BTL Int'l Solidarity Movement Activists Protect Palestinian Civilians as...

ATTACKS ON THE



INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT



(The ISM is being accused of supporting terrorism)



* * * * * * *







Los Angeles Times (USA)23 June 2003



Traveling With Bad Companions: Western supporters



of the Palestinian cause are morally blind.



By Martin Peretz



Every failed revolution in modern times has had its fellow travelers, a phenomenon hard to define but easy to recognize. Picasso was one; Jean-Paul Sartre, another; FDR's vice president, Henry Wallace, a third. Two, three decades later, Susan Sontag would also put her words to work for the brutal engineers of soul and society.



There were literally tens of thousands of these influentials in the United States and elsewhere in the West. And the revolutions of the left did not have a monopoly on fellow-traveling. In the 1930s, there were lots of fellow travelers of Nazism, too: Charles Lindbergh, Ezra Pound, the duke of Windsor and many others.



Many fellow travelers went exuberantly from one decaying communism to another, seriatim, from the Soviet Union to the People's Republic of China to Castroite Cuba and Vietnam and then to Sandinista Nicaragua, never quite realizing they would soon feel the need to move on again.



But move on they would, armed as always as author David Caute put it with their usual arsenal of "bifocal lenses, double standards, a myopic romanticism."



Of course, there is now no world revolution into which these deluded folk can vest their ardors, as yesteryear's fellow travelers did when extolling the nonexistent but exemplary democratic virtues of Stalin's Russia or of some other transformatory idyll. Only certified kooks are in the business these days of changing the nature of man.



So the present-day romantics, who at home typically despise the idea of the nation-state and the realities of national interest, are left with often contrived and almost always murderous nationalisms to adore. The nationalism du jour is Palestinian nationalism.



It was the British political historian David Pryce-Jones who, I think, first made the analogy between the old fellow travelers and the new, between those who romanticized the Soviets and those who now romanticize Palestinian (and Islamic) terrorism.



Not that all Palestinians are terrorists, not at all, although polls show an overwhelming proportion of them to be supporters of terrorism. But terrorism happens to be the defining paradigm of the Palestinian cause. Thus it is terrorism that is being supported by the American and British university professors who demand that their institutions divest from companies invested in Israel. And it is terrorism that is being supported by scientists and other academics who propose institutional and personal boycotts of Israeli intellectuals.



In any case, the political pilgrims from abroad drawn to the Palestinian cause seem, almost unfailingly, to be lured to those whose very vocation is terror.



Take, for example, the International Solidarity Movement, a nongovernmental organization ensconced in Gaza. The two British Muslims recruited by Hamas who blew up Mike's Place, a blues pub in Tel Aviv, moved in and out of Israel from the territories with remarkable ease, aided by ISM activists.



On its own Web site, the ISM admits to supporting the Palestinian right to "legitimate armed struggle." This did not keep much of the press from calling the organization "pacifist." Not surprisingly, Linda Gradstein, Jerusalem correspondent for NPR (now widely known as National Palestine Radio), is one of these. On "All Things Considered," she blithely characterized ISM as "committed to nonviolent resistance." Well, it cannot, after all, be committed to both. And it isn't. Its activities are dovetailed with the needs of Hamas. It stages media events for the murder militias, and sometimes its own volunteers get hurt or even killed, as one American was by an Israeli bulldozer. The best you can say of them is that they are gulled. But this is not bravery; it is stupidity.



Unlike the deluded men who fought in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War and thought they were putting their lives on the line against Hitlerism while they were actually risking their lives for Stalinism, there are no such daydreams available to the partisans of Palestine.



Let us concede, as I do, that the Palestinians need a state. But let us also concede that, had not the Palestinians started a bloody insurrection in the midst of negotiations with Israel during the fall of 2000 and turned that into a Walpurgisnacht of unrelenting terror, they would already have a state and be on their way to as robust an independence as they could manage contingent only on the peacefulness of their borders.



But why should the cause of independent Palestine resonate with idealists and international moralists? After all, there are dozens of historic nations and peoples, some more numerous than the Palestinians, who are stateless and powerless in the world. There are, living among the Arabs themselves, the Berbers and the Kurds, who have no established political power. Even in Europe, where the nation-state was born, there are nations deprived of independence. Do they and the more numerous stateless peoples of Asia and Africa not merit solidarity and support for independence? What is so special about the Palestinians?



Actually, nothing. Except that their neighbors are the Jews. There is certainly no reason to believe that independent Palestine will be an ethical advance over the other long-independent and, at best, autocratic states in the Arab world, some of them barbarisms.



The truth is that no one who has had a real hearing among the Palestinians has ever articulated a vision of Palestine that is premised on an idea of social justice, a new relationship between the classes, among the clans and tribes, between the sexes. Believe me, Palestine will not be a democratic state because Palestine is not a democratic or tolerant society. This is in devastating contrast to the Zionist enterprise that had true ideals about how human beings and political difference were to be treated, ideals that were turned to realities.



The contrast is not an abstraction. We've had nearly a decade of Palestinian rule in the West Bank and Gaza and, between 1976 and 1982, six years of Palestinian rule over southern Lebanon to judge this empirically. There is no mystery about how its courts are run and how its press is manipulated and terrorized. No one actually imagines an independent judiciary or a truly free and competitive press in Palestine. Even though Palestinians work enormously hard, there is no animating dream of what a productive and fair economy would look like. What one sees way in the future is a corrupt corporatism engineered by those who hold political power.



Palestine will soon have its political expression in statehood. On the night it happens, gunshots will echo throughout the Arab street to the rest of the world, a peculiar way of celebrating. Still, it will be a celebration. And on the long morrow, there won't be much disenchantment because nothing truly fundamental will have ever been promised or even envisioned.



Dictatorship will settle its rule onto independent Palestine, as it had during the long struggle. Civil strife will follow, and likely another dictatorship will replace the first.



And the borders of Palestine will not be still.



But, by then, the fellow travelers of the Palestinian revolution will be gone, some of them on to other causes, most of them (like the veterans of the 1960s) nursing their heady memories for retelling to their children. Heady memories and lies.



Martin Peretz is editor in chief of the New Republic.







