The International Solidarity Movement, an organization working in tandem with terrorist groups in Palestinian Authority areas, has begun its summer recruiting activities. Some call it a dangerous cult.

The organization's goal, writes long-time anti-ISM fighter Lee Kaplan, is "to interfere with anti-terror operations of the Israeli army [and to] act as human shields for terrorist groups opposed to the existence of Israel." Citing the example of the anti-Israel rallies every Friday in the village of Bil'in, he says ISM activists incite the local Arab villagers to riot and attack Israeli soldiers guarding the security fence, and interfere at IDF roadblocks set up to keep out suicide bombers and armed terrorists.

Investigative journalist David Bedein of the Israel Resource News Agency told Arutz-7, "The Israeli government classifies the ISM as a terrorist organization. This has been known ever since it was found that the two terrorists who committed the Mike's Place terrorist attack entered Israel as ISM activists."

Three Israelis were murdered in that Tel Aviv attack in April 2003. Several weeks afterwards, it was learned that the terrorists had gained entry into Israel as British "peace activists." They spent the next two weeks before the attack taking part in anti-IDF demonstrations, as well as visiting Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Hevron, Ramallah, Shechem, and Gaza. They even had themselves photographed by the Western Wall, complete with kippot on their heads, while in fact they were observing and recording the security arrangements at the holy site.

While traveling the country, the pair made use of their ISM contacts, some of which had been made in Gaza, with Italian journalists and with an Arab from the village of Na'ama.

The Prime Minister's Office released a statement at the time condemning the ISM for playing an active role in "illegal and violent actions against IDF soldiers...." and for conducting activities "under the auspices of Palestinian terrorist organizations."

Undercover Agent

Kaplan, who has attended many ISM meetings in the United States, writes that the organization's volunteers are told to work "in solidarity" with Arabs who throw Molotov cocktails or rocks at soldiers. The goal is two-fold, he writes: "To try and create an international incident by having ISM activists from abroad be arrested by Israeli Authorities to undermine Israeli sovereignty, and to train US and other foreign anarchists for their perceived 'revolution' against the capitalist West and, most notably, eventually against the United States itself."

Kaplan says he knows of an ISM cell in Massachusetts, named Boston2Palestine, whose members are apparently "planning on going to the Middle East for a summer of fun interfering with the Israel Defense Forces and aiding the new Hamas government in the Palestinian Authority." He has forwarded their photos to the Israel security services. In Georgetown several months ago, would-be ISM volunteers changed their minds about joining when they heard that their identities would be forwarded to the Israeli border authorities.

Robert Malovany, the father of one ISM activist has written to Kaplan as follows:

"I thought I would give you an update on our situation with our son Brian. As you might have expected, our relationship has gone from bad to worse. We had hoped that we would have some warning [before he went] back to the West Bank with the ISM. It didn't work out that way... He took off for Israel and stayed there for 4 or 5 months doing the kind of mischief the ISM is famous for... Interestingly, we stayed in contact with his girlfriend [who] gradually realized that he had become absorbed in a cult (ISM)... The ISM cult really has a hold on him...
"While in Israel, he pulled another typical ISM maneuver. He visited a cousin of ours on her Kibbutz. He stayed with her and her family for a few days, took advantage of her hospitality, and then went back to his friends on the West Bank. Clearly he used his family relationship to extend his visa in Israel. So there he was being all harming and friendly with our cousin and using her hospitality in order to extend his stay in Israel while working with an organization which is committed to the annihilation of her country. