The International Solidarity Movement: Champions of Peace?

[Note: Much has been written about the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), and much of it has been dismissed as merely rumors. The following report shows the true nature of the ISM in its own words and in well-documented incidents. I want to express gratitude to the Jewish Action Task Force for having provided many of the references used in this report. Their site contains cached versions of some of these references, and should be consulted if any of the links become broken.]

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM), founded in the spring of 2001, prides itself on being a nonviolent movement for peace. At least this is the image its members present to the world, and they have been extremely successful. News media routinely portray them as “peace activists,” and even one member of the Canadian parliament has nominated the ISM for the Nobel Peace Prize. (1)

The liberal Protestant Church has also embraced the ISM, often inviting its members to speak and offering financial support. One group of missionaries working in the West Bank encourages enlistment in the ISM:

How does your faith prompt you to act? How is God calling you to respond through action? Perhaps you have the courage and faith to go into areas of violence and oppression and send a message of peace and justice as part of a Christian Peacemaker Team or with the International Solidarity Movement. (2)

The ISM is often called “peacemaker.” But do they deserve this designation? The best way to understand what the ISM is all about is to read its own words. And the best place to start is the ISM’s own web site.

A Pro-Palestinian Movement

First, the ISM makes a pretense of being neutral, claiming it is not even “pro-Palestinian”: (3)

Over the course of the past year and a half, the Israeli military and government has used various tactics in efforts to delegitimize our message. Some of you in the media have repeated or suggested the accusations yourselves: that we are “young and naive,” that we are “trouble-makers,” that we are “pro-Palestinian.” As I’ve noted above, the ISM is diverse in age and make up. We’re Palestinian-led, but not pro-Palestinian. We’re not pro or against any group. (4)

This pretense is immediately transparent. It will be seen from the quotations to follow that the ISM is indeed pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel. The disingenuousness of the ISM’s claim to neutrality is just a small part of its overall strategy to present a peace-loving image to the media while actually working to enable those who do commit violent acts.

It is true that members of the ISM do not themselves engage in violence. But in word and in deed they support those who do. In fact, they make no secret of their sympathy for the use of violence, even though it is a tactic they personally do not choose. They state that violence is legitimate for those who choose to use it:

The International Solidarity Movement is a Palestinian-led movement of Palestinian and International activists working to raise awareness of the struggle for Palestinian freedom and an end to Israeli occupation. We utilize nonviolent, direct-action methods of resistance to confront and challenge illegal Israeli occupation forces and policies.

As enshrined in international law and UN resolutions, we recognize the Palestinian right to resist Israeli violence and occupation via legitimate armed struggle. However, we believe that nonviolence can be a powerful weapon in fighting oppression and we are committed to the principles of nonviolent resistance. (5)

This is about as “pro-Palestinian” a statement as one could hope for. It also specifies nonviolence as just one option in the struggle against Israel, with violence being another, equally valid option. (6)

Advocates for Violence

If violence is indeed considered legitimate, then why don’t ISM members choose it for themselves? The answer is based not on morality but on strategy. In a revealing essay that appeared in the Palestine Chronicle for January 29, 2002, Huwaida Arraf and Adam Shapiro, two of the ISM’s founders and senior leaders, write:

Let us reiterate, we accept that Palestinians have a right to resist with arms, as they are an occupied people upon whom force and violence is being used. The Geneva Conventions accept that armed resistance is legitimate for an occupied people, and there is no doubt that this right cannot be denied. But that does not mean that this right must be utilized. Regardless of what is a right and what is not, the elements that will make any change in the situation are strategy and tactics. To date, the use of violence as part of the resistance has not evinced a strategy. Not in operations against the military or settlers; not in operations inside the Green Line. The choice of using nonviolence would not be effective either if it was not organized strategically. (5)

This is about as “pro-Palestinian” a statement as one could hope for. It also specifies nonviolence as just one option in the struggle against Israel, with violence being another, equally valid option. (6)

