ISM ( UK ) Statement on British Suicide Bombers
ISM UK (forwarded again by c.) | 03.05.2003 13:50
With the vague associations being made in the UK Press yesterday and today between ISM Rafah and the recent British Suicide Bombers ISM activists in the UK have released this statement to the press.
PRESS RELEASE: 2 May 2003
ISM UK Statement on British Suicide Bombers
The International Solidarity Movement supports non-violent resistance to the illegal and brutal occupation of Palestine. Palestinians have long been at
risk of death, imprisonment and torture when they engage in acts of peaceful resistance. When internationals are present, that risk is somewhat reduced. But now the Israeli army is targeting international peace activists as well, violating international law and attempting to suppress all means of protest in the occupied territories.
On April 30, 2003 a suicide bomber and an accomplice tried to enter "Mike's Place" bar in Tel Aviv. One murdered three people in addition to killing himself. The other escaped. They both held British passports. These activities are in complete contradiction to the purpose and commitment of ISM to non-violent resistance.
There have been media reports trying to connect these two men to ISM. There is no connection. They never tried to work with ISM. They did not go through the ISM non-violence training. They did not travel with ISM activists to Palestine. They did not register with ISM or contact any ISM activists in the UK or in Palestine. They could have attended a memorial service for Rachel Corrie in Rafah that was open to anybody and may have encountered ISM activists there. This memorial service was not organised by ISM, it was organised by local Palestinians as is their religious custom to mark the
40th day after a death. A few days before the memorial ISM did organise a march through Rafah to show our international presence but they were certainly not present at this march. British ISM participants in the march through Rafah, Camilla Leyland and Mark Cooper, can confirm to this.
As a policy, ISM requires two days of training for all of its activists. This functions as a screening in addition to training in non-violent peaceful resistance and orientation to the ISM guidelines. All of our groups
function by consensus. This process discourages any individuals from acting impulsively. We know our activists, and none have engaged in or have been
accused of engaging in, any aggressive, confrontational, or illegal activity.
The claim that the two men involved in the Tel Aviv bombing posed as peace activists is completely spurious. Any international travellers who claim at
a checkpoint or border crossing to be part of ISM or any other peace activist group would immediately be detained or turned back by Israeli soldiers. Posing as peace activists has never been a successful means to
entering the Occupied Territories and we have long experience of this.
General Yaalon of the Israeli Army gave an order on the eve of the Jewish festival of Passover to remove ISM from the West Bank and Gaza. This order long preceded the bombing in Tel Aviv. The Israeli army wants us to leave because we are providing witness to the atrocities committed by the Israeli army. Israel and the United States have gone to great Lengths to ensure that no International Observers would be sent to Palestine by The United Nations or any other objective International Organization. ISM activists have come
to provide witness to the cruelty, the brutality and the truth about this occupation and its' purpose.
ISM UK activists:
Mortaza Sahibzada (07946 351319), John Heaney, Camilla Leyland (07866
466357,
camilla@ism-london.org), Chris Dunham (07904 267306), Josie
Sandercock (07817 554814), Atif Choudhury, Mark Cooper (07740 338006,
mark@ism-london.org)
Email: contact@ism-london.org Web: WWW.ISM-LONDON.ORG
ISM UK Statement on British Suicide Bombers
The International Solidarity Movement supports non-violent resistance to the illegal and brutal occupation of Palestine. Palestinians have long been at
risk of death, imprisonment and torture when they engage in acts of peaceful resistance. When internationals are present, that risk is somewhat reduced. But now the Israeli army is targeting international peace activists as well, violating international law and attempting to suppress all means of protest in the occupied territories.
On April 30, 2003 a suicide bomber and an accomplice tried to enter "Mike's Place" bar in Tel Aviv. One murdered three people in addition to killing himself. The other escaped. They both held British passports. These activities are in complete contradiction to the purpose and commitment of ISM to non-violent resistance.
