Stop the International Solidarity movement : Cleveland IMC (((i)))

Solidarity With Terror By: Lee Kaplan
FrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, July 02, 2004

This June I attended a “training session” of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), an organization of volunteers whose purpose is to obstruct Israeli defense forces attempting to protect the civilian population from terrorist acts. The ISM was set up by the Palestinians after Arafat broke off the
Oslo peace talks and launched the second intifada. Its organizers were Ghassan Andoni, a physics professor from Bir Zeit University in the West Bank, and Palestinian activists George Rishmawi and George Qassis. The idea was to bring in international volunteers, mostly radical students from the United States, Canada and Europe, as “nonviolent peace activists” who would interfere with the Israeli army’s anti-terrorist operations. If the volunteers were injured or arrested, the international repercussions would be detrimental to Israel, a propaganda win for the PLO. The operation costs the Palestine Authority very little since many of the radical volunteers pay their own transportation costs and live in the homes of Palestinians during their stays in the Middle East.

The ISM made international headlines when one of its activists, Rachel Corrie, a college radical from Olympia, Washington, was killed while attempting to block an Israeli bulldozer. The bulldozer was attempting to destroy tunnels from the Gaza strip through which the terrorists imported weapons and explosives. Corrie became a martyr to the cause, and inspiration to other radicals to follow.

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Adam Shapiro and Huwaida Arraf of the ISM

The most visible American figure in the International Solidarity Movement is Adam Shapiro, a Brooklyn Jew and college radical,who became a human shield for Yasser Arafat when the Israeli army surrounded Arafat’s Ramallah compound following the massacre of 30 Israelis – some of them Holocaust survivors -- at a Passover seder, shortly after the Intifada was launched. When I interviewed him last year, Shapiro told me point blank that he does not consider himself a Jew. He is married to Huwaida Arraf, a Palestinian-American activist from Michigan whose father holds Israeli citizenship. They have become the spokespeople for the ISM in the United States. In articles on the ISM website where they discuss their goals of dismantling Israel by supporting Palestinian terrorists they use euphemisms such as “legitimate resistance” or support for “legitimate armed struggle” while claiming that they are nonviolent. The ISM uses as its motto “by any means necessary.”

Such means include the hiding of terrorists like Shadi Sukiya, who was arrested in an ISM office in the West Bank. An arms cache was also found in an ISM office. Two suicide bombers gained entry for their murderous agendas under the auspices of the ISM. These Pakistani Muslims from Great Britain entered Israel through Jordan as clients of the Alternative Tourism Group, an operation set up by Andoni to aid ISM volunteers coming to Israel. They then met with the ISM at their offices for an entire day in Gaza before proceeding on to Tel Aviv where they bombed a popular beach bar, Mike’s Place, killing three people.

In the last three years the ISM has developed an extensive presence in the United States, while operating under several organizational names to avoid unwanted scrutiny of its operations. One of these entities, Al Awda (the Return in Arabic), is also known as the Palestine Right to Return to Return Coalition (PRRC). It is led by Mazen Qumsiyeh, a Yale geneticist. There are Al Awda chapters all over the United States, particularly in the vicinities of U.S. college campuses. Other ISM groups under the name SUSTAIN (Stop U.S. Taxpayer Assistance to Israel Now) operate in Los Angeles and New York. In New Jersey, the ISM supporters call themselves Palsolidarity. When the volunteers go to the Middle East to aid the PLO they go under the umbrella name of the International Solidarity Movement. When they hold events in the U.S. and Canada they call themselves the Palestine Solidarity Movement.

The party line, however, is always the same. The right of so-called Palestinian refugees to return to Israel is “unconditional” and Israel itself must become “Palestine.” The number of actual refugees from that part of the former Ottoman empire where Israel was established in 1948 was 600,000, most of whom are no longer alive. The number of refugees the Palestine Authority now recognizes is close to 5 million. The population of Israel is 6 million, including 1 million Israeli Arabs. The math is simple and the desired result: the liquidation of the Jewish state.

At the Palestine Solidarity Conference held at Ohio State last year, Adam Shapiro told me that the ISM has Palestinian “handlers,” or undercover supervisors at all demonstrations against Israel. These supervisors direct attacks against the separation fence that is being built to keep suicide bombers and armed terrorists from infiltrating into Israel and other targets. One of the handlers leading the current attacks on the security fence at the start of this summer’s campaign is a veteran of the Marxist terrorist group PLFP named Hisham Jam Joun. The ISM website, http://www.palsolidarity.org , openly proclaims that the organization is “Palestinian-led.”

I signed up for the ISM training session, after seeing their Internet announcement calling for volunteers for their new campaign, which they called “Freedom Summer 2004,” after the nonviolent campaign of the civil rights movement in the American south in the 1960’s. There were similar announcements on local websites run by the ISM all over the United States.

The phone number I dialed put me in touch with Paul LaRudee, a 58 year-old retired Berkeley professor who, along with his Lebanese wife, has been a leader of the ISM movement in the Bay Area. LaRudee assured me that they welcomed everybody, no matter how old or inexperienced. “Most of our volunteers are in their sixties,” he said. I was advised if I wanted to train with the ISM I needed to attend an orientation lecture at The New College of San Francisco which was being given by an Arab-American named Jess Ghannam, a psychoanalyst and professor at the University of California Medical School.

