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.
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.
"[T]he Berkeley, [California] P.O. Box to which ISM supporters can send their tax-deductible donations matches that of the Middle East Children's Alliance, one of the organizations that the ISM had previously used to launder money ... The ISM's website tells anyone wishing to donate now to make checks payable to A.J. Muste Foundation in New York and [to] write ISM-USA in the corner, but [the website] directs [that] the checks be sent to the Middle East Children's Alliance for cashing."