IDF raids ISM office, holds two foreign volunteers

By Haaretz Staff, May 09, 2003 Iyyar 7, 5763




Israel Defense Force troops raided the Bethlehem office of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) Friday, detaining three people for questioning and confiscating computer disks and other equipment.

According to Israel Radio, Palestinian sources said that two female foreign volunteers were taken away from the site and a Palestinian employee was detained for questioning.

The IDF reported that two woman, in the country illegally, had been taken away for questioning.

About 22 army jeeps surrounded the group's offices in the village of Beit
Sahour, after which soldiers entered and confiscated six computers, said
spokeswoman Laura Gordon.

Arrested were Christine Razowsky, 28 from Chicago, and an Australian woman who did not want her name released, as well as Palestinian Fida Gharib, 22, a secretary for the organization, Gordon said.

The military said it had arrested several people who "violated the law" in the village of Beit Sahour, but refused to release details.

Police spokesman Gil Kleiman confirmed that two foreigners had been handed over to police custody and were being questioned for entering a restricted military area.

The interrogation documents and other evidence - including the computers - will be used by the Interior Ministry to decide whether the foreigners should be deported, Kleiman said.

"The aim is to deport any foreigner who supports us," said George Rishmawi, a Palestinian official close to the group. "We consider these people to be international witnesses to the suffering of the Palestinian people."

The raid comes a week after Israel decided to crack down on foreign volunteers in the territories, after it became apparent that the two British men involved in the suicide bombing last week on a Tel Aviv pub had posed as volunteers while in the Gaza Strip.

Israel decided that it bar pro-Palestinian activists from entering the country and will try to expel at least some of the dozens of activists who are already here, according a plan drafted by the Israel Defense Forces and the foreign and defense ministries.

Most of the activists, who come from Europe, Canada and the United States, belong to the ISM.

Their goal is to act as "human shields" for Palestinian individuals and houses during IDF incursions into Palestinian towns, and they have often been involved in confrontations with IDF soldiers. They also try to help Palestinians pass through IDF roadblocks.

Some two months ago, an American ISM activist, Rachel Corrie, was run over and killed by an IDF bulldozer in Gaza. Her colleagues accused the bulldozer driver of having run her over deliberately. The IDF denies the accusation and decided not to indict the driver. In two other recent cases, international activists have been seriously injured by IDF gunfire during confrontations in the territories.

The IDF charges that many of the self-proclaimed peace activists are "provocateurs" and "riot inciters" who deliberately interfere with the IDF's work, with the goal of blackening Israel's image. Army sources noted that in one case, they discovered a wanted terrorist being hidden by ISM activists in Jenin. The sources said the activists received training overseas in how to deceive border control officials at Ben-Gurion International Airport in order to be allowed into the country.

Furthermore, both the army and the Foreign Ministry fear that additional foreign citizens might be killed or wounded by the IDF if the ISM's activities are allowed to continue.

Last week's bombing in Tel Aviv, which was committed by two men who entered Israel on British passports, added a new reason to the authorities' desire to clamp down on the foreign activists - fear that other terrorists from overseas might enter the country under the guise of peace activists.







Statement by Flo, who was in the office at the time







05-13-03



On May 9, 2003, at approximately 12:40 pm, the Israeli military entered the media office of the International Solidarity Movement(ISM) in Beit Sahour, Palestine. Present were myself (Kristin Razowsky (flo) ), an International from Australia who is working with Human Rights Watch, and a local Palestinian woman from Beit Sahour. The soldiers entered the offices, took the phones out of my hands that I was speaking on and proceeded to search the office. We were not informed as to what the reasons were for this search until the Australian women asked one of the soldiers what the search was about and he replied that we were working for an "illegal organization". I am assuming he was referring to the ISM. There were roughly 20-30 soldiers present. The three women, including myself, were taken outside where even more soldiers were gathered with military and police jeeps, and a large type of armored truck of which I had not seen before. Possibly there were other types of vehicles present, but since the situation was quite chaotic, I am unaware if there were. A female police officer took each of us, one by one, into the stair well in order to search us. Myself and the woman from Beit Sahour were taken back into the office in order to collect our belongings. At this time, I witnessed the soldiers confiscating computer equipment, magazines, telephones, video tapes, c.d.s, files and other objects from the office.



During this entire encounter, there were many soldiers with video and still cameras recording myself and the other women. We were then taken into the large armored truck and waited for approximately thirty minutes before we began to move. We were told that at some point we would be officially arrested and that myself and the woman from Australia would be deported. The soldiers did not know what our actual charges would be (as the ISM has never officially been deemed illegal by the Israeli Government), and that they were "only following orders". After this thirty minute wait in the armored truck we were taken several miles down the road and then moved into police jeeps. Each woman was in a separate jeep. We were all taken to the police station in Gush Etzion, near to Jerusalem. At this point I was questioned by the investigator of the station. I was told that if I did not answer the questions it would make things much harder for me later on. I repeatedly demanded to speak with an attorney and my Embassy to which I was repeatedly told only later would I be allowed these phone calls. At this point, I was charged with being in a "closed military zone" Since I had nothing to hide, I cooperated and answered the inspectors questions. I told the investigator that since I had been allowed through the Bethlehem checkpoint, I was not aware that I was in a "closed military zone". After the interrogation I was photographed and fingerprinted. At this point one of the officers called my Embassy and I was allowed to speak with a representative for only a few minutes. I was still not allowed a phone call to an attorney. The Palestinian woman from Beit Sahour was released and allowed to return home. Myself and the Australian woman were told that we were going to be taken to a hearing with the Interior Ministry. We were then transported to Pisgat Ziev to have this hearing. When we arrived at the Interior Ministry, I was promptly told that my visa was being revoked and that I was to be deported. I said that I thought I was coming to a hearing and questioned how they could punish me before this hearing even happened. I was told that the hearing would eventually happen but that I was going to be deported. I asked if this was happening because they ASSUMED I was working with the ISM. I was told Yes. At this point I returned to my demand to speak with an attorney and was told that from jail I could contact a lawyer. The deportation order was signed by the Minister of the Interior and I was transported to the Emigration Detention Center in Hudera, Israel. I was told that I had 72 hours in order to fight the deportion. If in that 72 hours, I failed, I would be deported (meaning Monday, May 12). The Australian woman was released, her charges dropped, approximately four hours after we arrived at the detention center. None of the officials at this center could tell me why she had been released and not me, but it seems likely it was due to the fact that she works for Human Rights Watch and is not assumed to be working with the ISM.