Advocates for Violence

If violence is indeed considered legitimate, then why don’t ISM members choose it for themselves? The answer is based not on morality but on strategy. In a revealing essay that appeared in the Palestine Chronicle for January 29, 2002, Huwaida Arraf and Adam Shapiro, two of the ISM’s founders and senior leaders, write:

Let us reiterate, we accept that Palestinians have a right to resist with arms, as they are an occupied people upon whom force and violence is being used. The Geneva Conventions accept that armed resistance is legitimate for an occupied people, and there is no doubt that this right cannot be denied. But that does not mean that this right must be utilized. Regardless of what is a right and what is not, the elements that will make any change in the situation are strategy and tactics. To date, the use of violence as part of the resistance has not evinced a strategy. Not in operations against the military or settlers; not in operations inside the Green Line. The choice of using nonviolence would not be effective either if it was not organized strategically. (5)

In other words, the Palestinians have an undeniable right to use violence, and since Arraf and Shapiro make no qualifications on that use, it can only be assumed that the Palestinians have a right to use violence just as they are doing right now, in the form of terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians. But the use of this right is not always wise, and so it need not necessarily be exercised. To be effective, the use of violence must follow an organized strategy. The same is true of the use of nonviolence. They are both options to which the Palestinians have a legitimate right, but they are only feasible if they follow an organized strategy.

Lest there be any doubt that this is what the authors mean, and that they do in fact advocate the use of violence if strategically planned, they write further in the same article:

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.

What Arraf and Shapiro fail to mention, of course, is that neither Gandhi nor Martin Luther King endorsed the use of violence but were appalled by it, while the ISM clearly approves of “violent movements” acting “side-by-side” with its own nonviolent approach. The ISM sees itself not as a substitute for but as an adjunct to the use of violence against Israelis. It therefore cynically exploits the legacies of those who stood exclusively for nonviolence and passive resistance. The ISM clearly believes in violence – it actually says so – but chooses nonviolent opposition as an additional tactic.

In a message she posted to an ISM mailing list, Arraf went as far as to quote with approval an essay praising suicide bombers as shahids or martyrs. (7)

Other leaders of the ISM have also expressed their support for violence, even though it is not the tactic they personally prefer to use. Ghassan Andoni, another founder of the ISM, said in an interview by Bitterlemons.org that Palestinians have the right to use violence if they choose:

Bitterlemons: Does that mean that you do not think that armed resistance is valid?

Andoni: No, we state clearly that Palestinians have the full right to resist the occupation with means that they think are suitable. We as the Palestinian Solidarity Movement have decided, however, that our tool for resisting the occupation is non-violence. (8)

Saif Abu Keshek is a co-ordinator for the ISM in Nablus. In an interview on the ISM-London web site he says the same thing: that Palestinians are morally justified in using violence if they choose.

So there is strong support for the armed resistance? [Keshek:] Surely there is support for the armed resistance. It is one of the rights of the Palestinians to fight back against the occupation. The ISM supports non violent direct action, not armed struggle… [Keshek:] Yes, but also we recognise the right of the Palestinians to choose their way of resistance. To join our way of resistance or to choose armed struggle. (9) 

From all of these statements by people central to the ISM it is clear that the ISM wants to have it both ways: to claim the moral high ground of nonviolence while keeping the tactical advantage of violence. For Palestinians, “violent resistance” usually takes the form of terrorism, that is, targeted attacks against civilians. Even the ISM, in its support of the right to use violence, makes no distinction between terrorism and other forms of violence. We have heard ISM leaders in their own words: “Palestinians have the full right to resist the occupation with means that they think are suitable”; “We recognize the right of the Palestinians to choose their way of resistance” – with no restrictions. Such statements by ISM members are far from unique.