Ghannam’s lecture was a two hour diatribe, reviewing the history of the Middle East. It was so pathologically anti-Israel that it even reversed the famous slogan of the PLO, originating with Arafat’s uncle the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem that the goal of Palestinian liberation was to “drive the Jews into the sea.” In Ghannam’s version it was the Jews who intended to drive the Arabs into the sea, though how this could be done with 200 million people he failed to explain.

Ghannam concluded his lecture by telling a story about an Israeli soldier who asked him for his ID card when he was at a checkpoint in the West Bank. The young soldier noticed that Ghannam was from the San Francisco Bay Area and, being friendly, mentioned he’d gone to Mt.Tamalpais High School near Ghannam’s home. “Imagine!” Ghannam said indignantly, “This soldier, a Jew born in the United States, had the nerve to ask me for my ID on my land!” Yet Ghannam had told us in the beginning of the lecture that he was also born in the United States.

The following Saturday morning, June 12th, I arrived for my actual training. The session was held at 2263 Mission Street in San Francisco, a ratty storefront theater in a rundown area of the city that had a folding grid gate barring the entrance from the public.

About ten of us showed up, counting both volunteers and trainers. Before we were allowed to enter the storefront, however, we had to go through a simulated interrogation by an “Israeli border guard” impersonated by a woman named Jamie, who was a social worker for the city of San Francisco.

Jamie took her role very seriously. We learned later that she was an ISM veteran, having been a volunteer in Israel two years earlier as a member of San Francisco’s Jews For A Free Palestine (JFFP) and would be going again this summer.

Jamie went through my belongings and, on finding my notes from the ISM orientation lecture, asked me why I an Arabic name like Jess Ghannam appeared in my notebook.. Playing the game, I replied that I thought Jess was a Christian name and that I had no idea that Ghannam was an Arab. She asked me what hotel I was staying at in Israel, to which I replied the Sheraton. She allowed me to pass inside, and then turned to the next signup.

After everyone passed through the interrogation ritual, the gate was secured with a big padlock so nobody could get in or out. We were told we were in there for the entire day with just a brief break for lunch, a potluck meal which we had all been asked to contribute to.

Now that we had entered “Israel,” Jamie continued with the instruction. She had us form a circle and then led a discussion of the “border checkpoint” we’d just been through. I was told I did the right thing to get past the guard by lying that I had not realized Ghannam was an Arabic name and making up the hotel, since I would be actually staying with Palestinians. In other words, the ISM training session began with the idea of breaking the law to enter a democratic country by deceiving its border guards. In fact, everything we were instructed to do in the course of our training while we were in Israel would involve some form of breaking Israeli law.

Jamie then handed out ISM training manuals, big thick white notebooks containing eight sections, a text designed for would be infiltrators and subversives. Inside were articles authored by radical groups like the War Resisters League, Act Up, Direct Action and a several “anti-global” organizations. There were also internal ISM documents. They contained valuable information on how to disrupt the Israeli law enforcement and defense officials as effectively as possible. Jamie admonished us, “You see what it might be like when you try to enter Israel. Don’t bring your manuals with you!”

We then introduced ourselves. The first in the circle to do so was Mahera, a Palestinian-American woman in her late twenties who we were told would also be training us.

Mahera told everyone she works for the San Francisco office of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). I learned later that our orientation lecturer, Jess Ghannam, was on the Board of Directors of the San Francisco chapter of the same organization, which bills itself as a non-profit civil rights advocacy group for Muslims and Arab-Americans. Glancing through my manual I noticed it referred us to “the ADC reader.”

Many will be familiar with the ADC through its communications director, Hussein Ibish, who frequently appears on television talk shows, and promotes the ADC as a civil rights organization for Muslim-Americans in no way involved with aiding Middle East terrorism.

As Adam Shapiro had informed me earlier, the group was told that the ISM is a Palestinian-led movement and that we were under the leadership of the Palestinians who had professional handlers to oversee what we would be doing. Once we were in the West Bank there would be veteran ISM leaders to guide us, but that the Palestinian handlers had ultimate control.

The first woman in the circle identified herself as Barbara Miles, who said her maiden name was Zakasia and that she was Lebanese-American. Barbara described how she had visited Syria to support of the regime there. She asked if having “Syria” stamped on her passport would prevent her from getting into Israel. “Get a new passport,” Jamie advised. “It’s easy.”

The next to introduce himself was Ian Trenallio who was from Lake Tahoe and wore a T-shirt that said “anti-hate, anti-capitalist, anti-Zionist.” Ian told us he formerly had lived in San Pablo, a suburb of Berkeley. He had recently been to Tijuana, he said, to protest economic globalization and now he wanted to “help the Palestinians.” “Don’t say to the border guard you are there to help the Palestinians!” Jamie interjected. “The goal is to have the Israeli guards think you are a tourist. The Israeli economy is hurting because the war has killed tourism and we want to take advantage of that.”

