‘Comment is Free’ contributor claims International Solidarity Movement is “non-violent”.

For much of the Guardian-style far-left media, commentaries – and indeed often straight news reports – serve largely to buttress preconceived ideologically determined conclusions, and often have only a tangential relationship with facts or journalistic context.  

In such a propagandistic paradigm, there is no objective truth as such, only a greater ‘narrative truth’. 

Ami Kaufman’s Aug. 29 ‘Comment is Free’ piece, “For many Israelis, Rachel Corrie was a nuisance“, represents an exquisite example of this phenomenon.

The polemical objective which the +972 founder wanted to achieve was quite predictable: contextualizing Corrie’s death, in 2003, as part of a larger pattern of Israeli intolerance towards political dissent.

Thus, the strap line:

“Since Rachel Corrie’s death, the Israeli establishment has been losing patience with activists of any kind”

In the essay, Kaufman writes:

“The Israeli establishment has less and less patience for activists of any kind of late. As part of the recent government offensive on human rights in Israel, freedom of expression has been hit hard.”

Kaufman, like Chris McGreal and the author(s) of the official Guardian editorial on Corrie’s death, doesn’t even attempt to rationally refute the Israeli court’s decision, question the judge’s reasoning or dispute the evidence or testimony presented at trial.

No, for Kaufman, Israel’s guilt was a foregone conclusion – and the judge’s decision thus represented a “slippery slope” towards the abrogation of civil rights in Israel.

But, Kaufman’s polemic becomes especially risible in his assertion about International Solidarity Movement.

“Corrie, bulldozed to death by a massive D9 Caterpillar on 16 March 2003, was part of an activist group called ISM – International Solidarity Movement. This is a group of international activists who advocate nonviolent demonstrations in the West Bank (and Gaza back then, before the disengagement in 2005) in solidarity with Palestinians opposing the occupation.

A nonviolent movement, you say?

Well, isn’t that what Israelis were always looking for? For their enemies to abandon terror, suicide bombings and rockets and to go down the route of Gandhi?” [Emphasis added]

Of course, the suggestion that ISM is non-violent is beyond parody.

The ISM’s website states that it recognizes “the Palestinian right to resist Israeli violence and occupation via legitimate armed struggle.” [emphasis added]

As I wrote previously, ISM’s activities have included “serving as human shields for terrorist operatives wanted by the Israeli security forces”, and “provid[ing] Palestinian terrorist operatives…with financial, logistic and moral support”.

Paul Larudee, the Northern California head of the ISM, has said that his group “…recognize[s] that violence is necessary and it is permissible for oppressed and occupied people to use armed resistance and we recognize their right to do so.”

Similarly, in a 2002 article, ISM co-founders Adam Shapiro and Huwaida Arraf wrote, “The Palestinian resistance must take on a variety of characteristics, both non-violent and violent,” adding that “[i]n actuality, nonviolence is not enough…Yes, people will get killed and injured.”

ISM activist Susan Barclay admitted that she worked with representatives of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists originating from UK who had attacked the Mike’s Place bar in Tel Aviv, in 2003, murdering three people.  The Mike’s Place bombers had, according to an Israeli report, ”forg[ed] links with…members of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM)”.  

Also, senior Islamic Jihad terrorist Shadi Sukiya was arrested while he was hiding in ISM’s Jenin office and being assisted by two ISM activists.

Just because individual ISM members may not personally fire the weapons which kill and maim Israelis, an organization which aids and abets the Islamist terror groups, like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, that intentionally murder innocent Jews is – by definition – a reactionary, anti-peace, pro-violence movement.

No amount of sophistry or doublespeak can obfuscate this painfully obvious fact.

Related articles

• Put International Solidarity Movement on Trial for Rachel Corrie’s Death (cifwatch.com)
• The continued exploitation of Rachel Corrie. (cifwatch.com)
• International Solidarity Movement’s ‘Fauxtographic’ record of Rachel Corrie’s death (cifwatch.com)
• Meet the Abu Marias: ‘Mr & Mrs’ ISM-style. (cifwatch.com)