It is now clear that the ISM is not a pure nonviolent movement but sees itself working together with violent, even terrorist factions of the Palestinian fight against Israel. Nonviolence that accepts violence enables violence. Nonviolent obstruction of Israeli efforts to resist terrorism enables terrorism to continue. For example, members of the ISM, including Rachel Corrie, have tried “nonviolently” to obstruct the movement of Israeli bulldozers whose job it was to expose and destroy tunnels used for illegally smuggling weapons. This is “nonviolence” in name only. These “nonviolent peace activists” were helping to ensure that arms get into the hands of terrorists. If your work helps make violence possible, you are participating in violence. There is little difference between distracting your target while others ready their weapons and wielding the weapon yourself. The type of nonviolence that the ISM espouses supports and aids terrorist violence. (10)

Connections to Terrorist Groups

The ISM has indeed worked together with terrorist groups. An ISM press release dated July 2, 2003 announced a demonstration to block construction of Israel’s security fence (which ISM calls an “apartheid wall”), and invited participants to “Join the ISM, the Palestinian National and Islamic Forces and the Apartheid Wall Defense Committee” in these efforts to disrupt the fence’s construction. (11)

Who are these “National and Islamic Forces”? A virulently anti-Israel statement this group issued on February 10, 2001 contains the names of its members, which include the terrorist organizations Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and several others. (12)

There is some evidence that ISM cooperation with terrorist activity goes beyond signing joint statements and giving verbal support. While not engaging in violence directly, ISM members have come to the aid of others who have.

In the spring of 2002 about 40 senior terrorists wanted by Israel took refuge in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where IDF soldiers had them under siege. About a dozen ISM members snuck past Israeli troops and entered the church to give support to the terrorists. (13) The ISM published on its own web site an account by the British Guardian containing a proud proclamation that these ISM members were to act as “human shields.” (14)

At about the same time, other ISM members were acting as human shields in the Palestinian presidential compound in Ramallah. They were present not only to support Yasser Arafat but to protect the “Ze’evi Five,” terrorists wanted by Israel for the murder of Rehav’am Ze’evi, Israeli Minister of Tourism, on September 18, 2001. (15)

In the spring of 2003 Israeli troops were searching for Shadi Sukiya, a senior member of the Islamic Jihad in Jenin who had been involved in planning suicide bombings and shooting attacks against Jewish communities. They found him hiding in the offices of the International Solidarity Movement.

At first Susan Barclay, the ISM Coordinator, refused the Israeli soldiers permission to search the offices. But the soldiers forced their way in and arrested both Sukiya and Barclay. A handgun was also found. (16)(17)

An ISM spokesperson claimed that Barclay had no way of knowing who Sukiya really was. Nevertheless, this is no excuse for obstructing a legitimate search for a wanted terrorist. And how plausible is the ISM’s proclamation of Barclay’s innocence? Barclay herself told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that “she knowingly worked with representatives from Hamas and Islamic Jihad – terrorist groups that sponsor suicide bombings and exist, according to their charters, to demolish the Jewish state entirely.” (18)  

Conclusion

While pretending to stand for nonviolence, in both what it says and what it does the ISM aids and abets violent Palestinian extremist movements. The words of the Jewish Action Task Force capture the essence of the ISM:

The ISM is a terrorist protection organization. The goal of the ISM is not to plant bombs and murder civilians. The ISM aims to protect the terrorists who plant bombs and murder civilians. The ISM hopes to keep the IDF out of Palestinian neighborhoods so that terrorists will be free to manufacture explosives, train suicide bombers, smuggle weapons, arm snipers, and fire rockets at residential neighborhoods without interference from the IDF. The ISM calls itself non-violent, and many supporters of the organization in the U.S. may actually believe that this is a non-violent movement following the footsteps of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. The leadership, however, is using the rhetoric of non-violence in a calculated effort to mask the true nature of the ISM, which is organized for the protection of terrorists. (19)

This report has presented the International Solidarity Movement in its own words and actions. I have already documented the ISM’s cynical exploitation of the death of Rachel Corrie, and need not repeat that here. The ISM is not, as it pretends to be, a neutral, peacemaking organization. What it does stand for is abundantly clear. Let us not be fooled.