Next to contribute was Christina Cruz, an Argentine national who was a student in the U.S. She expressed concern that she would have to go into to debt to join “Freedom Summer.” She wanted to “help” people and further the cause of human rights. It was still hard for me to understand the equation – helping terrorists and human rights.

The entire world woke up Sunday morning to news that a terror attack occurred at a hitchhiking / bus stop in the West Bank area of Gush Etzion. The victims of the attack were identified as Kinneret Mendel and Matat Rosenfeld—Adler, 21 and 23 year—old cousins from the settlement of Carmel, and Oz Ben Meir, 15, from the settlement of Ma'on, two young women, barely girls, and a teenage boy.

Israel has hitchhiking posts where young people can hitch rides in a country where not everyone owns a car. Three terrorists armed with machine guns drove up to the Gush Etzion hitchhiking post just south of Jerusalem and fired machine guns into the crowd, then fled. Another boy, a 14—year—old, was wounded during another attack shortly after, in the community of Eli, when he was shot in his chest and liver and left for dead. He was hospitalized in serious but stable condition.

Wagging tongues even in Israel were commenting on how terror attacks had restarted in the West Bank after the Gaza pullout, and some asked the valid question if these new attacks on Jews in the West Bank will mimic Palestinian actions in Gaza prior to the Disengagement. The PLO was given a waiver by the US State Department just one day earlier to keep their office open in Washington for another 180 days which poses the question if that was taken as a green light by the PLO to resume the killing.

But what has escaped most analysts' eyes is something else that is taking place here in the United States regarding PLO activities which also may point to the International Solidarity Movement's (ISM) involvement once again as a front for PLO terrorism while it poses as a 'peace movement' here in the United States.

Most terrorist attacks of late against Israelis have been carried out by Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants. Fatah, granted a waiver by the US State Department during the 'peace process,' has been relatively quiet. In order to not miss out on all the fun though, Fatah members created a new division of Fatah and changed the name to the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade.

Most Al Aksa terrorists have been Palestinian Authority policemen who were mainly employed through Fatah. Make no mistake about it: they are still Fatah and the name change is for the sake of Americans and Europeans who fund them while looking the other way. The Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade did not openly take credit for this attack on Israeli children, but Fatah did. According to Israel radio reporting on the killings, Shaul Goldstein, an eye—witness, said 'A Palestinian passed by in a car, let off a burst of fire, and struck down people standing at the hitchhiking post.' This sort of thing is classic realpolitik by Palestinian Arabs, and Fatah is still the ruling party in the Palestinian Authority.

Only two says earlier, beginning in New York, the ISM began a nationwide fundraising tour that is set to travel all over the US from New York, to the Midwest, the South and also most of California. Using ISM doublespeak by calling itself 'The Nonviolent Resistance Movement in Palestine: USA Speaking Tour,' they even now call themselves ISM—USA instead of just ISM for publicity purposes when announcing the tour and publicizing it.

One of the two speakers leading this fundraising tour is Yonathon (aka Jonathon) Pollak, a known Israeli anarchist and convicted criminal in Israel who has been arrested over 100 times for staging usually violent protests against Israel's security fence. Pollak is the leader of Israeli Anarchists Against the Wall. His own description of himself as an 'anarchist,' that is, someone who violently seeks to overthrow his own government even by terrorism, does not fit well with the term 'nonviolent' or 'peace activist.' His Palestinian counterpart is Ayed Morrar, a leader of the Committee Against the Wall in the West Bank. Morrar is billed as a 'nonviolent peace activist' but in reality is a convicted Fatah terrorist who served seven years in Israeli jails. And therein is the link to these renewed attacks in the West Bank and what the ISM is doing right now in the USA.

As I mentioned, Fatah has been relatively quiet. Yet as soon as this fundraising tour kicks off its first day here in the U.S., Fatah openly launches an attack that kills Israeli children in the West Bank. Such an attack puts the West Bank at the forefront of the American news media whose coverage of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict has been waning lately. And in doing so, Fatah increases attention and attendance at such fundraisers that helps to gain public attention and increased earnings each time such ISM events are staged here in America.

Speculation on my part, you say? Perhaps. But it's speculation based on understanding how the PLO operates by saying one thing and doing another and how the PLO uses the ISM, which has always boasted even on its own website that it is 'Palestinian—led' and that it must work in coordination with violent attacks on Israelis. One example of this same cynicism is how the ISM determined to add 'USA' in their new name during fundraisers here even after saying in internal emails such as the one Stop the ISM saw (below) that shows how ISM activists hate America:

Subject: Re: [ism—coordinators list] a suggestion: ISM—NA should
be ISM—USA ...

LOL, I can't imagine it would be any worse than
carrying the label of "American" in general at the
moment.

Yesterday a Palestinian said to one of the
Bostonians there to pick olives that his religion
keeps him from killing her, after asking her if she
was an American.

Lysander Puccio wrote:

you are right, Jaggi, I'm just not sure any of us
here could bear that tag. But let us see what we can do.

lysander

— swallace (at) igc.org wrote:

Thank you Jaggi!

I agree that it is important what we do here in
Palestine—but it is only part of our work—our
on—going and crucial work—which should include CD—is back
"home" in the States (which is only one part of las
americas).

Thank you for your words....