I spent from Friday evening until Monday evening in this deportation center awaiting the outcome. Through the help of so many amazing Human Rights groups in Palestine and Israel, I was able to secure a lawyer. My lawyer, at the last moment, was able to obtain a freeze on the deportation order. It came through at about the same hour I was to be deported. After much work on my lawyer's part, I was released conditionally from the detention center. These conditions are as follows: --I must remain in Jerusalem during the next two weeks while my case is argued in court, --I must report to the Immigration Office twice a week, --If I am arrested in the next two weeks, try to escape the law or fail any of these conditions, I must pay to the State of Israel 10,000 shecklim, and --If my deportation order is not cancelled within the next two weeks, I must agree to leave the country (be deported) at the time determined by the court.



All of this comes at a time when the Israeli Government has greatly stepped up it's attack on the International Solidarity Movement. Since the killing of Rachel Corrie several months ago in Rafah Gaza, when she was run over by an Israeli driven, American- made bulldozer, the Israeli Government and Military have continuously targeted and attempted to discredit the work of the ISM. The ISM is a Palestinian led organization dedicated to non-violent direct-action in defense of the civilian population of Palestine living under Israeli military occupation.



It is imperative to continue this work as it brings much needed international attention to the reality of Palestinian life under this occupation. If the Israeli Government is allowed to continue this attack on international peace workers, the situation in Palestine will move forward without any international eyes to witness. This eyewitness presence is crucial as much of the information about the situation here is coming from the side of the Israeli Government.



This sole source of information is extremely dangerous as it covers up reality with lies in order to justify the collective punishment of an entire civilian population.



The ISM is not pro-Palestinian or anti-Israeli, nor for or against any peoples. The ISM is against the occupation of Palestine and for freedom and justice.



I am a 28 year old American-born Jewish peace activist. For Further information, please contact: flo @ 972 67 361 708








News Release Issued by the International Secretariat of Amnesty International

Israel/Occupied Territories:



Amnesty International delegates denied access to Gaza





Amnesty International today condemned the Israeli authorities' decision requiring foreigners entering Gaza to sign "waivers" that absolve Israel from responsibility should they be killed or injured.

"The organization is categorically opposed to any attempt to get people to sign away their rights," Amnesty International said. "The signing of 'waivers' does not absolve the Israeli army of its responsibility in any way, nor the Israeli authorities of their duties to ensure that armed froces respect human rights in all circumstances."

The organization is concerned that one aim of these new and drastic restrictions is to prevent outside monitoring and scrutiny of the conduct of the Israeli army. It is also concerned that these restrictions will lead to more killings in Gaza and calls on the army to immediately end the use of excessive and unlawful force.

Amnesty International's delegates were denied access to Gaza today. They were required to sign the "waivers" which they refused to do. The organization has repeatedly demanded that international human rights monitors be deployed in Israel and the Occupied Territories to ensure that international standards are abided by.

"We condemn all unlawful killings of civilians, including children, in Israel and the Occupied Territories, whether committed by members of the Israeli army or members of armed Palestinian groups," Amnesty International said.

Background

The declaration to be signed states, among other things, that the individual "accept(s) that the government of the state of Israel and its organs cannot be held responsible for death, injury and/or damage/loss of property which may be incurred as a result of military activity".

Latest information on the crisis in Israel and the Occupied Territories: http://amnesty-news.c.tclk.net/maaa4ceaaXTH4bb0hbYb/

Woman held in administrative detention denied medical care. Take action! http://amnesty-news.c.tclk.net/maaa4ceaaXTH5bb0hbYb/












Israel Tightens Rules on Foreigners Entering Gaza Strip, Drawing Protest From Rights Groups



The Associated Press








JERUSALEM May 9 —

Israel on Friday tightened restrictions on foreigners entering the Gaza Strip, prompting charges it is trying to keep out those monitoring the actions of Israeli soldiers in hot spots.



Also Friday, an Australian human rights monitor and a pro-Palestinian activist from Chicago were arrested on charges they were in a West Bank town without permission. The two were ordered deported.



The policy was announced just a day before the arrival of Secretary of State Colin Powell to the region. Powell is to hold talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders on getting started on a peace plan presented last week by international mediators.



Under Israel's new rules, foreigners entering Gaza must sign a document that they agree not to enter military areas along the Israeli-Egyptian border and "other areas of combat," the military said in a statement. The statement did not specify what was meant by "areas of combat."



The statement said the aim was to keep out foreigners trying to interfere with the military and specifically mentioned the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), which sends volunteers to the West Bank and Gaza to serve as buffers between soldiers and Palestinians.



But the regulations appear also to give the military considerable discretion in keeping away other foreign nationals, including journalists, from areas of friction between Israeli troops and Palestinians.



In the past, the military did occasionally declare temporary "closed military zones" in certain areas, but enforcement was sporadic and violators were not severely punished.



The new policy also suggested an effort to release the army of responsibility when foreigners are hurt. The statement said those signing the document would "agree" that Israel and the army "cannot vouch for their safety."



The London-based human rights group Amnesty International issued a statement saying it was concerned that "one aim of these new and drastic restrictions is to prevent outside monitoring and scrutiny of the conduct of the Israeli army."



The military's statement insisted that "there is no intention to limit or encumber the passage" of diplomats, aid workers and journalists.



An Israeli military spokeswoman, Capt. Sharon Feingold, said the restrictions are not meant to hamper news coverage but to keep out ISM members and other foreign activists.



There was no immediate reaction to the new policy from the ISM.



The restrictions were imposed after an American volunteer with ISM and a British filmmaker were killed in recent weeks, while observing soldiers along the Israeli-Egyptian border, in the Rafah refugee camp in southern Gaza. Another British activist was critically wounded by troops in Rafah last month, and remains in a coma.



Feingold claimed the restrictions also were aimed at keeping foreign nationals with ties to terror groups from entering Gaza, but did not explain how the new policy would help detect possible militants.



Two British men, who visited Gaza on April 25, were later involved in a suicide bombing at a Tel Aviv pub. One blew himself up April 30, killing a waitress and two musicians, and the second escaped.



