International Solidarity Movement (ISM) Tactics In Israel: Neither Non-Violence, Nor Justice Nor Peace

To shed light on the current controversy of Colonel Shalom Eisner and the Danish ISM activist, the Jewish Press has an article by Lee Kaplan, who writes: ISM Exposed: How the ISM Sucker-Punched the IDF Again, based on his personal experiences writing ISM and took their training program while under cover:

ISM activists pose with AK47s in Jericho alongside Al Aksa Martyrs
Brigade terrorists. 

I’ve spent the last eight years of my life as a journalist under cover and reporting on the inner workings of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), in the United States and abroad. I’ve been through their training orientations and I have their training manuals.  I operate a website where it lists the history, tactics, and media manipulations of the ISM and their leadership. I’ve also been responsible for the deportation of over 200 ISM activists from Israel, including some of their North American leadership.
At their orientation sessions in the US and UK in which I posed as an ISM volunteer, we were  instructed that our purpose was to harass the IDF in any way possible in order to frustrate their anti-terror operations. We were informed that the ISM coordinates with Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the PFLP, which were constantly apprised of our locations in the villages. If we encountered armed terrorists while in the West Bank or Gaza, we were told, simply say hello to them and move on, as they were keenly aware that we were there to assist them.

In a recorded interview at the Ohio State national conference, Adam Shapiro, a co-founder of the ISM, personally told me there are plain-clothed Palestinian handlers at every ISM demonstration that direct the activities. I was also told about how ISM activists serve to draw sniper fire down on IDF soldiers when desired. Lisa Nessan, one of those ISM trainers, told me at an ISM Georgetown conference that standing as a human shield in front of an armed terrorist as he threw rocks or shot at an Israeli soldier was indeed considered “nonviolent.” Joseph Carr, a.k.a. Joseph Smith, another ISM trainer, told me in a recorded phone interview how he and Rachel Corrie retrieved the dead body of a Hamas terrorist in Gaza from a combat zone only weeks before she was killed by an IDF bulldozer. When asked whether he feared arrest by the IDF back then he blithely replied ‘no’ because he knew that Arab snipers would be there to fire at them. Rachel Corrie, who was trained by the ISM and had read their manual, also knew that Arab snipers would shoot at the IDF soldiers driving that bulldozer had they exited it to remove her.

Read the whole thing.

At a time when such words as "human rights activist" and "peace protester" have been co-opted by groups whose goals are neither peaceful nor concerned with human rights, the provocations and attacks by ISM are not surprising.

Neither is it surprising that despite the revelations of the goals and methods of such anti-Israel groups that seek to demonize the State of Israel, ISM continues to maintain the halo effect that should be reserved for actual human rights groups and peaceful protesters.

Technorati Tag: Israel and International Solidarity Movement and ISM.