Radical, anti-Israel organization that recruits westerners to travel to Israel to obstruct Israeli security operations

Justifies Palestinian terrorism against Israeli civilians


The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) was founded in August 2001 by Adam Shapiro, Huwaida Arraf; Ghassan Andoni, and George Rishmawi. The organization describes itself as "a Palestinian-led movement committed to resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land using nonviolent, direct-action methods and principles."

ISM's activities fall under three major categories, which the organization describes as follows:

Direct Action: "challenging crippling checkpoints and curfew, confronting tanks and demolition equipment, removing roadblocks, participating in nonviolent demonstrations, accompanying farmers to their fields and protecting families whose homes are threatened with demolition"

Emergency Mobilization: "escorting ambulances through checkpoints, delivering food and water to families under curfew or house arrest, assisting the injured or disabled to access medical care and walking children to school"

Documentation: "documenting and reporting to local and international media about the daily life under occupation and the countless human rights and international law violations by the Israeli military"

Though professing, as noted above, a commitment to nonviolence, ISM members openly advocate the "liberation" of Palestinians "by any means necessary," including "legitimate armed struggle."

Led by Palestinians working closely with American recruiters, ISM invites American volunteers to travel to the Palestinian territories and disrupt the actions of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), which is engaged in anti-terror operations in the region. ISM maintains a continual, low-level presence in the territories year-round, punctuated by occasional large, episodic campaigns. At various times, ISM members have temporarily taken over Israeli military checkpoints, interfered with the arrests of Palestinians charged with terrorism, and attempted to prevent the destruction of Palestinian homes containing subterranean tunnels for weapons smuggling.

Among ISM's most well known members was the late Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old volunteer who, in March 2003, was crushed beneath a bulldozer in Rafah when its operator failed to see her trying to block the destruction of a tunnel through which Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists were receiving smuggled weapons.

ISM is an uncompromising supporter of the Palestinian "right of return" not only for the few remaining survivors who were among the 725,000 Palestinians who fled Israel during the 1948 war (when eight Arab armies attacked Israel on the very day of its creation), but also for all their descendants born since 1948. Thus ISM places the number of refugees who should be permitted to "return" to Israel at approximately 6 million.

ISM also opposes what it dubs "Israel's Apartheid Wall," the recently constructed anti-terror barrier bordering the West Bank. According to ISM, this wall is an affront to Palestinian dignity and a violation of their human rights. As of July 2004, one of the ISM officials leading the protests against the security barrier was Hisham Jam Joun, a veteran of the Marxist-Leninist terror group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

The Chicago chapter of ISM has endorsed the "Declaration Regarding Caterpillar Violations of Human Rights," a document that impugns the U.S.-based Caterpillar Corporation for selling its machinery to the Israeli army, which in turn uses that equipment to demolish Palestinian terrorists' homes and bases of operation. This Declaration characterizes the Israeli actions as malicious and unprovoked acts of indiscriminate destruction that constitute "grave abuses of human rights and humanitarian law."

In the wake of two April 29, 2003 suicide bombings in an Israeli bar that killed three people and wounded more than 50, Israeli officials discovered that the bombers, both British nationals, had met with ISM leaders just prior to carrying out their deed -- though there is no evidence that the ISM representatibves were aware of the pair's intentions at the time. This incident prompted the Israeli government in June 2003 to formally accuse ISM of maintaining ties with Palestinian terrorism. "For us," said the Foreign Ministry's Information Chief Gideon Meir, "that was the turning point. Defying army bulldozers was one thing; providing cover for suicide bombers to slip into the country quite another."

Israeli officials immediately announced that all foreign nationals seeking to enter Gaza would thenceforth be required to sign a form swearing they were not members of ISM, and absolving Israel of responsibility should they be killed or injured in what the army defined as a "war zone." To this day, ISM remains the only organization specifically mentioned on the waiver form. "We have nothing against the internationals," says a senior IDF officer. "But, as far as we are concerned, ISM is not an international organization or a peace organization. It's a pro-Palestinian organization, set up by Palestinians, funded by Palestinians and linked to Palestinian terror."

ISM also lobbies for the release of Marwan Barghouti — an Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades leader who was captured by Israel in April 2002 and was charged with terrorism and the murders of 26 people. Ultimately he was convicted of five counts of murder, each carrying a sentence of life in prison.

In addition, ISM raises funds for the Palestine Children's Welfare Fund and the Palestine Children's Relief Fund.