In London, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw criticized the Israeli demand that foreigners sign a safety waiver, saying it was unacceptable. Straw said he would take it up with the Israeli government.



In the West Bank town of Beit Sahour, the military raided an office and arrested Christine Razowsky, 28, of Chicago, an ISM member, and Miranda Sissons, an employee of the New York-based Human Rights Watch. Soldiers also confiscated computers, said ISM spokeswoman Laura Gordon.



Israeli police spokesman Gil Kleiman said the two were being held pending deportation on charges they illegally entered a restricted military zone.



Also arrested was Palestinian Fida Gharib, 22, a secretary for the organization, Kleiman said.



Rory Mungoven, global advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, said Sissons was "making a routine visit to pick up some documentation" when she was arrested. Human Rights Watch will appeal Sisson's deportation and is calling for her immediate release, Mungoven said.



"Human rights monitoring should be part and parcel of the road map to peace," Mungoven said. "And this arrest sends completely the wrong symbol, particularly on the eve of Colin Powell's visit."



The army said the restrictions being imposed in Gaza are already in place in the West Bank, where residents, diplomats, journalists, U.N. personnel and humanitarian workers are the only foreigners allowed to enter.



Journalists do not have to sign waivers to enter the West Bank.



Amnesty International said Friday it was "categorically opposed to any attempt to get people to sign away their rights."



"The signing of 'waivers' does not absolve the Israeli army of its responsibility in any way, nor the Israeli authorities of their duties to ensure that armed forces respect human rights in all circumstances," the group said in a statement.







Israel to bar pro-Palestinian activists from entering country







By Amos Harel and Aluf Benn



May 02, 2003 Nisan 30, 5763 Haaretz



Israel will from now on bar pro-Palestinian activists from entering the country and will try to expel at least some of the dozens of activists who are already here, according a new plan drafted by the Israel Defense Forces and the foreign and defense ministries.



Most of the activists, who come from Europe, Canada and the United States, belong to the International Solidarity Movement (ISM).



Their goal is to act as "human shields" for Palestinian individuals and houses during IDF incursions into Palestinian towns, and they have often been involved in confrontations with IDF soldiers. They also try to help Palestinians pass through IDF roadblocks.



Some two months ago, an American ISM activist, Rachel Corrie, was run over and killed by an IDF bulldozer in Gaza. Her colleagues accused the bulldozer driver of having run her over deliberately. The IDF denies the accusation and decided not to indict the driver. In two other recent cases, international activists have been seriously injured by IDF gunfire during confrontations in the territories.



The IDF charges that many of the self-proclaimed peace activists are "provocateurs" and "riot inciters" who deliberately interfere with the IDF's work, with the goal of blackening Israel's image. Army sources noted that in one case, they discovered a wanted terrorist being hidden by ISM activists in Jenin. The sources said the activists received training overseas in how to deceive border control officials at Ben-Gurion International Airport in order to be allowed into the country.



Furthermore, both the army and the Foreign Ministry fear that additional foreign citizens might be killed or wounded by the IDF if the ISM's activities are allowed to continue.



Wednesday's bombing in Tel Aviv, which was committed by two men who entered Israel on British passports, added a new reason to the authorities' desire to clamp down on the foreign activists - fear that other terrorists from overseas might enter the country under the guise of peace activists.



IDF and Foreign Ministry officials held another meeting on the subject this week and decided to instruct border control officials at Ben-Gurion and the land crossings with Egypt and Jordan to bar foreign activists from entering the country. In addition, IDF officers who encounter such activists in closed military areas will be ordered to arrest them, after which they will be deported.



On Thursday, the IDF arrested a foreign activist during its search for arms smuggling tunnels in the Gazan town of Rafah. Army sources said the woman was inside a house that was slated for demolition. The woman was later released and allowed to remain in the country, though she was barred from returning to Gaza.















The Next Crusade of the "War Activists"







By Caravan for Democracy Staff April 22, 2003







The "human shields" protecting the Palestinians are not "peace activists." In fact, the International Solidarity Movement has a different agenda.



As inevitable as the April showers bring the May flowers, the end of the campus Spring vacation will bring activists from the "International Solidarity Movement" (ISM) to U.S. universities to relate their experiences in "confronting the Israeli occupiers" and "protecting the Palestinian struggle for freedom."



In recent weeks ISM activist Rachel Corrie was killed and two British activists were wounded in tragic attempts to serve as "human shields" in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.



ISM members are often portrayed in the press as "peace activists." The Rocky Mountain News columnist, Dave Kopel, effectively challenges the description:



"The International Solidarity Movement is, according to its Web site, an organization that recognizes 'the Palestinian right to resist Israeli violence and occupation via legitimate armed struggle.' The ISM does not directly engage in violence, but actively aids those who do. A few weeks ago, Islamic Jihad terrorist Shadi Sukeya was found hiding in ISM offices in Jenin, along with two Kalashnikov assault rifles and a handgun. The ISM attempts to prevent Israeli demolition of buildings that hide underground tunnel networks used by terrorists. When the Israeli army fights violent armed Palestinians, ISM volunteers interpose themselves in ways that attempt to constrain the Israelis but not the Palestinians. Regardless of the merits of the ISM's cause, it is not accurate to call an ISM volunteer a 'peace activist' ... More accurately, the ISM should be called 'war activists,' since they are actively assisting one side in a war."



The ISM website also reveals that the organization is actually a Palestinian organization, led by Palestinians. The ISM's pacifist disguise is uncovered in a bellicose report on its Boston website, Rafah: The Battle of Tel Zorab. The ISM members in effect admit to positioning themselves so that they could be covered by "Palestinian resistance fighters."



An Israeli "armored personnel carrier arrived on the scene and the activists positioned themselves so that they could easily withdraw towards the Palestinian areas. (Israeli soldiers operating in the Gaza Strip are generally terrified of the Palestinian resistance fighters and almost never venture out of there (sic) armored vehicles.) ... At about 7 pm it began to get dark and the armored vehicles began to withdraw. The activists then left the area to by welcomed by the Palestinian spectators who cheered them and shook their hands."



Two of the ISM's well-known leaders, Adam Shapiro and his wife, Huwaida Arraf, defended the use of violence against Israelis in a January 2002 article in the Palestine Chronicle:



"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... [W]e 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."



