RAMALLAH, West Bank—As vacations go, they don't get more exclusive than the one Henry Evans-Tenbrinke just began. The Hamilton, Ont., man is spending the month with Yasser Arafat. The facilities are less than four-star. Evans-Tenbrinke's home away from home is a dormitory-style cot in the east wing of Arafat's partially demolished Mukataa headquarters, where running water and electricity are presently available, but perhaps not for long.
There remains the distinct possibility that at any given moment Israeli Special Forces may drop in to make good on their government's promise to oust the Palestinian leader. Given the abundance of green-fatigued Palestinian gunmen of Arafat's elite Force 17 unit guarding the complex, any such contact could make the Hamilton man's stay an adventure travel to remember.
Such is life in the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a ragtag, revolving-door assemblage of foreign volunteers whose support of the Palestinian cause involves flying here for their holidays to take part in "direct, non-violent action."
Barely a week ago, Evans-Tenbrinke, 50, was sitting at his desk in the cardiovascular unit of Hamilton General Hospital, where he has worked for 30 years as a business clerk.
Yesterday, he found himself just three seats away from Arafat, who held court at a second-floor boardroom table, regaling in the multi-layered harmonies of a 17-voice choir from Verona, Italy, also here in solidarity.
Evans-Tenbrinke, who has never before set foot in the Middle East, spent his first days in the West Bank in ISM "orientation training," preparing for a mission that he thought would involve helping Palestinians harvest olive trees in the West Bank. But after Saturday's suicide attack in Haifa that killed 19 people the plan changed.
The Israeli peace group Gush Shalom called in a panic, inviting the ISM activists to join them at the Mukataa in a bid to protect Arafat. Evens-Tenbrinke was among 10 internationals who decided to join the vigil in Ramallah.
"I want to be clear, I am not here as a human shield," Evans-Tenbrinke told the Star yesterday, after his first night in the compound. "The purpose of my stay is not to protect Arafat, but to bring attention to the issue of basic Palestinian rights.
"The problem is not the Palestinian leadership. That is a distraction. The problem is the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, which involves incredible hardship, separating families in tiny enclaves," he explained. "For me, it is reminiscent of a time when North American natives were not allowed to leave the reserves without passes. As a foreigner with a Canadian passport, I can come and go as I please. But the Palestinians are trapped."
Evans-Tenbrinke vowed to stay "as long as we're needed" — as long as the need doesn't extend beyond the end of October, when he is due back at work in Hamilton.
International direct-action groups such as the ISM have been a thorn in Israel's side almost since the intifada began, routinely infiltrating hotspots and collecting headline attention. Israeli officials have dismissed them as misguided, naïve pawns to the complexities of the conflict. Either way, the work can be deadly— as was the case with American ISM volunteer Rachel Corrie, who was crushed to death last March by an Israeli bulldozer while trying to protect a Gaza Strip home marked for demolition.