Source: Peace with Realism

 

Notes:
ISM Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize,” Canadian Dimension, May 2, 2003.
What You Can do.”
International Solidarity Movement, “Statement on Bombings.”
International Solidarity Movement, “About ISM.”
Why Nonviolent Resistance is Important for the Palestinian Intifada: A Response to Ramzy Baroud,” Palestine Chronicle, January 29, 2002.
Is ‘Occupation’ an Excuse for Terrorism?” elsewhere on this web site.
ISM Reports: A Bone from Rafah / Ethnic cleansing,” Palsolidarity Mailing List, March 27, 2003.
Resisting the Tool of Control: An Interview with Ghassan Andoni,” October 7, 2002.
Interview with Saif Abu Keshek,” International Solidarity Movement – London,February 23, 2003.
ISM: July 3 Action to Stop the Wall,” New Zealand Scoop, July 2, 2003.
Statement Issued by the National and Islamic Forces,” Jerusalem Media & Communication Center, February 10, 2001.
Israelis Blame Arafat for Bethlehem Church Fire,” CNN.com, May 3, 2002.
From Bristol to Bethlehem,” The British Guardian, May 16, 2002.
Operation Devastation“, May 2002.
Senior Islamic Jihad Terrorist Arrested While Hiding in the Offices of the International Solidarity Movement in Jenin,” March 27, 2003.
Tension Rises Between Activists, Army After Third Recent Casualty,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, April 13, 2003.
Activist’s Death Focuses Spotlight on Mideast Struggle,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, March 20, 2003.
International Solidarity: A Terrorist Protection Movement,” no date.

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Comment:

In some time 2005-2006 a poster came into Human Rights Network with posts about “Peaceful Protesters in Bilin” – Ket and I were elated. Finally!
The Palestinians were getting it! We were very happy. This we had been waiting for…

The poster swore that the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) were comparable to Gandhi and MLK. Great. So when IDF opened fire on “protesters” we denounced, condemned and agreed with Israel’s detractors that it was really horrible.

What we did not know was that the poster, and all her friends in the Pro-Palestinian Camp were lying through their teeth about what really was happening. The IDF had been responding to gun fire aimed at them from within the ISM Rally. What ISM hoped for was that they then could say “its militants using the gathering to discredit ISM” – all the while those militants were part of ISM. We fell for it (in fact the entire world fell for it) – of course ISM was a modern Peaceful Civil Rights Movement…

Right now I feel that whatever I have ever conceded – despite the fact that I have not heard any Arabs, Palestinians, Muslims or Xians in this group or elsewhere make any concessions, no apologies, nothing that indicates that they think the Palestinians militants are wrong – I have made into a void of mockery, a chasm of indifference and “let the Jews crawl, grovel and humiliate themselves”.

I am sorry, a “thank you Dov” isn’t going to do it – I want more, I want condemnations of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian Terror Organization, and their constant attacks on Israeli border towns from the Arabs and Muslims in this Group.
Dov

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On the Matter of the Settlements

Uprooting 10,000 Israeli citizens from Gaza has only brought more rockets and more Palestinian attacks on Israel’s border communities. Hardly a precedent which Israel will be quick to repeat.

And yet, in the end that is the only thing that will work.

Edit: The problem is, in my opinion, that the Leaders are listening more to the Extremists, than to good sound reason. Yes, there will undoubtedly be more violence – to begin with – and it might even continue after all Settlers have been removed from areas that were allotted to the Palestinians by the UN, because the Extremists have another goal than Peace. However there is a huge reward to be won by removing the Settlements and Settlers – Israel will regain the moral high-ground. It will become obvious who exactly is doing the violence. Another positive pay-off is that when Israel is finally containing its military forces inside internationally recognized borders, she will have every right to defend herself. As I have said elsewhere: If she wants to create a bunker, and build a wall all around Israel on the inside of the Green Line, no-one can really say anything about that, it would be her right.

