The first example is this one:
Larudee said the government may be trying to clamp down on the organization because of its Freedom Summer Palestine 2004, a 56-day campaign that began June 25 to protest the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
Notice that the campaign is 56 days, representing the 56 years since Israel’s establishment. In other words, the ISM don’t just oppose the “occupation” of the disputed territories. They oppose Israel’s very existence!
Here is another passage that struck me.
ISM was founded by Israeli and Palestinian peace campaigners and leading members of the Palestinian Communist Party. It is run by Communist Party activist George Rishmawi and party politburo member Mustafa Barghouti.
While Charles at LGF found it interesting that the ISM is run by PLO Arab Communists, I am more interested in the mention of Mustafa Barghouti, who is related to terrorist Marwan Barghouti, recently convicted of murder and attempted murder (He is either a brother or cousin of his, depending on which source you believe).
The following article appears in the San Francisco Chronicle:
Jerusalem — A Jewish activist from San Francisco who was barred from entering Israel said Tuesday that her arrest has strengthened her resolve to fight for Palestinian rights, and Bay Area colleagues said her detention is part of a campaign to crack down on a group undertaking a summerlong protest of Israeli policies.
Jamie Spector, 32, a social worker with the San Francisco Unified School District, has been held in detention at Ben-Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv since she landed Saturday. She is appealing a deportation order from the Israeli Interior Ministry, which says she is a security threat. Spector’s deportation has been frozen by the Tel Aviv District Court, and a hearing is expected this week.
In an interview from the detention center, Spector denied any involvement or support for Palestinian terrorism or any other activity that could threaten Israeli security.
She had planned to join the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) — a pro-Palestinian activist group — to protest Israeli occupation policies and the construction of Israel’s controversial West Bank security barrier. She also brought materials for a joint Israeli-Palestinian art project for children.
“As a Jewish person, I strongly believe that the only way to achieve peace and security for everyone is to dismantle the wall and the occupation,” Spector said. “I have been appalled for a long time by the human rights violations carried out by the Israeli government, often in my name.”
Calls by The Chronicle to the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco were not returned.
Paul Larudee, 58, of El Cerrito, an ISM volunteer who has known Spector for about two years, said, “It seems clear that there’s a more concerted effort to stop us now.”
He said the crackdown became evident in the past four to six weeks. Another Bay Area ISM volunteer, Brooke Atherton, was detained and deported to Italy about two weeks ago, he said. Atherton is a Stanford graduate but, unlike Spector, she is not Jewish.
Spector, who spent four years managing a social protection program for CARE International in Bosnia-Herzegovina, is active in left-wing Jewish groups in the Bay Area, including Jewish Voices for Peace and Jews for a Free Palestine. She last visited the West Bank in October 2002, when she participated in ISM protests against the Israeli occupation and helped Palestinian farmers collect the olive harvest.
“This experience has made me even more determined to continue in my work, ” she said.
Eric Romann of Jews for a Free Palestine criticized the detention of Spector, a friend with whom he has worked on several projects, including a Liberation Seder held for about 150 people at a San Francisco soup kitchen last spring.
“Israel claims to be a refuge for Jews, but if you’re a Jew like Jamie who has a specific objection to what the state of Israel is doing, you don’t even get in,” Romann said.
At the detention center, Spector said she was closely questioned at passport control when she arrived in Israel on Saturday and was taken away to an office where she was interrogated by two men.
She was held for seven hours, until 10 p.m., before being taken to a three-story detention center near the airport, where she is sharing a room with two other ISM activists also threatened with deportation — Christine Greter of the Netherlands and Ann Robinson-Petter of New York. She said she was not allowed to contact the U.S. Embassy or a lawyer until 11 p.m. but was not physically mistreated.
Tova Ellinson of the Israeli Interior Ministry would say only that the deportation order was issued after the ministry received a “security recommendation.”
Larudee said the government may be trying to clamp down on the organization because of its Freedom Summer Palestine 2004, a 56-day campaign that began June 25 to protest the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. A mass “freedom walk” along the security barrier is planned on July 30.
Spector’s mother, Annette, an educational consultant in Virginia, said she and her husband, Peter, support their daughter in her activism. “We’re outraged that the Israeli government considers our daughter a criminal who is a threat to their security,” she said. “Instead, we consider Jamie to be an angel of peace.”
ISM was founded by Israeli and Palestinian peace campaigners and leading members of the Palestinian Communist Party. It is run by Communist Party activist George Rishmawi and party politburo member Mustafa Barghouti.
Rishmawi said the ISM’s main purpose is to increase international awareness of Palestinian suffering through the involvement of foreign activists, who pay their own way to the West Bank, where they are trained in various methods of nonviolent direct action.
“When Palestinians get shot by Israeli soldiers, no one is interested anymore,” Rishmawi said. “But if some of these foreign volunteers get shot or even killed, then the international media will sit up and take notice.”
Besides whitewashing the ISM’s anti-Israel, terror-enabling activities, this article contains some very telling passages.
