wrote: you are right, Jaggi, I'm just not sure any of us
here could bear that tag. But let us see what we can do.
lysander— swallace (at) igc.org wrote:
Thank you Jaggi!
I agree that it is important what we do here in
Palestine—but it is only part of our work—our
on—going and crucial work—which should include CD—is back
"home" in the States (which is only one part of las
americas).Thank you for your words....
Sharon Wallace
Now in Palestine
—————Original Message—————
From: Jaggi Singh
Sent: Oct 15, 2004 8:55 AM
To: ism—coordination (at) lists.riseup.net
Subject: [ism—coordinators list] a suggestion: ISM—NA should
be ISM—USA ...
Hi there —— Just a friendly suggestion for your discussions at Duke ... I don't think you should be referring to ISM North
America (ISM—NA) but rather to ISM United States (ISM—USA) (or ISM—U$A, if you prefer).
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think any Canadian or Quebec—based ISM groups are part of the discussions around
re—structuring. Moreover, the existence of a distinct ISM—USA makes a lot of sense, since the strategy and tactics in the belly of the beast will be different than those employed by those of us who live beside you (in the "appendix of the beast," if you like).I do think that there should be good communication between all ISM groups in North America. And this list is one way we can do so. Moreover, there are opportunities for
collaboration continentally (speaking tours, urgent actions, joint fundraising, etc). But in terms of structure, there is not an ISM—NA, but rather a ISM—USA and ISM Canada (we even have a website at www.ismcanada.org).
You all in the United States have a particular obligation to take on your own government, because without USA support political, economic, military, cultural —— Israel could not maintain occupation. Direct action in the USA IS direct action against Israel. The scope for action and civil disobedience in the United States, in solidarity with Palestine, is tremendous. In my mind, it's a direct hit against occupation, as much as funding people to go to Palestine itself to do civil disobedience. Moreover, the Christian Evangelical movement in the USA is such a key target, and a powerful lobby of support for not just occupation, but all out ethnic cleansing of Arabs from all of historical Palestine. The Christian Evangelical leaders and organizations should be confronted as well, as the bigots and racists that they are.Certainly, in Canada, we have our obligations too, and
there are many disturbing tendencies as well. But, while our
government is complicit with Israel in occupation, there is still a more open political culture here around Mideast issues (relatively speaking).During the recent UN vote on the apartheid wall,
the USA voted with Israel as per usual, while Canada abstained. These votes reflect the various challenges we face in our respective settler states, and I suggest the structure of ISM in North America should reflect this, while we strive to communicate and collaborate effectively.
Have a good meeting at Duke.
In struggle and solidarity,
Jaggi (ISM—Montreal)
Stop the ISM sent one of our team members to attend the first 'ISM—USA fundraiser' like this in New York, cynically held last week in a Christian church whose elders believed they were hosting a 'peace' group. One thing of note was that donations at the event were only accepted in cash—no checks. No receipts were furnished to donors either. There's a reason for that: no records. As usual, an anarchist like Pollak screens a film with staged scenes of Israeli atrocities against innocent Palestinian 'peacefully protesting the Wall.' Give them money to continue their struggle they ask.
Of course, the film excerpts do not show these 'peaceful' activists setting tires on fire and rolling them at Israeli soldiers, or shooting rocks with slingshots at them that have already killed and maimed, nor of providing cover for the terrorists who may shoot at the soldiers. This happens every Friday after incitement occurs in the local mosque led by imams the Palestinian Authority chooses and supervises and who are financed by the Saudis (Yes! Just like in American mosques!). Those religious leaders always advocate the local populace to violence spurred on in the community by ISM internationals and other anarchists like Pollak. They are supervised in turn by plainclothes organizers from Fatah.
Another example of Palestinian 'nonviolence.'
The ISM website now takes donations and will accept checks made out to ISM—USA but also made out to the Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA), a funding source we showed a few weeks ago that violates US tax laws regarding its nonprofit handling of charitable donations.
Israel just did a voluntary withdrawal from Gaza that uprooted 8,500 of its people. It left behind intact 14 million dollars worth of greenhouses that would have provided 32,000 jobs for Palestinians, but a good part of that was vandalized and destroyed right in front of Palestinian police. So why would any faction of the PLO like Fatah, the main negotiating arm with an office in Washington, not only participate in the Gush Etzion attack let alone take open credit for it? We at Stop the ISM believe it is to draw media attention to the West Bank and Gaza in coordination with this latest ISM fundraising tour featuring a Fatah terrorist, now called a 'peace activist.'
David Baker, an official in the Israel Prime Minister's Office, denounced the shooting by pointing out that "As part of a series of humanitarian gestures, Israel removed roadblocks and eased up on the Palestinians." In an interview in Ha'aretz he continued, "The Palestinians have nonetheless exploited these measures, which has led to these murderous attacks."
Predictably, the Israelis have reinstituted roadblocks and even closed the tunnel road to Jerusalem. And what better timing could there be for a fundraising tour in the United States at US churches where speakers like Pollak and Morrar can complain about such roadblocks and restrictions such as a Security Barrier to keep terrorists out of Israel preventing attacks on more Israeli children? Talk about ISM doublespeak: Introducing Ayed Morrar, a convicted Fatah terrorist who served seven years in prison in Israel and who belonged to the Aksa Martyrs Brigade forerunner, the Fatah general command, as far back as 1988, as a 'peace activist' leader of the Popular Committee Against the Wall in the Arab village of Budrus is the most cynical of semantic manipulations possible.
The fundraising tour also says 'peace' will come about when Israel ends its security measures and becomes Palestine with an Arab majority ruling over the Jews. So what better way to gain attention for the tour's goals than to murder some children and make the international news? If roadblocks and restrictions are not as severe, how can cash funds be raised as easily to send back home?
Look for more attacks in the West Bank as this tour makes its way across America gathering cash to bring back to the West Bank for use by Fatah or Hamas which is also steadily making inroads into the Palestinians' government. If this tour comes to a Church in a community near you, alert the church elders. In some instances they will be unaware of what the ISM really does for the PLO. Organize protests at such ISM fundraising events in your area to protest the collecting of money to renew terrorist attacks on the people of Israel and write the DHS and ask them why a convicted terrorist like Morrar is even allowed in the United States by our immigration officials so he can raise money that can be used for terrorist enterprises.
If you'd like to volunteer to help Stop the ISM, email us at stoptheISM@att.net .