About the Buildings, Towns and Institutions – those can all be rebuilt inside Israel. Truly. When the Settlers were removed from Gaza, all “Jewish” buildings were demolished, at the request of the Palestinians (something most people don’t know), now to my mind that is idiotic, silly and to my mind smack of “look how mean the Israelis are, not leaving us any good houses” – I say leave the buildings intact, so the Palestinians have something to move into that is better than what they have now, if it is better.

The question is – what do we want more: Peace or continued Conflict for the sake of Land? It doesn’t matter if we are talking about well established Towns and Communities or we are talking about rudimentary out-posts. Those Settlements are illegal – and for nothing else than this fact they should be removed. What the consequences might be is actually irrelevant to the issue.

If I commit a crime and have to go to jail, whether my wife will divorce me as a result is irrelevant – she might, she might not, but that should have no bearing on whether the law should be followed or not.

I would also like to point out that LEGALLY it falls upon the Occupying Nation to remove it’s Occupants at the end of Occupation, and to not remove those citizens means that one is continuing the Occupation. If that means that it is making refugees out of it’s own citizens, that has no relevance on whether it should remove those citizens or not.

Your conclusions on this, I believe, are correct. It pains me to agree, because, as I said, there are many lives involved, but I do agree with you. There is no other way to achieve peace and stability in the region.

Don’t think for one moment that it doesn’t pain me as well, K.

Edit: The picture above is from an article that states: A 54-year-old Israeli woman set herself on fire on Wednesday at a junction near Netivot to the east of the Gaza Strip. The woman was evacuated in serious condition to hospital with 70 per cent burns to her body, police said.

And I don’t relish those scenes that we saw in Media before, during and after the Gaza Pull-out. It is very painful. But it is a result of war. Pain, anguish, broken homes, refugees are the nature of war. I have no illusions about the Settlers’ situation when they are evacuated, but such has been the situation of all Refugees of War. It was the situation for the Palestinian Refugees in 1948, it will be the situation for the Israeli Refugees when they leave the West Bank.

War of aggression is illegal and land acquired through war of aggression is obtained illegally, and in as much as Israel goes out-side the allotted borders of 1947-48 UN Partition militarily, whether to protect Israeli Occupants or to acquire more than the allotted portion, it is in violation of International Laws. It is painful. War is always painful.

However I believe that looking at it from this perspective – the objective legal point – will make it easier to swallow. After all Torah demands that we accept the laws of the land where we reside, unless it forces us to commit idolatry, murder, or forbidden sexual relations…Israel is a part of the International Community, therefore Israel is obligated by Torah to obey International Laws.

However, and this is a big however, I believe the Israeli government and all the Israeli people have the greatest responsibility to make sure – to make sure absolutely sure – in every way possible – that they reconstruct new lives, secure lives, fruitul lives, progressive lives, for all settlers that may have to leave the Palestinian areas.

I wholeheartedly agree, K – not to do so would be a crime as well. What I would like to see is a “rebuilding” of communities inside Israel, in intervals, so the Settlers have somewhere to go when they remove themselves from Occupied Territory. After all that is what should have happened in the first place. I am not saying that this won’t take a little more time than most would like, but it will show that Israel is taking her Obligations seriously.

If we keep in mind that hard pills are much easier to swallow when coated in sugar than when force fed with vinegar, and use that insight to take measures that will both give and take compassionately, I am sure that both Peoples will eventually choose peace before conflict.

However, it is a two-way street. One the one hand the Government has to lead on the other hand the People has to follow. I still think that Yitzhak Rabin was right. And I do think Mahmoud Abbas is the stronger of the two, Olmert and Abbas. It is a pity that Rabin did not have an Abbas to co-operate with. If Olmert had the chutzpah to do what Rabin did, he and Abbas would be so much closer to REAL peace than the two Peoples have ever been. I think there is one other person in the Israeli Government that could match Abbas – unfortunately she is not in line to be Prime Minister.

Another, more prosaic reason for removing the settlements is, to re-connect to one of my other Blog entries:

“I cannot see how those small dark-green patches from a point of view of strategy are not huge security problems.”

