Op-Ed: Another Angle to the Shalom Eisner Affair: A Knife

ISM activists in training sessions are taught to lie and stage provocations “by any means necessary” to achieve their goals. The writer's careful study of the video shows that one of them had a knife and another lied to the media. Lee Kaplan

A still photograph of the moments when Lieutenant Colonel Shalom Eisner was involved in striking Danish ISM activist Andreas Ayas reveals one of the ISM activists with Ayas had a knife which he could have pulled on Eisner. In addition to this, Ayas has been caught in a lie. In an interview after the event, Ayas claims after being struck by Eisner that he was removed to an ambulance. According to an interview on Channel 2 Ayas said, ““We were stopped by the Israeli army at Road 90. This road is in ‘Area C’ and they say that we have no permission to be there, so we stopped our bike ride. The Israeli army blocked our way, so we waited for half an hour and then we decided to try to walk peacefully toward the soldiers and try to pass them… they reacted immediately with brutal violence. A soldier punched me in my face with his M-16 rifle; I fell to the ground and was carried away from the scene, into the ambulance.” But at :26-:27 of the original selectively edited video that condemned Eisner it clearly shows that Ayas returned again with the other demonstrators after being struck and that he flees from the soldiers this time again thanks to Eisner’s physically enforced compliance actions: Screen shot: Anders Ayas returned again to the riot where he was caught in closeup at 26 seconds into video, his cut lip showing. We actually can see Ayas’s face right up near the camera lens. This shows that even after being dispersed once with a smack to the mouth, Ayas returned to the skirmish line again to make trouble. There were multiple violations and repeated attacks on the soldiers. The close shot of Ayas’ face as he passes in front of the camera lense at 26 seconds shows he only suffered only a minor injury of a cut lip and shows no other serious injuries since he was still rioting. Ayas clearly lied to Channel 2 about events that day. Immediately after the Lt. Colonel struck Ayas in that original video, we see Shalom Eisner attempt to arrest another ISM demonstrator who is wearing a baseball cap, but Eisner is unable to hold him with both hands due to his fingers having been broken earlier in a melee staged by the ISM activists. Eisner claims Ayas broke his fingers earlier with a stick. The man with the baseball cap is partially detained by Eisner but then a very tall ISM activist in a white T shirt interferes and grabs the man with baseball cap away from the soldiers who shout “Hey! Hey!” and helps him to escape. The interloper is then arrested by other soldiers instead of the man with the baseball cap as Eisner, disabled due to his injured hand watches from the sideline. ISM activists are trained to grab arrestees away from soldiers and police to help them escape. The film was clearly edited to hide things and certain angles do not show everything, but a blowup photo of the actions between Eisner and the baseball-cap-wearing man from a reverse angle reveal the man with the baseball cap had a knife—a deadly weapon: In that original two minute video distributed by the ISM, in the beginning Eisner is facing three ISM activists, one being Ayas another being the man with the baseball cap. He forms a line they are not to cross by using his weapon. In conforming to ISM anarchist training tactics, the man with the baseball cap breaks the imaginary line and walks behind Eisner as Ayas then confronts Eisner.I SM activists in training sessions are taught to lie and stage provocations “by any means necessary” to achieve the goals of the Palestinian revolution. The expression, coined by the late Malcolm X, is meant to mean use of violence and lies to achieve political ends. ISM activists that day were well-trained and Ayas had been to Israel more than once with ISM so had considerable training himself. American police officers when faced with an assailant who has a knife are trained to empty their weapons at the assailant to protect themselves. In the video we see Eisner try and detain the man with the baseball cap with our view only of the man’s back just before he struggles with Eisner and manages to escape by being pulled away by the white- T-shirted ISM activist who was arrested for interfering. Defense Minister Barak was away in South America when he saw the edited video and would have been unaware of these things. Prime Minister Netanyahu was also shown the doctored video which made the rounds of leftist Israeli media sites that only enhanced the ISM’s propaganda ploy. Neither of them would have seen the knife. Both political leaders shot from the hip in an attempt to placate the Danish ambassador in order to avoid an international incident. But clearly, Ayas was a well-trained agent provocateur and was working with another ISM provocateur armed at the scene with a deadly weapon who also surrounded and faced off Shalom Eisner. As this information emerges, it should be plain to anyone of common sense, especially the military brass of the IDF: Lt. Colonel Eisner was not dealing with misguided peace activists but with well-trained anarchists whose goal was to violently provoke an incident with the IDF for media purposes. Eisner reacted professionally under the circumstances and would have been within his rights to shoot any of these ISM anarchists. At issue also are some other people found in the outtakes provided by the ISM that nobody in the press has noticed. At the beginning, an unidentified male hits one of the soldiers with the wheel of his bicycle as they try to break the line in true ISM anarchist fashion. Eisner is to the right. At 2:28 we see two keffiyah-clad EU ISM women, one a blonde and the other a brunette with a white baseball cap and red shirt. Before Ayas was struck, Eisner pushed both women down off their bicycles to the ground in that video as they attempted to crash the soldiers’ line with their bicycles. Despite this, these two women came back three more times to physically crash the line again even after Ayas was laid low. One woman may have an English accent and can be seen rubbing her cheek on the roadside after the crash was rebuffed and both women are led away by a Palestinian handler. Who are they and why aren’t they being deported? A gross miscarriage of justice has occurred in the Shalom Eisner case, and this IDF hero clearly should be reinstated to his previous position in the IDF. The next question remaining is whether Anders Ayas has since been deported to Denmark by the Interior Ministry as well as the demonstrator with the baseball cap and knife and the other ISM activist who helped him escape. In addition, these last two female ISM activists should be identified by the Shin Bet, interrogated and deported immediately. To allow any ISM activists to stay in Israel after facing down an IDF officer, breaking his fingers then threatening him and the other soldiers with a knife is inexcusable. The People of Israel deserve an explanation from the government about what they are doing and why. Government officials and the IDF brass should admit they made a mistake - it will only add to their honor - and exonerate Lieutenant Eisner immediately.