Sharon Wallace
Now in Palestine

—————Original Message—————
From: Jaggi Singh
Sent: Oct 15, 2004 8:55 AM
To: ism—coordination (at) lists.riseup.net
Subject: [ism—coordinators list] a suggestion: ISM—NA should
be ISM—USA ...

Hi there —— Just a friendly suggestion for your discussions at Duke ... I don't think you should be referring to ISM North
America (ISM—NA) but rather to ISM United States (ISM—USA) (or ISM—U$A, if you prefer).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think any Canadian or Quebec—based ISM groups are part of the discussions around
re—structuring. Moreover, the existence of a distinct ISM—USA makes a lot of sense, since the strategy and tactics in the belly of the beast will be different than those employed by those of us who live beside you (in the "appendix of the beast," if you like).

I do think that there should be good communication between all ISM groups in North America. And this list is one way we can do so. Moreover, there are opportunities for
collaboration continentally (speaking tours, urgent actions, joint fundraising, etc). But in terms of structure, there is not an ISM—NA, but rather a ISM—USA and ISM Canada (we even have a website at http://www.ismcanada.org).

You all in the United States have a particular obligation to take on your own government, because without USA support political, economic, military, cultural —— Israel could not maintain occupation. Direct action in the USA IS direct action against Israel. The scope for action and civil disobedience in the United States, in solidarity with Palestine, is tremendous. In my mind, it's a direct hit against occupation, as much as funding people to go to Palestine itself to do civil disobedience. Moreover, the Christian Evangelical movement in the USA is such a key target, and a powerful lobby of support for not just occupation, but all out ethnic cleansing of Arabs from all of historical Palestine. The Christian Evangelical leaders and organizations should be confronted as well, as the bigots and racists that they are.

Certainly, in Canada, we have our obligations too, and
there are many disturbing tendencies as well. But, while our
government is complicit with Israel in occupation, there is still a more open political culture here around Mideast issues (relatively speaking).

During the recent UN vote on the apartheid wall,
the USA voted with Israel as per usual, while Canada abstained. These votes reflect the various challenges we face in our respective settler states, and I suggest the structure of ISM in North America should reflect this, while we strive to communicate and collaborate effectively.

Have a good meeting at Duke.
In struggle and solidarity,
Jaggi (ISM—Montreal)

Stop the ISM sent one of our team members to attend the first 'ISM—USA fundraiser' like this in New York, cynically held last week in a Christian church whose elders believed they were hosting a 'peace' group. One thing of note was that donations at the event were only accepted in cash—no checks. No receipts were furnished to donors either. There's a reason for that: no records. As usual, an anarchist like Pollak screens a film with staged scenes of Israeli atrocities against innocent Palestinian 'peacefully protesting the Wall.' Give them money to continue their struggle they ask.

Of course, the film excerpts do not show these 'peaceful' activists setting tires on fire and rolling them at Israeli soldiers, or shooting rocks with slingshots at them that have already killed and maimed, nor of providing cover for the terrorists who may shoot at the soldiers. This happens every Friday after incitement occurs in the local mosque led by imams the Palestinian Authority chooses and supervises and who are financed by the Saudis (Yes! Just like in American mosques!). Those religious leaders always advocate the local populace to violence spurred on in the community by ISM internationals and other anarchists like Pollak. They are supervised in turn by plainclothes organizers from Fatah.

Another example of Palestinian 'nonviolence.'

The ISM website now takes donations and will accept checks made out to ISM—USA but also made out to the Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA), a funding source we showed a few weeks ago that violates US tax laws regarding its nonprofit handling of charitable donations.

Israel just did a voluntary withdrawal from Gaza that uprooted 8,500 of its people. It left behind intact 14 million dollars worth of greenhouses that would have provided 32,000 jobs for Palestinians, but a good part of that was vandalized and destroyed right in front of Palestinian police. So why would any faction of the PLO like Fatah, the main negotiating arm with an office in Washington, not only participate in the Gush Etzion attack let alone take open credit for it? We at Stop the ISM believe it is to draw media attention to the West Bank and Gaza in coordination with this latest ISM fundraising tour featuring a Fatah terrorist, now called a 'peace activist.'

David Baker, an official in the Israel Prime Minister's Office, denounced the shooting by pointing out that "As part of a series of humanitarian gestures, Israel removed roadblocks and eased up on the Palestinians." In an interview in Ha'aretz he continued, "The Palestinians have nonetheless exploited these measures, which has led to these murderous attacks."

Predictably, the Israelis have reinstituted roadblocks and even closed the tunnel road to Jerusalem. And what better timing could there be for a fundraising tour in the United States at US churches where speakers like Pollak and Morrar can complain about such roadblocks and restrictions such as a Security Barrier to keep terrorists out of Israel preventing attacks on more Israeli children? Talk about ISM doublespeak: Introducing Ayed Morrar, a convicted Fatah terrorist who served seven years in prison in Israel and who belonged to the Aksa Martyrs Brigade forerunner, the Fatah general command, as far back as 1988, as a 'peace activist' leader of the Popular Committee Against the Wall in the Arab village of Budrus is the most cynical of semantic manipulations possible.