The ISM does not condemn Palestinian violence. They do not place their members on Israeli buses or in Tel Aviv cafes to protect Israeli citizens from Palestinian terrorism.



If the ISM human shields want to embark on a true mission of mercy and courage let them fight the hatred of Israel and Jews endemic in Palestinian society. Educating the Palestinian street in Gaza or Ramallah will have farther-reaching consequences and requires much greater courage than standing in front of Israeli bulldozers in order to protect the Palestinian tunnels through which weapons are smuggled.











Galei Tzahal (Israeli Military Radio)
Transcript of an excerpt from the program
Open line with the Chief of Staff

On Passover Eve, April 16, 2003 at 08:00, the program Open Line with the Chief of Staff was broadcasted, during which Lt.-General Moshe Yaalon spoke with soldiers and commanders about current events. The Chief of Staff addressed questions by the programs presenter, Dalik Vilenitz, about the activists from a human rights organization (ISM) in the Palestinian territories. A friend of Dorothy Noar, of the Movement for the Civil-ization of Isarel translated the interview:



Dalik Vilenitz: One of the conclusions from the whole course of the intifada, and were seeing it now in the war in Iraq, is the question of the IDFs image. The IDF is currently facing problems, one of which is the overseas volunteers. Im talking about the ISM organization, whose people are in the territories, on the combat line. Some of them have been injured, which has led to strong shock-waves throughout the world. How is the IDF coping with this matter?



Chief of Staff: First of all, you said intifada. Intifada, this is the Palestinian story. I claim that this isnt an intifada, because an intifada is a peoples uprising, while here what we have experienced since September 2000 is a proactive attack and a strategic decision by the current Palestinian decision-maker, who took a decision to embark on a terror assault against us. And this is connected to that organization, ISM, an organization with volunteer activists from all over the world, who prepare their peace activists, and they came here after accepting the Palestinian story. Ostensibly, as they see it, we are the aggressors and they are the victims. In factual terms, the ones who started this aggression are the Palestinians. Thos who initiated the incidents in Rafiah, in a place where unfortunately two of those activists were wounded, were the Palestinians. An American woman activist was killed there by an IDF bulldozer which did not see her and a British activist was wounded in the head, apparently by our forces, although we are unable to authenticate this conclusively, who entered an area where a terrorist was standing and firing at our forces. One of our snipers fired towards the terrorist who was shooting at him, in an area where we have responsibility under all the Israeli-Egyptian agreements. There are incessant terror operations there, stemming from the Palestinian terror organizations need to smuggle weaponry from Egypt into the Palestinian-held area, and they now find it hard because of our operations there.



And all of a sudden these activists appear in the area. On the face of it, they are protecting the Palestinians from us. First of all, they create the negative image we have, because it certainly strengthens the Palestinian story, which according to my understanding is fabricated in this context. And as a result of this, they also impede the operations of our forces. As for the bulldozer story, the bulldozer was being used in an operation intended to flatten the ground so the terrorists would not be able to approach the axis of our action on the Israel-Egypt border. It did not see the activist, who was standing in a dead zone in terms of vision, and she was killed.



Their spokesperson says about this that the bulldozer was supposed to destroy a house and that she was protecting the house “a lie“. Their spokesperson reported that the bulldozer drove back and forth over the body, we saw the body, regrettably she was killed, and no such thing happened. We also encountered an incident in Jenin some time ago, during operations to arrest an armed terrorist, and he was in the office of that organization.



I have just given an order to remove the organization’s activists from the area, firstly for their own benefit - they are endangering their own lives in a superfluous way - but are also creating provocations that injure our freedom of action on the ground. And so its advisable that they get out of the area.









BEHIND THE HEADLINES




Tension rises between activists,
army after third recent casualty





By Matthew Gutman http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=12653&intcategoryid=1







TEL AVIV, April 13 (JTA) — The bad blood between the Israeli army and a group of international pro-Palestinian activists continues to grow as more members of the group are injured in Israeli anti-terror operations.



A British activist was shot in the head Friday as a group of foreign and Palestinian protesters approached a unit of Israeli tanks posted near the Rafah refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.



The incident ignited a crossfire of words and accusations between the IDF and the International Solidarity Movement.



Thomas Hurndall, 21, from England, suffered a head injury that left him brain dead. He was the third casualty from the International Solidarity Movement in a month.



The ISM is a movement of international activists working for “Palestinian freedom and an end to Israeli occupation,” according to its mission statement, sometimes through illegal protests and rallies.



Though members of the group call themselves peace activists, they work only to protect Palestinians from Israeli anti-terror actions, making no attempt to protect Israelis from Palestinian violence.



Hurndall was shot when a sniper on an IDF tank allegedly fired on a group of protestors marching toward them in an effort to thwart an IDF incursion into Rafah. This Palestinian city, which straddles the Gaza-Egyptian border, is one of the main zones for arms smuggling into Palestinian areas.



The IDF said a tank fired only one round in the area that day. It had targeted and killed a Palestinian sniper who was hiding in the upper stories of a nearby apartment building, firing at a column of armored vehicles, military sources said.



Still, Hurndall’s shooting is a disturbing addition to a string of recent bloody confrontations between the IDF and the ISM.



Only a few hundred yards from where Friday’s incident took place, American activist Rachel Corrie, 23, was killed several weeks ago when she tried to prevent a bulldozer from demolishing a terrorist’s home.



Witnesses said the bulldozer crushed Corrie, a student from Olympia, Washington, and immediately backed up. The army, which characterize the death as an accident, said the driver didn’t see Corrie.



Last week Bryan Avery, 24, of Albuquerque, was shot in the face while walking with a fellow activist in the West Bank city of Jenin.



The IDF said it was not aware that Israeli soldiers had shot Avery, but said soldiers had been targeting Palestinian gunmen in the area.



“This goes beyond the pale,” ISM leader Tom Wallace said. “It was a sniper” that shot Hurndall, “and we know from experience they don’t miss. The photograph clearly shows that he was wearing a bright orange vest, that he was clearly not a combatant. This man was going to pick up a child.”



Wallace said he considers the shooting a criminal act.



According to ISM activists and an AP photographer, Hurndall ran to scoop a child out of harm’s way when he was shot in the back of the head.



