Posted on 09/24/2003 6:56:52 PM PDT by stevejackson
Contents
ACT NOW!
NOTE: All references/links/articles documenting ISM/PSM activities have been permanently archived by netWMD. Copies available on request.The Palestinian Solidarity Movement (PSM), the American, student arm of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), will hold its three-day National Conference at The Ohio State University this November 7th through the 9th. This group was denied by Rutgers University to hold the same conference on its campus. It is the objective of War To Mobilize Democracy (netWMD) that this conference also not take place on The Ohio State University campus because PSM/ISM is an apologist for, and in some instances an enabler of, terrorism against the people of Israel. However, netWMD unequivocally recognizes the right of the Palestinians to a free and democratic state, but not by the means of terrorism. netWMD supports the dismantling of all Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
ISM and the PSM, the American student arm of the ISM, are political and activist organizations, claiming to work on behalf of the Palestinian people. The organizations' rhetoric cloaks itself in the hallowed memory of the American civil rights movement under the leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. PSM's New Jersey division website asserts in its mission statement, [a]s a movement, we are committed to standing firmly against racism and all forms of oppression... In light of its other rhetoric and activities, however, this assertion is window-dressing.
In the same mission statement the PSM also asserts [w]e are opposed to the existence of the apartheid colonial settler state of Israel... and we stand for the total liberation of all of historic Palestine. That statement does not allude only to the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. "Historic Palestine" is a thinly disguised code-term for all of the land on which Israel exists. "Liberation" of "historic Palestine" can only mean one thing: the destruction of Israel, which would require a war of annihilation, not the exercise of peaceful activism toward a positive goal. In essence, ISM's mission statement is a call for the murder of Jews. (See ISM Is Rewriting History below.)
ISM’s public statements fondly quote Martin Luther King, but they also quote Malcolm X in support of his idea of struggle by any means necessary (see archive). PSM's New Jersey website states in its own words, We unconditionally support Palestinians' human right to resist occupation and oppression by any means necessary. (see archive) In the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict these are ominous words as those means have included terrorist attacks against Israelis. If the ISM truly supported King's vision it would speak out against all terrorist attacks against innocent people as Rev. King certainly would have.
ISM founders, Adam Shapiro and Huwaida Arraf, have explicitly stated their admiration for terrorist bombers: Hamas claims it has many men ready to be suicide bombers – we advocate that these men offer themselves as martyrs by standing on a settler road and blocking it from traffic. This is no less of a jihad. This is no less noble than carrying out a suicide operation. (emphasis added)
But it is not only through words that ISM betrays what kind of organization it is. The debate of free-speech is moot when one looks at the organization's actions. Though ISM activism does include non-violent resistance, it has had contact with terrorists. ISM activist, Susan Barcley, refused to allow Israeli soldiers to examine an ISM office in Jenin, the West Bank. When the soldiers forcibly entered the office, they found Shadi Sukia, a leading member of the terrorist group Islamic Jihad, whom Ms. Barcley was harboring. Both Barcley and Sukia were arrested. In another incident, ISM activists attempted to prevent Israeli soldiers from blowing up an explosives lab containing an 80 kilo bomb, fertilizers, other bomb-making materials and two rockets.
Whether or not the ISM welcomes the company of terrorists, terrorists have sought out the company of the ISM as cover for their murderous activities. Omar Khan Sharif and Asif Mohammed Hanif arrived at the offices of ISM in Rafah, the West Bank, and made contact with its members just days before Omar Khan Sharif detonated himself in a homicide bombing which left three dead and dozens injured in Israel last April.
One can also judge an organization by the company it keeps. Former professor of University of South Florida, Sami al Arian, was invited to speak at a PSM conference held at the University of Michigan. Mr. Al Arian was arrested last February on charges of being a leader in the American branch of the terrorist group, Islamic Jihad. Other speakers at the conference included Mahdi Bray of Muslim Public Affairs. In 1998 at a rally held in Washington, Bray led a crowd of 2,000 people who cried out, [L]et’s all go into jihad, and throw stones at the face of the Jews.
The same hatred was also expressed at the PSM’s University of Michigan conference. In a signed affidavit, an eyewitness who attended the conference states that a number of participants shouted Kill the Jews! in Arabic. At another PSM conference held at Berkeley in February 2002, an eyewitness observed that [t]he anti-Jewish rhetoric of the conference inspired the participants to leave the conference and intimidate some identifiable Jews on campus. These examples do not serve the purposes of free speech on a university campus.
PSM/ISM is also seeking to have corporations and universities divest from Israel, thereby undermining an ally of the United States. Israel is a democracy whose Muslim population lives more freely than in any part of the Muslim world. There are Arab-Israeli citizens who are members of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. Israel showed good faith in seeking the nationhood of the Palestinian people at Camp David 2000. Israel is not at all the apartheid state that ISM claims it is, using their distortion of Israel to justify its divestment campaign in imitation of the one righteously fought against South Africa. Lawrence Summers, president of Harvard University, refused to have that university become the object of divestment activism against Israel.
Despite its rhetoric about non-violent protest, PSM/ISM is a radical group whose activism directly and indirectly allies itself with terrorists who attack Israel. Whatever its individual members believe, ISM is dangerously aligned with terrorists, in sync with the rhetoric of violent extremism. The claim by ISM of being the political and moral inheritance of Martin Luther King's model of non-violent resistance is not only ungrounded but a disgrace to the memory of such a great man.
ISM/PSM’s rhetoric, its hate-speech, its intimidation of Jewish students, its actions supporting terrorism, and its association with terrorists, are ample reason for The Ohio State University to refuse the PSM to hold a conference on its campus.
Has PSM/ISM forgotten the Biblical and archeological evidence for the Jews’ historic ties to Israel, like the Dead Sea Scrolls or the remnants of King Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem? Would ISM/PSM deny that Jesus, a Jew by birth, lived in ancient Israel? The father of the Jews, Abraham, was Ibrahim, the father of the Arabs – one and the same man. Jews have lived in "Palestine" both before and after the brutal Roman-engineered Diaspora. Has ISM forgotten that many Arabs immigrated to Palestine in the early 20th century? [1] Has the ISM forgotten that the Israel was created under a United Nations (UN) mandate? Their websites make no mention of the fact that, before the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza began in 1967, those two territories were controlled by Jordan and Egypt, respectively. Neither of these Arab nations granted statehood to the Palestinians. Terrorist violence against Jews occurred long before the occupation. How could Israel’s occupation of the territories in 1967 have caused all the Arab terrorist attacks against Jews that occurred from 1900 [1] through 1966? And what about more recent history? What does the ISM have to say about Kuwait's expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees after the Gulf war in 1991?
Both peoples have historic ties to Palestine and Israel. Both sides can live there in peace.
[1] The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2002, World Almanac Education Group, Inc., New York, NY, 2002, p. 808.
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