The fundraising tour also says 'peace' will come about when Israel ends its security measures and becomes Palestine with an Arab majority ruling over the Jews. So what better way to gain attention for the tour's goals than to murder some children and make the international news? If roadblocks and restrictions are not as severe, how can cash funds be raised as easily to send back home?

Look for more attacks in the West Bank as this tour makes its way across America gathering cash to bring back to the West Bank for use by Fatah or Hamas which is also steadily making inroads into the Palestinians' government. If this tour comes to a Church in a community near you, alert the church elders. In some instances they will be unaware of what the ISM really does for the PLO. Organize protests at such ISM fundraising events in your area to protest the collecting of money to renew terrorist attacks on the people of Israel and write the DHS and ask them why a convicted terrorist like Morrar is even allowed in the United States by our immigration officials so he can raise money that can be used for terrorist enterprises.

unknown gunmen shoot people in the state of israel
No suspects caught and of course it must be a Palestinian group and not Mossad terrorist teams that pull flase flage operations to convince the quivering Israeli population that their prisoner populations are causing trouble; terrible trouble.
And milk it to the hilt by zionuts like Lee.K.
Geesus!
I don't put anything past these individuals.

"flase flage"
by Aryan feces posts to itself Thursday, Jun. 25, 2009 at 12:59 AM

"please form a complete sentance. That is understandable."

This is nothing but Zioinst lies,

have a look at
http://www.rachelcorriefoundation.org/site/

and
http://www.palestinecampaign.org/index2b.asp

ISM lied and Rachel Corrie died. They filmed her rather than warning or saving her because her death was more valuable than her life for their propaganda. The ISM is an inherently evil organization.

and lie about the circumstances.
She was in full view, alone, facing an armored D9
She probably hoped the driver would not advance but she was wrong.
The dozer blade ran over her twice and crushed her.
She was in full view, with a megaphone and orange jacket standing alone.
Rachel died [ it was 1st degree murder ] and israel lied.

For Youtubes of rachel Corrie's death:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54AvAZkbLgk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY2ohOsxQIU

The ISM continues to exploit young people

by http://jerusalemdiaries.blogspot.com/

esterday marked the 6th anniversary of the death of Rachel Corrie--a young American member of the International Solidarity Movement. Today, another ISMer, Berkeley tree-hugger, Tristan Anderson, is being treated in Tel Hashomer Hospital after sustaining life-threatening injuries while he too was in a closed military zarea protesting Israel's attempts at fighting terrorists. What would have happened if Corrie would have been taken to an Israeli hospital instead of the Arab hospital where they let her die??

Here's an in-depth piece I wrote last year on the circumstances of her death...

Jerusalem: The news that a senior Islamic Jihad terrorist, Shadi Sukiya, was captured by an elite anti-terror unit of the Israel Defense Forces while hiding out in the Jenin offices of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) did not make a ripple in the flood of coverage from the Iraqi front in late March 2003.

Just eleven days earlier, on March 16, the ISM did make world headlines when Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old ISM member, was run over by an Israeli bulldozer in Rafah and died of her injuries.

Maybe the fact that a "peace organization" was found to be defending terrorists twice in a two-week period will factor into the inquiry called by several Washington state congressional representatives into the circumstances of Rachel Corrie's death.

With the fifth anniversary of Corrie's death having just passed us, only one thing remains certain about the events of March 16: Corrie died in Rafah, on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip, under very questionable circumstances.

The questions remain: Is Israel responsible for Corrie's death, or do the doctors at the Arab hospital where she was taken still alive after the accident bear any responsibility? What about the ISM that organizes protests in a closed military zone and encourages its members to play cat and mouse among the tanks and bulldozers? Or the Arabs who invite the "internationals" to risk their lives in a war zone? How she died, exactly where she passed her last moments and who should take the blame for Rachel Corrie's death are questions that demand answers.

The inconsistencies in eyewitness testimony raise doubts about the simplistic conclusions drawn ever since the event.

By all accounts, Rachel Corrie was one of a group of protesters attempting to disrupt the work of two IDF bulldozers leveling ground to detonate explosives in an area rife with terrorist activity. The bulldozers moved to a different area to avoid the protesters, and Corrie became separated from the group. Some of the agitators stood with a banner, while Corrie picked up a bullhorn and yelled slogans at the driver encased in the small cabin of the dozer. This went on for several hours on the afternoon of March 16. It's the kind of activity favored by the young pro-Palestinian types who make up the ISM.

There wasn't enough action for Corrie. According to fellow Evergreen State College student, Joseph Smith, 21, who was at the site, Corrie dropped her bullhorn and sat down in front of one of the bulldozers. She fully expected that the driver would stop just in front of her. "We were horribly surprised," Smith told me by phone from Rafah the day after the incident. "They had been careful not to hurt us. They'd always stopped before," he said.

As the dozer plowed forward heaping up a pile of dirt and sand, Corrie scrambled up the pile to sit on the top. Smith says she lost her footing as the bulldozer made the earth move beneath her feet. She got pulled down, he says. "The driver lost sight of her and continued forward. Then, without lifting the blade he reversed and Rachel was underneath the mid-section of the dozer, she wasn't run over by the tread."