The Settlements are huge security problems, and more than that they are huge financial problems as they have to be packed with IDFs and other security personnel, which drains the general Israeli economy (by how much yearly I have no idea, but war is expensive, and if it’s anywhere near normal expenses during war time, about half of Israel’s GNP is used to maintain active military presences in the Occupied Territories and in Israel.) – eating money that could be used on better housing, better social security, pensions and last but not least, building good solid communities for those who choose to live in Israel, both Jews and Arabs. A Progressive Society has no room for military “adventures” beyond that which is needed to maintain a healthy defense.

One of the main pillars of Judaism, and ultimately of being Jewish is Social Justice and Social Health, not just for those who happen to be Jewish, but for all humans. This might sound like a contradiction, but Judaism is at its core Progressive. It has always had Social Justice as one of it’s main Focal points. Whenever the Prophets went after the Rulers of Israel, they had two main complaints: Idolatry and lack of Social Justice.

Yeshayahu Leibowitz suggested that those two might actually be somewhat the same. He also suggests that the current Jewish Community is Worshiping the State of Israel, rather than G-d through Torah observance. I have to agree. The Idea of Israel has become more important than what it means to be Jewish. Being Jewish means to have a sense of what is Just, not only for Jews, but for all, and to fight for that Social Justice, to practice it and to teach it.

Peace is Possible

Yes, I believe that Peace is possible.
I believe that if you isolate the Extremists on both sides and Unite the Middle, give and take, you will eventually reach a point where Peace is more attractive to ALL than being right or having it all.
With small continuous concessions on both sides, small and continuous rewards on both sides Living will be more fruitful than Dying, for all.

Hamas Haunting Ashkelon

JERUSALEM (AP) – Palestinian militants in Gaza have launched a rocket at the Israeli city of Ashkelon a short time after Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert left the area.Israeli police say the rocket landed in an open area just south of the city. Nobody was hurt.The rocket fire came during a lull in fighting between Israel and Hamas militants. Intense violence had left three Israelis and 120 Palestinians dead, including dozens of civilians.Israel pulled its forces out of Gaza last week and militants scaled back their rocket fire. Egypt has been serving as a mediator between Israel and Hamas rulers, but both sides have denied there was an official cease-fire in place.

There has been no claim of responsibility from Gaza for the rocket fire. But Israel says it holds Hamas responsible, since it controls Gaza.

If it’s Kassam, Katushya or something else fired from Hamas controlled territory, it’s Hamas, who else would want to try and kill Israelis?

Palestinian Perspective

MAHMOUD QALAJA, 20, STUDENT, GAZA CITY

“It’s miserable, the Israelis have killed 118 people so far. Yesterday [Sunday], they killed a neighbour of mine, he was 15 and was playing football in the street.

They suddenly attacked a house near where he was playing. One of the shells hit him, I saw it happening about 100 metres away from me.

Six others in the area also died and some of his friends were injured.

I am staying at home now. I was supposed to go and study in Amsterdam, but I haven’t been able to leave. I had visas for January and February and I’m still here.

I am not politically active. But I do want to live in peace without any trouble. We are in a political war.

Hamas are the only ones fighting the occupation – they are the cause of this invasion. They are the ones to blame.

On the other hand [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas has been shaking hands with [Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert – at the same time Olmert is giving orders to kill us.

Abbas gave the Israelis the chance to invade Gaza because of the divisions between Hamas and Fatah.

We, the people, are the victims. I think Israelis and Palestinians are all exhausted by the bloodshed.”

This guys isn’t blaming the Israelis. He isn’t specifying “people”. A moderate Palestinian. Interesting that the Anti-Israelis don’t support this guy instead of Hamas and Hezbollah. I suppose they don’t want peace.