A member organization of the United for Peace and Justice anti-war coalition, in the post-9/11 era ISM has taken a stand against the U.S. war on terror, the Patriot Act, and the American military incursions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

BIRDS OF A FEATHER ENABLE MURDERERS TOGETHER:

ADAM SHAPIRO AND HUWAIDA ARRAF

Both of these leaders of the ISM deserve each other as two of the most disgusting human beings who would condone murder while claiming they are "peace activists."

ADAM SHAPIRO

The scion of dyed-in-the-wool Stalinist parents from the period of the ComIntern, Adam was raised on a steady diet of Israel hatred at home. He says he no longer considers himself a Jew, but will gladly represent himself as one if it will help him to destroy Israel. He is:

Co-founder of International Solidarity Movement

"Palestinian resistance must take on a variety of characteristics, both violent and non-violent."


Adam Shapiro is the co-founder of, and the most visible American figure in, the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). The ISM is a pro-Hamas group that recognizes the Palestinians' right to what it calls "armed struggle" in the form of suicide bombings targeting Israeli civilians. The ISM invites Americans and Europeans to come to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank to disrupt the anti-terrorist efforts of the Israeli Defense Force. Shapiro, a Brooklyn-born Jew, is infamous for having visited and acted as a human shield for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat while Arafat's Ramallah compound was surrounded by the Israeli Defense Force in April 2002. This occurred in the aftermath of a Palestinian massacre of 30 Israelis - some of them Holocaust survivors - at a Passover seder shortly after the Intifada was launched.

In November of 2003, Shapiro took part in the Third Annual National Student Conference On Palestine Solidarity, where terrorist acts were publicly defended; the event was held at Ohio State University. Shapiro is credited with saying, "Palestinian resistance must take on a variety of characteristics, both violent and nonviolent." As reported in the Palestine Chronicle: ("Why Nonviolent Resistance is Important for the Palestinian Intifada: A Response to Ramzy Baroud" By Huwaida Arraf and Adam Shapiro):

"In actuality, nonviolence is not enough. Rather, what is needed is nonviolent direct action against the occupation." "The Palestinian resistance must take on a variety of characteristics— both nonviolent and violent. But most importantly it must develop a strategy involving both aspects. No other successful nonviolent movement was able to achieve what it did without a concurrent violent movement. In India militants attacked British outposts and interests while Gandhi conducted his campaign, while the Black Panther Movement and its earlier incarnations existed side-by-side with the Civil Rights Movement in the United States."



As shown below, Shapiro is on record as condoning terrorist attacks on civilians:

 http://home.comcast.net/~jat.action/ISM_essay_ref12.html


"Nevertheless, he [Shapiro] justifies the Palestinian armed resistance against Israel as long as it is targeting Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Otherwise, he is not in favor of suicide bombings." (Settlers are civilians so he is advocating the suicide bombing of civilians. Furthermore, even soldiers are legitimate targets only for other soldiers and partisans who carry their weapons openly and wear uniforms or badges "distinguishable at a distance," so he is justifying the commission of war crimes.)

Shapiro, who wishes to see Israel destroyed, candidly states that he does not consider himself a Jew. He and his wife, Palestinian-American activist Huwaida Arraf, have become the spokespeople for the ISM in the United States. 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" and "legitimate armed struggle" while claiming that they are nonviolent. The ISM uses as its motto "by any means necessary."

read more about Adam Shapiro at :

 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1666


 http://toogoodreports.com/column/general/stix/20020414-fss.html



HUWAIDA "HEIDI" ARRAF

Co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) with Adam Shapiro (her husband), Ghassan Andoni, and George Rishmawi
A key ISM coordinator and spokesperson who publicly invokes the names of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi to American audiences, while privately endorsing and assisting Palestinian terrorists in their anti-Israeli endeavors
Based in Ramallah, where she controls propaganda media reports for the ISM and organizes demonstrations around the West Bank in support of Palestinian terrorist groups
Frequently lectures and recruits in the United States at fundraisers and at anti-Semitic, anti-Israel conclaves



Born in Detroit to Arab Christian parents, Huwaida Arraf is a co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) with Adam Shapiro (her husband), Ghassan Andoni, and George Rishmawi. The eldest of five children, Arraf in 1998 graduated from the University of Michigan, where she was active in anti-Israel politics. Her father works for General Motors and was born in Galilee; her mother, a nurse, hails from the village of Beit Sahour near Jerusalem.

Functioning as a spokeswoman for the ISM, Arraf clears most ISM communications personally through the organization's media office; she frequently leads demonstrations in the West Bank and addresses anti-Israel audiences in the United States on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). During her visits to the U.S., she also recruits people to go to the West Bank as ISM "internationals" to interfere with the anti-terrorist activities of the Israeli army.