Capt. Jacob Dellal of the IDF spokespersons office confirms what Smith says about the driver: he lost sight of Rachel. Inside the cab, some six feet off the ground, visibility is very restricted. The protesters should have known that and kept within the driver's line of sight to avoid getting hurt, Dellal asserts.

The strange thing about this part of the story is the discrepancy over the photos given to the press and posted on several pro-Arab websites.

As Smith describes to me his version of events, I ask about the series of photos printed in an Arab newspaper I picked up the morning after the incident, in Jerusalem's Old City. "They aren't of the actual incident," he states firmly. "We'd been there for three hours already, we were tired, we already had a lot of pictures."

Yet these are the pictures used on the ISM website to document the before and after of Rachel's interaction with the bulldozer. The same pictures are featured as a photo-essay on the site of Electronic Intifada, where they're even attributed to Joseph Smith.

There are several shots of the back of a woman with a blond ponytail facing a bulldozer. She's standing in an open field, wearing an orange fluorescent jacket, holding a megaphone.

Even Michael Shaik, the ISM media coordinator at the time, wouldn't confirm that these are pictures of Corrie taken the day she died. "I'm fairly sure they're of the incident," he tells me by phone from his Bethlehem office. In the same conversation, Shaik asks me not to contact Joe, Greg or Tom, the Rafah ISM eyewitnesses again directly: "They're still in trauma."

The pictures should have raised all kinds of questions to photo editors, but all the major newspapers and wire services chose to run the photos regardless. If there are pictures of Rachel before and after, why didn't the same photographer consider it important to document the act of the bulldozer running her down?

Where is the mound of earth Rachel clambered up and was buried in? The woman shown lying bleeding from her nose and mouth is lying on a flat piece of ground.

So, Corrie was either knocked down by the dozer, or fell in front of it. ISMers assume that she was intentionally run over, but there's no proof that was the driver's intent.

The real issue is, was Rachel alive when she was taken by Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance to Martyr Mohammed Yousef An Najar Hospital? In other words, where did she die? Were adequate efforts made to save her in the hospital?

Again, there are conflicting stories. Joseph Smith tells me in a telephone interview the day after the tragedy, "She died in the hospital or on the way to the hospital." CNN also reported that Rachel died there. (Israeli bulldozer runs over 23-year-old woman. CNN, Monday, March 17, 2003)

In his account posted on http://www.arabia.com, ISMer Tom Dale has a slightly different story. On March 17 he writes: "I ran for an ambulance, she was gasping and her face was covered in blood from a gash cutting her face from lip to cheek. She was showing signs of brain hemorrhaging. She died in the ambulance a few minutes later of massive internal injuries."

But Dr. Ali Mussa, director of Martyr Mohammed Yousef An Najar Hospital where Corrie was taken, seems confused. On the day of the event, Dr. Mussa tells AP Gaza reporter Ibrahim Barzak that Rachel died in the hospital. (American Killed in Gaza. AP. March 16, 2003)

One week later, in a telephone interview, Dr. Mussa states definitively to me that Rachel died at the scene, "in the soil," as he puts it. The main cause of death was suffocation, Mussa asserts. There were no signs of life, no heartbeat or pulse when she arrived at the hospital, he says. Mussa states that Rachel's ribs were fractured, a fact determined by X-rays.

Doesn't quite jive with the photo essay on the pages of the Electronic Intifada website for March 16, 2003. (Photo story: Israeli bulldozer driver murders American peace activist by Nigel Parry and Arjan El Fassed, The Electronic Intifada, 16 March 2003.)

A caption under one photo of doctors leaning over a female patient reads: Rachel arrived in the Emergency Room at 5:05 p.m and doctors scrambled to save her. By 5:20 p.m, she was gone. Ha'aretz newspaper reported that Dr. Ali Mussa, a doctor at Al Najar, stated that the cause of death was skull and chest fractures. Dr. Mussa told me he was one of the treating physicians, yet he alone maintains that Rachel was dead before she was put into the ambulance.

To further complicate matters, on that same website, a report from the Palestine Monitor is cited. Here, the writer says that Rachel fractured her arms, legs and skull. She was transferred to hospital, where she later died, says this report.

Just who is Dr. Ali Mussa? Clearly a man in favor with the Palestine Authority hierarchy. Dr. Mussa's views are aired on the official website of the PA's Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation: (January 27, 2003)

There, Dr. Mussa accuses Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's "terrorist government" of deliberately killing Palestinian children in Rafah.

A few days after the incident, ISM Media Coordinator Shaik tells me by phone from Rafah that three ISMers, Tom, Alice and Greg were in the ambulance with Rachel. She died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, says Michael.

But Greg Schnabel, 28, who is quoted in numerous wire service and newspaper stories, never says he witnessed the death of his comrade in the ambulance. In his account published a few days later on the ISM website, he carefully states that she died twenty minutes after arriving at the hospital.

What happened to Rachel's body after her death? Depends whom you ask. Dr. Mussa says it was kept for 24 hours at the hospital before a Red Crescent ambulance transported it to the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, via the border where an Israeli ambulance took over. l Shaik says "we lost track of it (her body) after she died." Three ISMers tried to escort the body, but only one was permitted on the ambulance on the Israeli side. According to his account, the ambulance drove straight to the Israeli Forensic Institute at Abu Kabir, where an autopsy was performed. The Israelis are trying to say she died from a blow to the head by a rock, Shaik recounts.