And the cycle continues

Settlers vow revenge over Jerusalem massacre

As violence spirals and calls for peace talks grow, extremists say they will build a new West Bank settlement for each of the eight students killed

Palestinian: Settlement expansion ‘a stick in the wheels’ of peace

JERUSALEM (CNN) — A Palestinian official said Sunday that Israel’s plan to expand settlements in the West Bank was “like putting a stick in the wheels of the peace process.”

Israel Approves West Bank Construction

Olmert Approves New Construction in West Bank Settlement, Angers Palestinians

Israeli settlers attack Palestinian lawmaker near Nablus

Israeli settlers attacked Siham Thabit, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), on Friday while she was driving near the West Bank city of Nablus.

Settlers assaulted the car when it passed the Yizhar settlement, smashing the windshield. Thabit was taken to a hospital in Nablus.

Student killer was ‘good boy with a future’

“He wasn’t crazy, he was just one of us, a normal young guy who said he was heading out and said goodbye to his family on Thursday night,” ‘Mohammed’, a cousin of Abu Dhaim’s said.

“The first thing they heard was when they started getting calls from the media close to midnight on Thursday, saying their son was the gunman, then the Israeli police turned up and took away nine members of the family, even his father.”

While I do not agree with all said in this Blog, I still recommend it as a good source for a basic overview… Informed Comment

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That aside – when will it end? When will Israel and Palestine realize that the ongoing spiral of violence, provocations and insults do not serve the individual Peoples?

Hamas and Hezbollah only serve themselves, and Israel is playing hide and seek with the Extremists on both sides. Politicking by both parties, at the expense of the Peoples they claim to represent.

I don’t f**king care about the 1967 borders. Why? Because they are a violation of International Laws. I don’t f**king care about splitting Jerusalem in two. If they can’t agree to share and respect each other’s holy places, then neither of them should have an inch. I care about the Peoples. Yes, the settlers too, and the terrorists – what are they except mirror images of each other? If it weren’t for Extremists on both sides, there would be no war, no violence. There would be Peace and Negotiations.

Resistance is Futile

The most recent events in the Conflict between Israel and Palestine, the incursions and attacks on Palestinian Militant targets by the IDF and the attack on the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva in Jerusalem by the Martyrs of Imad Mughniyeh and Gaza, more than anything illustrates the futility of both sides’ Modus Operandi.

Israel, Mother of my heart: When has military force, incursions, retaliation and targeting Palestinian Militants ever led to the Militants ceasing their attacks?

Palestine, my Brother: When has terror attacks, targeting civilians, retaliation and celebrating the death of “your enemy” ever given you what you want, A Free and Independent Palestine?

The cycle of violence has been running like crazy for 60 years. Neither of you have what you want. Shouldn’t history teach you something?

Isn’t it time you both look for other ways to get what you want? Israel, you want safety and security for all your Children, how about giving what you want to those who don’t have it? Palestine, you want freedom to exist, to be counted among the Nations of the World, how about you give that to those whom you have been denying it?

How many more dead, how many more living in fear? It doesn’t work. Don’t you see that?

Massacre at Sabra-Shatila – 25th Anniversary

“The Sabra and Shatila massacre (or Sabra and Chatila massacre; Arabic: مذبحة صبرا وشاتيلا) was carried out in September 1982 by a Lebanese Forces militia group against Palestinian refugee camps.

In an area under Israeli army control, Christian militiamen were permitted to enter two undefended Palestinian refugee camps leading to a massacre of hundreds to thousands of civilians (see below). Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Defense Minister at the time and major protagonist of the invasion, was held responsible and forced to resign. The Lebanese Forces group stood under the direct command of Elie Hobeika, who later became a long-serving Lebanese Member of Parliament and, in the 1990s, a cabinet minister. The number of victims of the massacre varies according to source: the lowest confirmed estimate is 700; the highest is placed at 3,500.”

700-3500 dead as a result of one man’s murder, and all in a couple of days. No-one is disputing this, what happened at a Sabra and Shatila should not have happened. Period. Permission to enter the camps should never have been given by those in control of the area, the IDF and Israeli Defense Minster Ariel Sharon.

