The truth about ISM

The International Solidarity Movement likes to present itself as a champion of non-violence and peaceful resistance, but in fact it takes pride in serving as a human shield for terrorists. It's a shame that even Israel's media have fallen for this ruse – just like Rachel Corrie did.

Dror Eydar

The family of Rachel Corrie, who was crushed by an army bulldozer during a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Gaza in 2003, filed a civil suit against the State of Israel for their daughter's death. This week, the Haifa District Court ruled that the state was not to blame.

“Corrie could have moved away from the danger easily, but she chose to endanger herself ... The purpose of the bulldozer’s work was saving lives," wrote Judge Oded Gershon. "The incident occurred at the height of an armed conflict between Israel and terrorist groups. The bulldozers were being used to prevent explosives from being planted on the road; they did not damage Palestinian homes in the area.”

Unlike the collaborators whose knee-jerk response was to describe Corrie as a peace activist and mention only the innocent-sounding name of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) without elaborating, here are some facts of the case, most of which can be found on the NGO Monitor’s excellent website.

The ISM portrays itself as advocating non-violence, human rights, respect for international law and United Nations resolutions, and as striving for a “just peace.” But study of its documents and the statements made by its high-ranking officials shows that the organization’s ideology is in fact anti-Israel and anti-Zionist, and has adopted the Palestinians’ most radical demands. Not only does the ISM negate the policies of Israeli governments (which amounts to “Israeli apartheid in Palestine” as it calls it), but also Israel’s very existence as the Jewish homeland. Statements by ISM officials emphasize implementing the “right of return” for Palestinian refugees to Israel, rejection of the Oslo Accords, and never even mention the two-state solution. However, the ISM keeps its positions vague so that it can appeal to the largest common denominator of human rights and peace activists, including Jews – most of whom, surprisingly enough, do not deny Israel’s right to exist, but merely oppose its policies.

In its internal documents, the ISM seemingly justified the Palestinian armed struggle against Israel, even at the height of the suicide terrorist attacks. Its activists gave refuge to a jihadi operative who had been involved in suicide bombings, shooting attacks and planting explosives.

They interfered with the Israel Defense Forces’ preventative operations (such as the incident in which Corrie was killed); at one point obstructing the bombing of an explosives laboratory that produced bombs used in suicide attacks.

The ISM’s activities include participation in Palestinian demonstrations and acts of protest; stationing activists as human shields to protect wanted terrorists; deploying its activists near IDF checkpoints and throughout Judea and Samaria; providing financial, logistical and moral assistance to Palestinians, including terrorists and their families; interfering with the demolition or sealing of the homes of terrorists who have carried out suicide attacks that have claimed many victims; and holding marches along the security fence and from Jenin to Jerusalem.

 

As part of these tactics, the ISM took pride in two particular acts on its website: stationing activists as human shields to protect the terrorists who took over the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, and doing the same thing at the Ramallah headquarters of then-Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat (in April 2002, during Operation Defensive Shield).

Four high-ranking ISM officials are among the founders of the international pro-Hamas coalition known as the Free Gaza Movement (FGM). It was FGM that organized the flotillas, with the declared purpose of running the blockade, strengthening Hamas and expanding the delegitimization of Israel. Yes, the ISM was among those responsible for the Mavi Marmara flotilla, and even though (or perhaps because) people were killed and wounded in the flotilla, they saw the operation as a success. 

As stated above, one of the ISM’s tactics is direct confrontation with representatives of the government or the military, such as the provocation that brought down Col. Shalom Eisner earlier this year and the incident involving Rachel Corrie. Corrie was killed in a closed military zone while interfering with a vital military operation against terror attacks coming out of Gaza. The ISM, then, sent Corrie into a confrontation that put her life in danger. But rather than sue the ISM for having lured their naïve child under false pretenses and enticing her into solidarity with terrorists, her parents chose to sue Israel.

At the same time that they brought their suit and even before the ruling was handed down, the Rachel Corrie Foundation worked to delegitimize the Israeli legal system. A call to join the anti-Israel BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) movement has pride of place on its website.

That is the legacy of Rachel Corrie. Unfortunately for all of us, Rachel Corrie was not a peace activist, nor was she simply a left-wing activist. She was used as a pawn in the western jihad against the Jewish state.

The ISM assigns great importance to media coverage of its anti-Israel activity. Some elements of the Israeli media are won over by the false propaganda, while others fall into the trap of ignorance. The day after the ruling was handed down, the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth ran an innocent-looking article about Rachel Corrie’s parents, who never questioned their daughter’s membership in such a radical anti-Israel group. The ISM can tick off Yedioth Ahronoth. As far as Haaretz is concerned, they hardly had to do a thing, since the ruling was “a sad day for justice and human rights,” as a front-page headline read.

 

We have already discussed how among the radical Left, the term “human rights” has been twisted and corrupted to mean “the rights of anyone who is not a Jew.” Only Jews have no right to protect the lives of their citizens, to say nothing of the right to having a state of their own in the world.

The covenant of the written word

A debate is taking place in Germany over the legitimacy of the ancient Jewish custom of circumcision. What historical, even macabre, irony. Tell the Christians in Germany that their messiah, too, underwent a completely valid circumcision. The Jews caused a fuss, and even Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger and President Shimon Peres volunteered to tell the Germans a thing or two about freedom of religion. 

And I ask: What are Jews doing in Germany? In the name of all the generations and the memories, why have the Jews lost their memory and self-respect and chosen to put down roots in the country that announced the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question?” Dear Jews, Germany is not your home and never will be. Come home.

But here, too, a few militants have chosen to side with the enlightened Germans. Writer Eyal Meged penned an article in Haaretz that called upon the president of Israel to do as the Germans are doing and “ask us to reconsider the sacrifice of every Jewish male on the altar of the mohalim [ritual circumcisers].” Oh, those enlightened people. They’re so enlightened that they sit in the darkness of self-importance, pouring scorn on the natives who hold to the tradition of their ancestors and bring their sons into the covenant of our forefather Abraham.

No, Meged, this is not some narrow-minded religious custom. It is not some whim of the rabbis, nor is it something made up by a Shas "commissar.” It is the first of our national traditions – the covenant that constitutes entry into the Jewish people. The covenant of the flesh, carried out precisely upon the reproductive organ. Responsibility and commitment not only toward the continuity of the Jewish people, but responsibility in sexual matters as well. And from the covenant of the organ of procreation, we move to the covenant of the written and spoken word. The fact that the Hebrew word for “circumcision,” milah, is identical to the Hebrew word for “word” makes us aware of our responsibility toward words as the creators of worlds. After all, we are the People of the Book, whose tradition connects flesh and spirit.

The words of a writer who does not understand the vital importance of commitment to his people’s tradition, who shakes his head in wonder at the extremely high rate of its observance among all parts of the nation (about 98 percent!), a writer estranged from the covenant of circumcision – the words in such a writer’s book will blow away like dust in the wind, without leaving a trace on the cultural memory of his people.