[Back
to Starhawk's Israel/Palestine Page]
Who is the ISM?
By Starhawk
Since mid March of 2003, the Israeli authorities have targetted the International Solidarity Movement, a human rights organization which brings internationals to support the nonviolent resistance in the Occupied Territories of Palestine.
In March and April, three members of our group were
killed or nearly killed. On March 16, Rachel Corrie
was run over by an Israeli military bulldozer as
she attempted to stop home demolitions in Gaza.
On April 5, Brian Avery was shot in the face by
a soldier in an Armored Personnel Carrier as he
stood on a street in Jenin. On April 11, Tom Hurndall
was shot in the head as he attempted to rescue children
who were being fired upon from a sniper tower in
Gaza. He is now in a coma, being kept alive on
life support, a fate more painful than death for
his friends and family who cannot either hope or
let go and mourn.
It is clear that these attacks were not ‘accidents’. The bulldozer operator who killed Rachel knew she was in front of him and had been speaking with her just a few moments before. In Brian’s case, the Armored Personnel Carrier drove up and opened fire on a group of ISM volunteers who were clearly visible as internationals, in fluorescent vests, and who were standing in a street where there was no resistance activity. Tom ran to the aid of a group of children who were being terrorized by warning shots from the sniper tower, and the sniper lowered his sites to shoot Tom in the head. His wounds were characterized by the surgeion who examined him as consistent with a deliberate assassination shot.
These attacks represent a policy on the part of
the authorities that internationals are fair game
for the kind of treatment that is already the norm
for Palestinians, who suffer far more than we do
from the endemic violence of the occupation. Moreover,
the attacks seem to be part of a program of witness
elimination, ominous in what it portends for the
Palestinian civilian population. The Israeli army
has also assassinated two journalists this spring:
Nazeh Darwazah, a Palestinian, and James Miller,
a Briton. They have banned journalists along with
human rights workers and internationals from Gaza.
Before the outright ban, the military authorities
were requiring internationals to sign a declaration
absolving the Israeli army from responsibility in
the event of their death, and stating specifically
that they had no connection to the International
Solidarity Movement.
The Israeli authorities have also moved to clear
internationals from the West Bank. On May 9, they
raided the offices of the ISM in Beit Sahour, confiscating
all the computers and files and arresting three
people. They have also arrested ISM volunteers,
witnesses to Rachel’s death and Tom’s shooting,
who were attempting to legally enter the Gaza strip.
Other volunteers have been arrested in Tulkarem,
and the army has announced a policy of arrest and
deportation for all ISM volunteers.
What does the ISM do that so threatens the fourth
largest military power in the world? First, we
support the nonviolent resistance among the Palestinian
people, which is rarely noticed by the world’s media.
By our presence, we extend some minimal protection
to Palestinian groups seeking to demonstrate peacefully
or engage in nonviolent actions such as removing
roadblocks or challenging curfew. We also participate
in joint actions such as the peace camp in Mas’Ha,
where we responded to a call for help from a village
which is losing 98% of its land to the so-called
‘security wall’ Israeli authorities are building.
The village asked internationals and Israelis to
join them in opposing the wall, which has confiscated
the farmland which provides their livelihood with
no compensation, destroyed ancient olive groves,
and cut off their freedom of movement. Israelis
are told the wall is being built on the ‘Green Line’,
the pre-1967 border, but in reality it strays far
into Palestinian territory to enclose the illegal
settlements which have been built continuously throughout
the Oslo years, and will eventually take sixty per
cent of the land designated for a Palestinian state,
making a true, two-state solution impossible.
Second, we attempt to accompany and protect Palestinian
civilians. We stand with Palestinian farmers who
are attempting to harvest their olives or work their
lands under threat of attack from armed Israeli
settlers. We accompany medical personnel during
Israeli army incursions to help they reach their
patients. We ride in ambulances to help them get
through army checkpoints. We sleep in homes at
risk of demolition. We sit with families while
the Israeli army breaks down the walls of their
homes in order to search them, and attempt to intervene
with the soldiers. We stand at checkpoints to help
students get through to reach their schools or villagers
return to their homes after a day’s work.
Third, we witness and report what we have seen of
the impact of the occupation on the daily lives
of the Palestinians. We put names and faces on the
Palestinians. We can tell you about twenty three
year old Hanin, six months pregnant, who went into
shock when soldiers destroyed the three rooms of
her family’s home in the Balata refugee camp in
the process of searching them, and would have lost
her baby had not an ISM volunteer negotiated with
the army to allow her to get medical care. We can
describe the old woman who is weeping with pain
and exhaustion as she climbs a mountain each morning
in order to get from her village to the clinic in
Nablus, because road blocks and checkpoints make
it impossible for ambulances or cars to transport
her. We can introduce you to Abu Akhmed, a sixty-one
year old farmer on the border of Gaza and Egypt,
whose olive trees have been cut down by the army,
or take you into the home of his sister’s family,
to sit with the six beautiful children as they do
their homework to the sounds of bullets and tank
shells firing all around their home.
Who are we? We are a diverse group, truly international.
We come from the United States, Britain, France,
Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Japan, Australia, Germany,
Canada, and Israel itself. We range in age from
eighteen to seventy-six. We come from a wide variety
of careers and political affiliations: computer
programmers and carpenters, ex-Marines and lifelong
pacifists, professors and students, artists and
doctors, deeply religious Christians and atheists.
About a third of us, on average, are Jewish.
What we share in common is a commitment to justice
in Palestine and a belief that the nonviolent tactics
of Martin Luther King and Gandhi can play an important
role in bringing that goal about. We are concerned
for the safety and human rights of all people in
the region, Palestinians and Israelis, and we maintain
that justice for the Palestinian people is the only
way to assure real security in the area. We have
seen firsthand how ‘security concerns’ are being
used to justify a policy of land confiscation, Israeli
expansion, and ongoing attacks on the lives and
livelihoods of Palestinian civilians that produces
a level of rage and despair that fosters a violent
response in turn.
The Israeli government, who holds the overwhelming
military, political and economic power, could easily
end this conflict by relinquishing its policies
of expansion and dealing fairly and justly with
the Palestinians. We call upon them to do so, beginning
by withdrawing from the West Band and Gaza,. and
upon our own government to stop funding and supplying
the Israeli military. We demand accountability,
not just for the deaths and shootings of internationals
but for more than two thousand deaths of Palestinians
since the beginning of the intifada; over two hundred
and fifty - forty five of whom were children - in
Rafah alone, the city where Rachel and Tom were
killed. We demand that the attacks and defamation
of the ISM stop, that internationals, human rights
workers and journalists be welcomed in the occupied
territories as the necessary eyes that can inform
the world of the true conditions of the occupation.
-- Starhawk
For more information on the International Solidarity Movement, check the website at www.palsolidarity.org (will open in a new browser window).
Copyright (c) 2003 by Starhawk. All rights reserved.
This copyright protects Starhawk's right to publication
of her work. Nonprofit, activist, and educational
groups may circulate this essay (forward it, reprint
it, translate it, post it, or reproduce it) for
nonprofit uses. Please do not change any part
of it without permission. Readers are invited
to visit the web site: www.starhawk.org.
[Back
to Starhawk's Israel/Palestine Page]
[Back
to Starhawk's Home Page]