While the IDF has expressed sorrow at the chain of injuries, it claims ISM activists increasingly cross the line of neutrality. One example occurred on March 27, when IDF forces launched a manhunt for a top Islamic Jihad terrorist in Jenin.



Intelligence information led the IDF to believe that Shadi Sukia was being hidden in a Jenin compound that holds a bank, a Red Cross office and the ISM office.



After combing the entire building and finding nothing, the soldiers asked two ISM activists if they could search their offices.



ISM coordinator Susan Barcley refused. The soldiers insisted, forcing their way in.



The intelligence information proved correct: Sukia had taken shelter with the ISM. Both he and Barcley were arrested.



Wallace claims that Barcley found Sukia wet and shivering outside the ISM office, “and asked the boy to come in.”



According to the IDF, Sukia is no boy.



“He is a grown man, one of the highest ranking members of the Islamic Jihad in Jenin, responsible for recruiting several suicide bombers, planning bombings himself, laying mines and sniping,” an IDF official said.



“All told they gave him a change of clothes and a blanket and a hot cup of tea,” said Wallace, adding that the ISM activists had no way of knowing the young man’s political affiliations or criminal history when they cared for him.



Nonsense, the IDF responded.



“Many of the ISM activists are nothing short of provocateurs,” the IDF source said. “They try to incite the Palestinians. They’re almost spoiling for a fight.”



An infamous photograph of Corrie, for example, shows her with her head covered like a religious Moslem woman, burning a mock American flag in the Gaza Strip.



The IDF source intimated that Corrie’s death, though regrettable, was preventable.



“That day they were running amok around the soldiers, not letting them do anything. Even when the armored units pulled back, they chased them,” the source said.



Some of ISM’s tactics are daring, Wallace admitted. Others might call them downright foolish.



“ISM’ers often break curfew, just to show how ridiculous it is and because curfews are illegal according to international law,” Wallace told JTA.



The IDF source said the army maintains close relations with many humanitarian organizations, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, but has yet to find a modus vivendi with the ISM.



“If the ISM’ers in Jenin had nothing to hide, why prevent the soldiers from coming in” when they were looking for Sukia? the IDF source asked. “If the guy looked so innocent, why not let him come out and prove it?”







Solidarity With Terrorists
By Brian Sayre
FrontPageMagazine.com | April 17, 2003
http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=7361


(Front Page Magazine is published by David Horowitz)


On Friday, April 11th, 2003, Tom Hurndall was shot in the head. Tom was injured in Rafah, a Palestinian settlement on the border of Egypt. As of this writing, four days later, he lies in a coma in an Israeli hospital in Bersheeba, in serious but stable condition, after a four-hour life-saving operation. Tom was a twenty-one year old university student from Manchester, who majored in photography. He was also an activist for a controversial pro-Palestinian organization called the International Solidarity Movement.

At the time of his injury, Tom Hurndall was armed, wearing tiger fatigues, and shooting at a Israeli Defense Force outpost, taking cover behind a nearby building between shots.

Those of you reading about Tom Hurndall in the American or British media might start at this last sentence. After all, you read a dramatically different version of events in your weekend papers, which probably went something like this:

At the time of his injury, Tom Hurndall was unarmed, dressed in the bright orange jacket of the International Solidarity Movement, and steering two Palestinian children away from a firing Israeli tank-mounted machine gun.

That sound better? The first story, which cast Tom Hurndall as an armed combatant, was based on a Sunday, April 13th report of the Israeli Defense Forces. The second story, which cast Tom Hurndall as a heroic rescuer of defenseless children, was based on 'eyewitness' reports from Tom's fellow activists in the International Solidarity Movement. This second story got picked up by Reuters, who wrote that the Israeli Defense Force critically wounded a "British peace activist helping Palestinian children cross a street under gunfire." It also got picked up by the Associated Press, who also claimed Hurndall was helping "children out of the line of fire." With the aid of these two newswire services, the second story made its way into almost every major American paper by Saturday, the day after.

One event, two radically stories. Two radically different Tom Hurndalls. But which is true? We simply don't know. Right now an inquiry is underway, but conclusions have not been reached. One might be tempted to prefer the International Solidarity Movement's version, just based on its popularity in the American press. But the American press has not told us all we need to know. Often Hurndall's organization, the International Solidarity Movement, has not even been
mentioned.

This media silence is unfortunate, for the International Solidarity Movement has been very active lately. Three of their members have been killed or seriously injured in less than a month; Tom Hurndall was only the latest. Another member, Brian Avery, was wounded on April 5th while breaking a curfew in the Palestinian settlement of Jenin. Milling with young men throwing rocks at the Israeli Defense Forces, Avery was wound by the debris thrown up by a warning shot near his feet. While Avery will live, some of the debris tore into his face, and he will require plastic surgery for his wounds.

The first incident was the most serious, and the most reported in the press - the March 16th death of twenty-three year old Rachel Corrie, crushed beneath a bulldozer in Rafah when its operator failed to see her. Corrie was attempting to prevent the destruction of a Palestinian home, as the press widely reported. But most of the press (but not FrontPagemag.com) failed to report the presence of extensive tunnels underneath the homes of Rafah, used to deliver arms across the Egyptian border to the terrorist Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Houses involved in such smuggling are demolished as a matter of course. And when Corrie was killed, according to a Israeli Consulate media officer in San Francisco, the bulldozer was not even attempting to raze a home - just remove shrubbery used to hide a tunnel. Rachel Corrie died for nothing. An inquiry into her death found that she and other members of the International Solidarity Movement had engaged in "illegal, irresponsible, and dangerous" behavior. Indeed - by blocking the destruction of these houses, the International Solidarity Movement may have contributed to the arming of terrorists and the murder of innocent people.

Members of the International Solidarity Movement have also been arrested recently. On March 27th, a counterguerilla squad of the IDF's Golani brigade was in close pursuit of a leading member of Islamic Jihad, Shadi Sukia, responsible for recruiting several suicide bombers, laying land mines, and sniping. They traced him to a building in Jenin holding an ISM office, but the coordinator, Susan Barcley, refused to let them in. Unfortunately for both ISM and the terrorists, the Israeli Defense Force was not requesting. They entered the office, found the hiding terrorist, and arrested both him and Barcley.