We should not remember what happened by displaying pictures of dead, mutilated bodies, claiming untruths about what happened or embellishing what happened. Renaming their killers or renaming the reason they died doesn’t show respect for those who died. Nor does using their deaths as propaganda tools. The people who died in Sabra and Shatila were worth more than to be used as dead meat to fuel a campaign of hatred in a conflict they really didn’t have anything to do with.

If the deaths of 700-3500 (PLO illegal combatants not counted) are to have any meaning at all, we need to give them back their dignity, by restoring the truth about what happened and bring those directly and indirectly responsible to justice.

Zionist holocaust against the Palestinian people…

Hamas leader Khaled Mash’al seem to have an interesting understanding of reality and historical events. It is certainly true that the Palestinian People have on occasion been treated badly by the Secular State of Israel and Religious Settlers in the Occupied Territories. Somehow, however, one will have to question the mental faculties of a man who seriously claims that this in any way is comparable to what the Germans did to the Jewish people, or even worse.

clipped from yidwithlid.blogspot.com “I want to make it clear to the West and to the German people, which is still being blackmailed because of what Nazism did to the Zionists, or to the Jews. I say that what Israel did to the Palestinian people is many times worse than what Nazism did to the Jews, and there is exaggeration, which has become obsolete, regarding the issue of the Holocaust. We do not deny the facts, but we will not give in to extortion by exaggeration. As for the Zionist holocaust against the Palestinian people, and against the peoples of the Arab and Islamic nation – this is a holocaust that is being perpetrated in broad daylight, with the coverage of the media of globalization. Nobody can deny it or claim that it is being exaggerated.”

It would seem that it is in fact the Palestinian Leadership, and in this case representatives for Hamas that is “blackmailing the entire world” by using hyperbole and distortions of historical facts. Hardly worthy of an elected official. But then what can be expected from a man who is clearly delusional in terms of truth and reality?

The Orange

Someone asked me this Question:
“should the palestinian people be erradicated in order for israel to be a state?” My very simple answer is NO. What saddens me is that the people asking this Question don’t hear the answer, because they are so entrenched in the idea that if you think Israel has a right to exist you must automatically think the Palestinian People doesn’t have that same right.

They don’t see the stream of “cause and effect” – they only see one side, and only half of one side – the don’t see the other half of “their side” and they definitely do not see any of the halves of the “opposite side”.

They don’t see that it takes two to tango, and that for every action there is a re-action. Therefore they do not see that a Palestinian State and a Jewish State is not mutually exclusive. There is only one Orange, so the two brothers will have to share – the Orange was cut 60 years ago – there is no putting the two halves back together, because one of the brothers have already dug out the seeds in his half and have planted the seeds to grow an Orange Grove – it isn’t his fault that the other brother have not done the same.

Nor is it his fault that the other brother has spent these last 60 years protesting that the Orange was cut instead of busying himself with finding the seeds and grow an Orange Grove. Had he busied himself with taking care of his half of the Orange, instead of incessantly burglarize his brother’s Orange Grove and kill the workers, he would have had a beautiful Orange Grove today, just like his brother.

But his lot is empty, and he blames his brother for that, he doesn’t see that he himself is responsible for that. That what damage has been done to his lot when his brother had to chase him out of his Orange Grove, was the result of him not wanting leave his brother’s Orange Grove workers alone, and having to be dragged kicking and screaming of the lot into his own or down to the City Jail.

He doesn’t see, and he never will, if he insists on staring at the shivelled up remains of the half Orange, he was given, refusing to pick up the seeds and use them as his brother has.

No-one is going to do it for him – he has to get rid of the street-thugs he has hired to burglarize his brother and focus on hiring workers that can plant his Orange Seeds and work the Orange Grove that will grow from them.

And if he doesn’t it’s not his brother’s fault.

Shalom!

This article, including artworks and photos are © Henric C. Jensen aka Shadow Bear and are NOT public domain, unless otherwise specified.