Arraf instructs other ISM activists in the delicate art of conveying to the American media false images of the ISM as a "nonviolent" organization of "peace activists " concerned with "human rights." When appearing in the United States, Arraf portrays herself as a champion of peace, invariably extolling the virtues of nonviolent resistance as practiced by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi. The use of such imagery has even gained her the opportunity to address members of Congress in the U.S. Capitol.

Away from Western cameras and microphones, however, Arraf has stated that suicide bombings are a "noble" means of "legitimate resistance" to what she deems Israeli oppression. She has stated (along with her husband, Adam Shapiro) that the Palestinian "resistance movement" must be violent if it is to be effective. Toward that end, ISM activists frequently serve as human shields for armed Palestinian terrorists; many act as couriers for terrorists, smuggling explosives and bomb-making materials into Israel for the PLO. Among the lessons these activists learn from Arraf and other ISM leaders are strategies for slipping past Israeli security authorities in Israel and the West Bank to aid or provide cover for terrorist groups.

At the Fourth Annual National Student Palestine Solidarity Conference at Duke University, Arraf was recorded telling a seminar of potential recruits that the ISM works willingly with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front For The Liberation of Palestine, all designated as terrorist groups by the U.S. State Department. On another occasion, she held a seminar on how people could use the Israel Birthright program under false pretenses in order to procure free airplane tickets to Israel, where they could work with the ISM.

Arraf counsels her fellow ISM activists to use disingenuous rhetoric of "nonviolence" as a means of masking the group's true intentions when speaking publicly. ISM training manuals teach volunteers, in language cleared by Arraf personally, how to lie and deceive most effectively: "Instead of HUMAN SHIELDS, we refer to ourselves as INTERNATIONAL PEACE ACTIVISTS or PEACE ACTIVISTS/WORKERS…When possible say ETHNIC CLEANSING. This can be used to refer to the expulsion of Palestinians from historic Palestine in 1948 as well as the current situation."

In a January 29, 2002 piece in the Palestinian Authority's mouthpiece, the Palestine Chronicle, Arraf and Shapiro spoke out in favor of a Palestinian "right to resist with arms." They also advocated in favor of using the nonviolent "methods of Ghandi or Martin Luther King, Jr." - not because they deemed such methods preferable to violent ones, but rather as a means of winning public support. "[T]hose who maintain nonviolence and exploit the use of violence by the oppressor maintain control and power," they wrote, "which is something that can be manipulated to present a story, a case or an image."

Arraf was one of the ISM participants who slipped past Israeli security forces into Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity in 2002 to bring supplies to, and act as human shields for, Palestinian terrorists who were holding the clergy and staff as hostages inside. While in the church, the ISM members did nothing to stop the terrorists from desecrating holy shrines and terrorizing the captives.


Co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) with Adam Shapiro (her husband), Ghassan Andoni, and George Rishmawi
A key ISM coordinator and spokesperson who publicly invokes the names of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi to American audiences, while privately endorsing and assisting Palestinian terrorists in their anti-Israeli endeavors
Based in Ramallah, where she controls propaganda media reports for the ISM and organizes demonstrations around the West Bank in support of Palestinian terrorist groups
Frequently lectures and recruits in the United States at fundraisers and at anti-Semitic, anti-Israel conclaves

Arraf instructs other ISM activists in the delicate art of conveying to the American media false images of the ISM as a "nonviolent" organization of "peace activists " concerned with "human rights." When appearing in the United States, Arraf portrays herself as a champion of peace, invariably extolling the virtues of nonviolent resistance as practiced by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi. The use of such imagery has even gained her the opportunity to address members of Congress in the U.S. Capitol.

Away from Western cameras and microphones, however, Arraf has stated that suicide bombings are a "noble" means of "legitimate resistance" to what she deems Israeli oppression. She has stated (along with her husband, Adam Shapiro) that the Palestinian "resistance movement" must be violent if it is to be effective. Toward that end, ISM activists frequently serve as human shields for armed Palestinian terrorists; many act as couriers for terrorists, smuggling explosives and bomb-making materials into Israel for the PLO. Among the lessons these activists learn from Arraf and other ISM leaders are strategies for slipping past Israeli security authorities in Israel and the West Bank to aid or provide cover for terrorist groups.

At the Fourth Annual National Student Palestine Solidarity Conference at Duke University, Arraf was recorded telling a seminar of potential recruits that the ISM works willingly with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front For The Liberation of Palestine, all designated as terrorist groups by the U.S. State Department. On another occasion, she held a seminar on how people could use the Israel Birthright program under false pretenses in order to procure free airplane tickets to Israel, where they could work with the ISM.