Speaking about the autopsy, one of Rachel's ISM trainers, Iowa native LeAnne Clausen, a fieldworker for the Christian Peacemaker Team based in Beit Sahour, tells me: "The general sentiment within ISM is that the Israelis are trying to suggest perhaps Rachel was on drugs."

In reality, IDF spokesperson Dellal says that initial Israeli investigation results indicate that the cause of death was most likely a blow to the head and chest by a blunt object, possibly a chunk of cement dug up by the bulldozer.

In keeping with ISM sympathies, Rachel received a shaheed (martyr) procession in Rafah, the day after her death. But here again, there's confusion between reality and photo op. Some accounts noted that her coffin draped in an American flag was paraded through the streets. Yet a picture on the site of her college town's peace movement, the Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace, shows Arab women holding a coffin covered by a Palestinian flag with the caption: Palestinian funeral for Rachel.

Confusion and obfuscation seem to be a trademark of the ISM. In May 2002, a number of ISMers raced past Israeli soldiers into the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where dozens of Palestinian terrorists had holed up to evade capture by the IDF outside. After an agreement was reached, the ISM members refused to leave the church, holding up the solution. Then they charged that they were mistreated by clergy, who claimed the ISMers desecrated the church by smoking and drinking alcohol.

Another revealing ISM action took place shortly before the Bethlehem incident, when a number of protesters managed to make their way past IDF barricades into Yasser Arafat's Ramallah compound to protect the terrorist leader.

Strange, given the fact that most ISMers are avowed anarchists decrying any kind of governmental authority. Corrie's Swedish boyfriend and fellow ISMer told a reporter for Seattle's The Stranger newspaper, (April 4, 2003) that Corrie could be described as an anarchist.

Still, the politics of the Ismers are predictable. Another Evergreen student who arrived in Israel around the same time as Corrie says he has "been at war with the multinational corporations for some time now." His "baptism of fire" took place at the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle, he proclaims.

Joe Smith, recounts his motivation to join forces with the ISM . "Because I felt it was one of the best ways for me to use my privilege as a white middle class American male to directly serve impoverished people of color who are under-privileged due to the Israeli and other Western governments, especially mine.

I have dedicated my life to serving such people (ed. Arabs), as I believe my over-privilege is a direct result of their under-privilege. I have benefited from their suffering, and this must stop."

ISM activity in Rafah has more to do with being used to defend terrorists than preventing suffering of the masses. IDF efforts in Rafah were concentrated on preventing the flow of arms and explosives over the border from Egypt into the terrorist's dens that riddled the area. Less than a week after Rachel died defending terrorists, Israeli tanks moved into Rafah , surrounded several houses, and arrested two Hamas members. IDF spokesperson, Dellal calls Rafah, "the most dangerous area in the West Bank and Gaza," and decries the provocative protests of ISM. "There's nothing wrong with civil disobedience, but these people crossed the line of what was safe for everyone," Dellal says.

So, while the memorial services laud and remember Rachel Corrie as a peace activist murdered by Israeli occupation forces, the truth lies elsewhere.

An Israeli bulldozer injured Corrie as she tried to prevent it doing its job of protecting Israeli civilians, but she was alive when she was taken to An Najar Hospital, according to at least three eyewitnesses. Only Dr. Mussa, a man intent on accusing Israel of child killing, claims otherwise. None of Rachel's comrades have stated they were with her in the hospital when she died. No one has commented on the extent of efforts to preserve Corrie's life at An Najar.

And all the while, the ISM continues to encourage misguided young people from around the world,like Rachel Corrie, to spend time in the Middle East providing cover for terrorists.

1st there is no U-Tube as the title promises but instead we are treated to another ranting series of lies and innuendos from an obvious zionazi.
Am I ever surprised!

For Youtubes of rachel Corrie's death:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54AvAZkbLgk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY2ohOsxQIU

so where is the actual U-Tube?
I've seen and heard enough israeli inturpretatons of what you're showing us.
Too much fat and no meat.
.
Also there weren't any videos at the sceen and your "video" is yet another damned forgery. What are you trying to pull?
The usual horse shit?

How can Aryan fecal matter, institutionalized in a mental hospital, possibly know of the restrictive visibility in such an armored dozer?

http://smoothstoneblog.com/how-rachel-corrie-really-died

Lee Kaplan of DAFKA, StopTheISM and author of several articles on FrontPageMagazine wrote me and asked me to post about the real circumstances under which Rachel Corrie died. In the three videos below, Lee Kaplan, along with Becky Johnson, discuss the real circumstances surrounding the death of ISM anarchist Rachel Corrie in March of 2003 when she knelt in front of an Israeli bulldozer being a human shield while it was clearing suspected weapons smuggling tunnels in Gaza – and NOT a terrorist’s house, which is what the ISM tried to pitch to the international community to garner support for their terrorist-loving cause.

