Free Israel Now!

The International "Solidarity" Movement is losing some ground

The International Solidarity Movement is losing some ground

By Lee Kaplan Stop the ISM Friday, June 9, 2006

Readers of Front Page Magazine have no doubt followed over the last three years articles about the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a shadowy organization that was formed in 2002 by the PFLP communist faction of the PLO in an alliance with American anarchist and communist groups. The ISM began the divestment campaign against Israel on US college campuses and is now actively pursuing a similar divestment campaign in US churches. It also recruits international volunteers to go to the West Bank and interfere with IDF anti-terror operations.
While the ISM is by no means finished, it is nevertheless seeing an erosion of its activities across the US and more importantly from inside Israel and the Palestinian Authority. That erosion is to a large degree due to the efforts of everyday Americans and British who have had enough of such groups trying to claim they are "peace activists" when they are really working in cooperation and in direct aid of terrorist organizations to roil the War on Terror. ISM activists marched in favor of Saddam Hussein before the US and Coalition removed him, and now they march for Hamas. All the while, they claim they are for peace.

A few days ago, a major ISM leader from Northern California, Paul LaRudee, featured in several articles here on FPM about the ISM, was caught by Israeli security forces at Ben Gurion Airport trying to enter Israel. He is a major leader, organizer and fundraiser for the ISM and has shown support for terrorist groups; LaRudee once boasted in a long running article that he slept in the bed of a suicide bomber as a human shield to prevent the demolition by Israel of the bomber’s house. That ran for years, but immediately upon his capture, was removed from an ISM-affiliated website. LaRudee also was practicing what he wrote in the ISM’s USA training manual by refusing deportation, a tactic used by new ISM recruits to go to the West Bank and act as human shields for Palestinian terrorists, to interfere with checkpoints keeping terrorists out of Israel, and to try to tear down the Security Fence.

As LaRudee cools his heels in detention, he intermittently describes himself to the press as a victim of Israeli "aggression," a "peace activist" who came to only tune pianos in the Palestinian Authority. This time, the Israeli government, however, isn’t buying it. They’ve read enough of him and the ISM to stop his entry. And just as laid out in the ISM training manual, a communist party affiliated attorney in Israel was provided free of charge to try and spring him. But Israel isn’t budging on this one; he is to be deported this week after a court hearing.

Also during the past two weeks the father of another higher up in the ISM hierarchy came out with a letter published in the Israel National News that his son, Brian Malovany, another trainer and major organizer for the ISM, was part of a cult and was using his Jewish ancestry to destroy the state of Israel. With no visible means of support and no job, Brian manages to travel the world for the ISM. He was last heard from by his father as staying with Paul LaRudee in his home in Northern California, no doubt in preparation for summer training for new ISM volunteers to go to the West Bank. Brian’s father described how Brian even took advantage of his Jewish relatives inside Israel to extend his visa so he could destroy their country.
Israeli security sources that wish to remain anonymous have advised me that several other ISM activists were caught today, June 8th, at the airport in Tel Aviv trying to enter Israel for a summer campaign of rioting in the areas controlled by the Israeli military to keep out terrorists who harm Israeli civilians.
This is the result of everyday people in the United States and Britain, volunteers, who have recognized the ISM is not a group of "peace activists" seeking to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but a front for Palestinian terrorist irredentists who want to keep the war roiling until Israel becomes Palestine under Arab rule and domination. At the same time, their actions in the West Bank will be to carry on the similar tactics that will be used by militant Islamists and their revolutionary allies when they move into the United States and Europe after Israel is dismantled. Information was supplied to the Israeli security sources that enabled them to spot particular ISM activists and weed them out by everyday people interested in helping the authorities in the War on Terror.

On the Church front here at home in the US and the UK too, everyday congregants are moving to have divestment from Israel rescinded or rejected in Christian churches that became an issue after ISM-related activists volunteered for church boards solely to push their agenda.

American and British citizens have managed to get photos of ISM activists in training and preparation for going to the West Bank and provided enough information to now prevent their entry into Israel. One ISM activist and self-avowed anarchist, Joseph Smith, who changed his name to Joseph Carr and illegally entered Israel to make trouble after being banned for ten years, also went to Fallujah to aide the Iraqi resistance against US forces after leaving Israel. His cover blown, Smith/Carr now has to restrict his anarchist activities to the American college scene now and to bothering the Caterpillar Tractor Corporation, the manufacturers of the machine that accidentally killed Rachel Corrie when she played chicken with it.

The last national US conference of the ISM at Georgetown had a much smaller turnout than previous years. The exploitation of the deaths of ISM volunteer foreign nationals like Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall as martyrs have also turned off people as the Palestinians manifested their true goals by electing Hamas as their leadership and deterred many young people from joining the ISM. Israel’s stepped up security will now deter them even further.

The ISM is just one part of the War on Terror, the propagandists and human shields meant to enable the terrorist movements to do their work and raise enough money for activities. But if enough simple Americans and Brits get involved as was done this summer to thwart their activities, then the War on Terror and peace in the Middle East will be that much closer. The arrests this summer in Israel are proof that all of us as individuals can contribute to fighting the War on Terror and helping the authorities that are frequently overburdened and unable to cope with front groups that are nevertheless a dangerous component of those movements out to destroy democracy and the West.

If you’d like to volunteer to help Stop the ISM, email us as StoptheISM@att.net
Lee Kaplan is senior intelligence analyst with the Northeast Intelligence Network and a contributor to Front Page Magazine, as well as a columnist for the Israel National News. He is also the national director of Dafka.org and heads Stop the ISM. He appears frequently on radio and television to discuss the War On Terror and security issues. He can be reached at: Letters@canadafreepress.com

posted by Free Israel @ 7:53 PM