While the International Solidarity Movement coordinator later claimed she did not know Sukia was a terrorist, this does not excuse her refusal to cooperate with the IDF. And it most certainly does not excuse what the IDF found in a search of the International Solidarity Movement's premises - a pistol and a cache of Kalashnikov rifles.



Barclay was deported for her actions.

What is this International Solidarity Movement? According to their website (source: http://www.palsolidarity.org), the group was founded in 2001, and exists to "raise awareness of the struggle for Palestinian freedom." While they recognize the Palestinians' right to 'armed struggle' - in other words, they give terrorism against Israelis a pass - they claim that they personally only use 'non-violent' techniques to achieve their aims. Led by Palestinians working closely with American recruiters, the International Solidarity Movement invites individuals from the West to come to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and disrupt the actions of the Israeli Defense Force. The International Solidarity Movement seems to believe that the Western citizenship of these activists gives them the immunity to do whatever they wish within Israel - treating them as criminals or terrorists would cause too much controversy for the Israelis in the international community. Using this 'first-world privilege', the International Solidarity Movement has temporarily taken over Israeli military checkpoints, interfered with the arrests of Palestinians charged with terrorism, and attempted to prevent the destruction of homes containing tunnels for weapons smuggling. Since August 2001, the group has conducted several large, episodic campaigns in Palestinian territories and maintains a continual, low-level presence year-round.

If you only read the International Solidarity Movement's communiques, or the quotes of their members in your morning newspaper, you might be forgiven for thinking the International Solidarity Movement was being deliberately targeted. However, the International Solidarity Movement has been caught lying on multiple occasions.

For instance, on the death of Rachel Corrie, activists in the International Solidarity Movement flew to the media, releasing a series of pictures on their web site. The first showed Rachel standing off to the side of an advancing bulldozer, easily visible, shouting through a megaphone. The next, her broken, twisted body. The International Solidarity Movement used these pictures to imply to the media that Rachel Corrie was easily visible to the bulldozer's operator and therefore deliberately run down; the Associated Press released the first picture with a caption that read "Rachel was run over Sunday by the bulldozer that she was trying to stop from tearing down a building in the Rafah refugee camp, witnesses said." The respected Christian Science Monitor made the appropriate inferences, writing that the picture showed Corrie "moments before" the bulldozer ran her down.



Other media outlets did the same, buying the implied context - but, after a couple of days, the truth came out. The first picture was taken hours before the second; immediately before Corrie's death, when she was obscured by the bulldozer's blade, no photographs were taken. In fact, she was killed by a completely different bulldozer, a model with much smaller windows.

One shouldn't be surprised by this deceit. Anyone able to stop on the way to help a critically-wounded friend in order to snap a couple of propaganda shots isn't above falsifying the facts of her death. But as the saying goes, "Fool me once, shame on you - fool me twice, shame on me." Which is why the Associated Press' article of April 5th on the shooting of Brian Avery is so puzzling. It reports, quoting another ISM member, that Avery was shot in the face just after emerging from his apartment building, having heard gunfire. But the same ISM member told a very different story on their own website, clearly stating, in an otherwise self-serving story, that the Israelis fired at their feet.



The lesson learned? When reading ISM reports of Tom Hurndall's injury, err on the side of skepticism. Newspaper articles that claim Hurndall was 'shepherding children to safety' are merely parroting the International Solidarity Movement's claims. After perpetuating so many falsehoods, they've lost their right to the benefit of the doubt.

But, to be fair, Tom Hurndall is not Rachel Corrie not Brian Avery, and we need to take a closer look at their story before we dismiss it outright. Do the Reuters and Associated Press reports contain any information which might substantiate their claims?

Yes - but no. The Associated Press article does attempt to substantiate its claims with independent, non-ISM eyewitnesses, a refreshing change from the past. They quote both a Khalil Abdullah and a Khalil Hamra, who concur with the ISM's story. But neither of these individuals are without bias. Khalil Abdullah reported that, although not a member, he works with the group. And Khalil Hamra? A photographer on assignment for the Associated Press, Hamra works out of Rafah, specializing in pictures of armed Palestinian militants, the bodies of Palestinians killed by the IDF, and anti-Israeli protests. He seems to have enjoyed a particularly close relationship with the International Solidarity Movement, taking many of the pictures in the aftermath of Rachel Corrie's death and Tom Hurndall's shooting, as well as pictures of the ISM at anti-American protests - most notably, the infamous shot of Rachel Corrie screaming in rage as, surrounded by Palestinian children, she lights on fire a paper American flag. While the subjects of a photographer do not necessarily indicate his sympathies, we note from a 10 June 2002 statement by the Foreign Press Association that Khalil Hamra of Rafah was jailed for several days in 2002 by the Israeli Defense Force while working for Reuters in Ramallah. IDF spokesmen explained that the arrest was due to suspicions that linked him to terror activities.

A man who admits to working with a group of demonstrated liars and a photographer arrested for his links to terrorism - not exactly model witnesses. Not much better than reports from the International Solidarity Movement themselves.

On the other hand, do we have any evidence supporting the Israeli Defense Forces' claim - that Hurndall was armed, that Hurndall was firing? No - but yes. No direct evidence, but we can't deny the indirect evidence, the Kalashnikovs found in the office. This evidence shows the International Solidarity Movement is not nearly as committed to non-violence as they would like you to believe. This 'principle' of theirs, belied by their arsenal, has served them well in America, where the International Solidarity Movement has several branches.

The primary purpose of the International Solidarity Movement in America is to spread information about the group and recruit participants for travel abroad. Representatives of the International Solidarity Movement can be found in Ann Arbor, Boston, Colorado, New Jersey, North Carolina, New York City, San Francisco, Washington state, and Washington D.C; while not all of these groups provide contact information, several have their own recruiting websites and all actively organize for the creation a Palestinian state. Some, like Ann Arbor's Thom Saffold, have been supporting murder campaigns for decades. A former Baptist minister, Saffold first got involved in what he terms 'peacekeeping' by defending the communist Sandinista government of Nicaragua back in 1983. His twisted logic is apparent when he states that "the tragic death of our Jewish Israeli sisters and brothers is a result of Israel's repression" - anything but the suicide bombers, it seems. All the while he attempts to sent young people to the Middle East to aid terrorists, using the college town of Ann Arbor as his stalking ground.