More on Huwaida Arraf:

 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/Articles/arraf25.html

 http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=9564

 http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=14063

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,966226,00.html

 http://elitzur.blogspot.com/2002_10_06_elitzur_archive.html

Update 17 February 2006: Huwaida Arraf confirms that the International Solidarity Movement works with terrorists

By Bill Levinson (excerpt from IsraPundit article, used by permission)

The following letter to the editor appeared in today’s Washington Post:

Eric Adler and Jack Langer disparaged the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a movement that I co-founded in the spring of 2001 in the occupied territories of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem to help draw attention to the human rights abuses suffered by Palestinians as a result of Israel’s occupation. The ISM also is a resource for Palestinian nonviolent resistance to the occupation. The ISM believes that average civilians can bring about change, and it tries to unite Palestinians, Israelis and other people in nonviolent resistance to Israel’s occupation policies.

When I “acknowledged” that the ISM “cooperates with Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine,” I was offering concrete examples of the ways in which these groups were engaging in nonviolent resistance.

Both the ISM and the Palestine Solidarity Movement advocate nonviolent resistance to Israel’s human rights abuses — the ISM through organized action in the occupied territories and the PSM by promoting international divestment from companies that profit from occupation.

HUWAIDA ARRAF
Washington

This is ample confirmation that Aaron Klein’s “Duke hosts terrorist-harboring group: University hosts organization that supports violent jihad operations” contains more than just hearsay evidence of ISM’s collaboration with terrorists (as defined by U.S. law).

Arraf also told students the ISM “happily works with Hamas and Islamic Jihad,” said one Conservative Union member who attended the talk.

The fact that the collaboration is nonviolent may not matter, as U.S. law prohibits any material support (other than medical supplies and religious items) to Foreign Terrorist Organizations. [Not legal advice, we are not lawyers] In any event, Georgetown University, which is hosting the Palestine Solidarity Movement’s conference this weekend, has been provided with a copy of Ms. Arraf’s letter. The copy has been sent to President John DeGioia, Dr. Daniel Porterfield of the Communications office, his assistant Dr. Smulson, and to head of Student Affairs Dr. Todd Olson, as well as to the Georgetown Hoya and the Bill O’Reilly Show.

Furthermore, Ms. Arraf is dealing in taqqiya (speaking with forked tongue, telling half-truths) when she says,

Both the ISM and the Palestine Solidarity Movement advocate nonviolent resistance to Israel’s human rights abuses — the ISM through organized action in the occupied territories and the PSM by promoting international divestment from companies that profit from occupation.

This may be true but this is not all she advocates, as shown here.

Two of the ISM’s leaders, Adam Shapiro and Huwaida Arraf, defended the use of violence against Israelis in a January 2002 article in the Palestine Chronicle:

“In actuality, nonviolence is not enough. Rather, what is needed is nonviolent direct action against the occupation.” “The Palestinian resistance must take on a variety of characteristics— both nonviolent and violent. But most importantly it must develop a strategy involving both aspects. No other successful nonviolent movement was able to achieve what it did without a concurrent violent movement. In India militants attacked British outposts and interests while Gandhi conducted his campaign, while the Black Panther Movement and its earlier incarnations existed side-by-side with the Civil Rights Movement in the United States.”

 http://home.comcast.net/~jat.action/ISM_essay_ref12.html
“Nevertheless, he [Adam Shapiro, Arraf’s husband] justifies the Palestinian armed resistance against Israel as long as it is targeting Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Otherwise, he is not in favor of suicide bombings.”

"Settlers," an inaccurate term for Jewish communities, are civilians so he is advocating the suicide bombing of civilians. Furthermore, even soldiers are legitimate targets only for other soldiers and partisans who carry their weapons openly and wear uniforms or badges “distinguishable at a distance.”

The people of Palestine don't need a group of conflict tourists who combine hatred of Jews with a patronizing, "we know best" attitude to Arabs to claim to speak for them.

The ISM is probably responsible for more problems in the region than even Hamas.

A fund raiser for this appalling organisation is an insult to their brave Palestinian people and their fight for justice.

I say - comments which point out that the ISM is a corrupt, venal, exploitative organisation with a dubious past ?

Well they won't last long ! While I'm prepared to bet all the money in my pocket that the original post is allowed to remain on the newswire despite it being an advert and as such in breach of the editorial guidelines.

Shall we say the comments are all hidden in about 20 minutes as soon as Roy Bard logs on ?

There you go, original post allowed to stay, comments pointing out where the money will be going quickly hidden.

Censorship is killing Indymedia.