These three videos (each one approx. 9 minutes long) include doctored photos from ISM (see above doctored photo-chopped photograph from the ISM site) The ISM released those photos on their own website maintaining they showed Corrie with a bullhorn confronting the bulldozer that killed her, then moments later after being struck.

However, a careful examination of the photos showed that scenes were staged with different tractors and at different times. One photo with a superimposed tractor in the foreground and Corrie superimposed with another ISM activist in front of a “doctor’s house,” when enlarged, not only revealed the superimposition techniques, but that the ISM (or PLO photographers who doctored the photos) left off the feet of the two ISM activists.

Actual video footage from the Israeli Defense Forces show the real circumstances under which the terrorist loving anarchist died: knee-deep in a trench in the middle of dirt in an open dirt field. The left arrow on the photo below points to the tractor, the right arrow shows the kneeling Rachel Corrie. To see the live action footage moments before Rachel Corrie’s accidental death, go to the Part 2 video, approx 49 seconds into the video:

http://smoothstoneblog.com/how-rachel-corrie-really-died

These are compelling videos which demonstrate the caluminous nature of the terrorist-loving International Solidarity Movement.

part one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY2ohOsxQIU

part two
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54AvAZkbLgk&feature=related

part three
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_vlJo3g0Ys

Can we have some input besides the obsessed rantings of
obvious psychotics who serve as noise makers and fools with graphics for retards and questions like 'how do you know they could see her?'
That's why they call them windows, so they don't fall into holes.
He saw her but, like Yada, decided she was sub-human and dispatched her like a dog

I'd rather know why
by Yada keeps Claiming to *not* be... Friday, Jun. 26, 2009 at 1:00 PM

now could this be because everyone it knows, calls it one?
These are boring questions about obsession and paranoia we have seen answer themselves daily.
Did this moron realize you need to see where you are going with a 60 ton piece of equipment? Nah, that would require reason. You see, Yada, the ones they forgot to put windows on, fell into holes.
There *are* photos showing her clearly standing on a mound of debris, in front of this blind driver, wearing a bright orange vest and shouting at the blind driver with a working megaphone.
Prove you're not a psychopath.

The real rachel corrie- burning an American flag. Oops. teaching peace. Yeah, thats what she's doing

the only thing you are prooving is the psychosis I mentioned earlier.
Even stupid graphics can't help you here.

The burden of proof is on Aryan fecal matter.

scroll uand read the idiot remark about "not seeing her"
while driving a D9

The burden of proof is on Aryan fecal matter.

Can you see me now, shit for brains?

http://cleveland.indymedia.org/news/2009/06/44304_comment.php#44655

The first picture of Corrie, of her burning her little Crayola flag, was posted by Aryan fecal matter so it could "respond" to it a few minutes later with it's parroting about "stupid graphics".

obviously Yada thinks Cleveland is stupid and believes it when anyone who can read will see who is the "mental defective" doing all the psychotic posts. Some of which *do* rant at themselves like a rabid dog bitting itself in frenzy.

More of the same childish idiocy from Aryan fecal matter. "I know you are, but what am I?"

There is another wank, just as twisted and as much a liar as Yada, and that's the *other* zionazi weasel, Lee Kaplan.

I am quite the original. I never repeat something overheard from elsewhere.

This guyis the most advanced case of delusional paranoia I have ever read.
Terorist Jihadist and Bears oh my!
Terorist Jihadist and Bears oh my!
Terorist Jihadist and Bears oh my!
Terorist Jihadist and Bears oh my!
Terorist Jihadist and Bears oh my!
And so forth, down his own little wild toad's ride into conjecture
and innuendo, based solely on his personal twisted viewpoint.
Yup, that's Lee Kaplan.

THE ISM killed Rachel Corrie and they'd kill you too if your death would advance their agenda.

and anyone reading his scees, would find it difficult to believe this individual is any more than another voise from the loons of the zionist lobbies, with frequent use of words like "terrorist" "jihadists" and other meaningless generalities from paranoid land.
sheeesh

Anti-zionists HATE getting caught so ever since Lee Kaplan exposed the ISM as a fake peace group, and really just camoflage for terrorists, theyve been on a vendetta against him ever since.

sure the wanks of zionism idolize Lee Kaplan and follow his rants like a white supremist follows white sheets.
It must be the sense of belonging, even in a psycho fringe cult like zionism which still is trying to Siamese the Jewish religion to the theft and murder in Palestine and Lebanon. Or anywhere the israeli armed forces crank out their own brand of terrorism.

And I am a documented Nazi.

after all, it'll tell you about *not* being Arayan fecal matter and a zionist stooge.
Or not being a sloganeering fudge wit
Or not being a sack of feces
Or not being a shitferbrains
Or not being many things it tells everyone it is *not*.
Like Lee Kapal is *not* a ranting zionist loon.
chuckle....

just like their pupils, the nazis, who were taught all the trade secrets.

Thats why they're called "Haters".

what's wrong with hating nazis who pretend to be Jews?
Nothing at all.

"what's wrong"
by not Aryan fecal matter Monday, Jun. 29, 2009 at 10:58 PM

Aryan fecal matter fools nobody.

It's a skinhead sack of shit who can't spell at kindergartner level and can't post a coherent sentence. The damage control it needs is a bullet to the forehead.