There have been media reports trying to connect these two men to ISM. There is no connection. They never tried to work with ISM. They did not go through the ISM non-violence training. They did not travel with ISM activists to Palestine. They did not register with ISM or contact any ISM activists in the UK or in Palestine. They could have attended a memorial service for Rachel Corrie in Rafah that was open to anybody and may have encountered ISM activists there. This memorial service was not organised by ISM, it was organised by local Palestinians as is their religious custom to mark the
40th day after a death. A few days before the memorial ISM did organise a march through Rafah to show our international presence but they were certainly not present at this march. British ISM participants in the march through Rafah, Camilla Leyland and Mark Cooper, can confirm to this.
As a policy, ISM requires two days of training for all of its activists. This functions as a screening in addition to training in non-violent peaceful resistance and orientation to the ISM guidelines. All of our groups
function by consensus. This process discourages any individuals from acting impulsively. We know our activists, and none have engaged in or have been
accused of engaging in, any aggressive, confrontational, or illegal activity.
The claim that the two men involved in the Tel Aviv bombing posed as peace activists is completely spurious. Any international travellers who claim at
a checkpoint or border crossing to be part of ISM or any other peace activist group would immediately be detained or turned back by Israeli soldiers. Posing as peace activists has never been a successful means to
entering the Occupied Territories and we have long experience of this.
General Yaalon of the Israeli Army gave an order on the eve of the Jewish festival of Passover to remove ISM from the West Bank and Gaza. This order long preceded the bombing in Tel Aviv. The Israeli army wants us to leave because we are providing witness to the atrocities committed by the Israeli army. Israel and the United States have gone to great Lengths to ensure that no International Observers would be sent to Palestine by The United Nations or any other objective International Organization. ISM activists have come
to provide witness to the cruelty, the brutality and the truth about this occupation and its' purpose.
ISM UK activists:
Mortaza Sahibzada (07946 351319), John Heaney, Camilla Leyland (07866
466357,
camilla@ism-london.org), Chris Dunham (07904 267306), Josie Sandercock (07817 554814), Atif Choudhury, Mark Cooper (07740 338006,
mark@ism-london.org) Email:
contact@ism-london.org Web: WWW.ISM-LONDON.ORG
ISM UK (forwarded again by c.)
Homepage:
www.ism-london.org
Comments
Hide the following 6 comments
Follow the read shown by Rachel Corrie
03.05.2003 15:07
A shield should be flat and thin. Just flatten yourselves, shields of inhuman terrorists.
Nicola
Nicola
.
03.05.2003 15:37
mark
Oh, the inhumanity
03.05.2003 17:05
The imperfect, the human, actions of the Israelis pale in horror beside the barbarity of random attacks on innocent civilians committed by the Palestinians. This is the first message we must convey to the Palestinians in order for them to be able to participate in the modern world. Instead, the left supports them, aiding and abetting them in their downward spiral into the abyss of embedded hatred.
Just as they have done with respect to the Iraqi hostilities, the left both makes inevitable and perpetuates conflict by supporting the actions of the inhumane.
babu
solidarity from israel
03.05.2003 20:45
jk
ISM
04.05.2003 02:55
bassman
pancakes and inhumanity
04.05.2003 09:09
The children who scream in terror when the tanks start shelling in the middle of the night, in the street outside their home,
The daily degradation and humiliation at checkpoints that do nothing to make Israel more secure,
The daily home demolitions and theft of land and livelihood
The arbitrary shootings in the streets of places like Rafah, where tanks park at the end of a street and shoot at anything that moves
The house searches which involve soldiers bursting into homes through holes they have made in the wall, ransacking the house and leaving families cooped up in a room for hours, not knowing how it will end
The assassinations of "wanted" men, without any attempt to resort to a system of proof, or an oppurtunity to defend oneself
The continual use of "siege" and "curfew" to stop normal daily life
The targetting of schools at home time by soldiers who want to gas and shoot at children.
Is that enough inhumanity for you yet?
Should all soldiers be pancakes Nicola?
freethepeeps