Other branches of the International Solidarity Movement hide behind more 'mainstream' Palestinian support groups - the International Solidarity Movement in Boston hides behind an organization called the Boston Committee for Palestinian Rights, while the International Solidarity Movement in Colorado is a subset of the Colorado Campaign for Middle East Peace. These organizations use their more respectable front to funnel money to the more extreme International Solidarity Movement. For instance, the Colorado Campaign for Middle East Peace funds itself in part by directing donors to make their checks out to the A. J. Muste Memorial Institute, a tax exempt 501c3 organization in New York City which provides funding and/or office space to a wide variety of leftist organizations, including groups linked to Muslim terrorists.



The Muste Memorial Institute has adopted the Colorado Coalition for Middle East Peace as a 'fiscal sponsor,' accepting tax-deductible donations for the coalition and passing them on. Therefore donors can help undermine the security of one of America's staunchest allies, all while getting a break on their taxes. In 2001, the last year for which tax returns are available, the Muste Institute chipped in two thousand of its own money. The main branch of the organization funnels its cash through a 501c called, oddly enough, the Africa Fund - why concern yourself with geography when you can get a tax break? If you're not worried about savings from the IRS, they provide an overseas bank account in Tel Aviv.

Some of the International Solidarity Movement's tactics are old. In hiding their positions behind the rhetoric of 'peace', while fully backing the terrorist opponents of peace, they resemble 1980s organizations like the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), set up in America by high-ranking members of the Salvadoran Communist Party and Cuban intelligence to support El Salvador's murderous guerrilla bands. This committee, part of the Soviet-controlled World Peace Council, also attempted to influence American public opinion through protests and one-sided disinformation, all the while fundraising for their guerrilla sponsors. Through their efforts, CISPES also won the support of leftist Democratic congressmen.But some of the tactics of the ISM are new. Their physical defense of terrorism on the front lines of the war against it is most disturbing - especially after 9/11, when America woke to the extent of the terrorist threat.

Unfortunately, the International Solidarity Movement's disinformation campaign has had a certain amount of success, both in America and in Israel. In America, the International Solidarity Movement has found a congressman willing to stump for it - Democratic Rep. Brian Baird, who has been calling for yet another inquiry into the death of Rachel Corrie; this despite the findings of the previous one, which placed the responsibility for her death squarely upon herself. And in Israel, the leftist wing of the Labor Party has begun to use Hurndall's unfortunate adventure to argue for the blunting of the IDF - the former Minister for Immigrant Absorption, Yuli Tamir, has called for an inquiry into the IDF's use of force. "The fact that these people come here for a good cause and are harmed bothers people," Ms Tamir said. But no 'good cause' hides terrorist recruiters in their offices. If the IDF had not come barging in, Shadi Sukia, arrested on their premises, could have arranged many more deaths.

When the facts are out, no one should be fooled by the International Solidarity Movement's attempts to turn Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall into martyrs. These people defended the most depraved type of violence - the violence of bombs in marketplaces, the violence of 9/11, the violence of dictators like Saddam Hussein. It's no coincidence that Hurndall served as a human shield for the Iraqi dictatorship before arriving in Israel. His claim, that he was in Iraq taking pictures for a college course, rings hollow - most young men don't travel to war zones for a few credit-hours.

If Hurndall lives, and is competent to stand, he should be tried for his actions by the Israeli government. The governments of America and Britain, so strongly committed to the war on terrorism, should support them, allowing the trials of Hurndall and future cases like his to proceed without interference and launching a thorough investigation of the International Solidarity Movement's activities on their own soil. By virtue of their Western origins and non-violent rhetoric, these radicals think they can get away with crimes others cannot. It is time to put this delusion to rest, and teach them the truth - a terrorist is a terrorist, no matter what their nationality.

Two Tom Hurndalls. The defenders of the peace call him violent; the harborers of terrorists, peaceful. Who will you believe?






Volume 1 Issue 9- Monday, April 7, 2003 - David Horowitz



THE TIP OF
A DANGEROUS ICEBERG
(The Threat of Militant Islam On American Campuses)



When I was a college radical and anti-war activist forty years ago, I was quite the intellectual and (in my estimation) cautious and sober. Though I became an editor and then co-editor of the leading radical magazine of the Sixties, Ramparts, I never threw a rock during the entire era. I never joined a radical sect and never went to Communist Cuba or North Vietnam, which were then the meccas of the radical faith. Although I was a founder of an organization called the "Vietnam Solidarity Campaign," I never fooled myself that the Communist state that would result from an American defeat would be a "rice roots democracy," the way Tom Hayden and other leaders of the "New Left" movement proclaimed.



Nonetheless, before the era was over, I was lured by my desire to do humanitarian good and to further the cause of social justice into working with the Black Panthers, a group of radical gangsters who in 1974 murdered a friend of mine (the mother of three children) and a dozen other individualss besides.(1) The project I had become involved in with the Panthers was building an elementary school.



From the vantage of the political and cultural left, my activities with the Black Panthers were neither marginal or extreme. At the time, the Panthers were icons of the progressive intellectuals, symbolizing strong black leaders who were standing up for their "oppressed" community. The entire liberal culture supported them. Leading cultural figures like Garry Wills and Murray Kempton were writing praises of the Panthers in the New York Times Sunday Magazine Kempton even compared their leader Huey Newton to Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther in the Times' august pages. To this day The New York Times, The Washington Post and other pillars of the American political culture, celebrate the Panthers - the murderers of my friend and a dozen others - as icons of the "social struggle."



Fortunately, the Panthers disintegrated in the early Seventies, dragged down by their criminal activities, internecine battles and the sordid brutality of their leaders, Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver. Before he died, Cleaver told a Sixty Minutes audience, "If people had listened to Huey Newton and me in the Sixties, there would have been a holocaust in this country." Many radicals, among them Cleaver's most prominent promoter - Los Angles Times columnist Robert Scheer -- looked forward to that holocaust and actively encouraged it. The Panthers were the "noble savages" of liberal compassion, symbols of the injustice that America was said to be inflicting on American blacks.



What would have happened if the Panthers had remained intact to the present? What if they had been the arm of an international terror network whose goal was the destruction of the United States? There are such groups in America today. They are radical groups who identify with the violent jihad of Islamacist terror organizations like al-Qaeda, Hizbollah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas. And they have the support of a radical culture that regards America as the Great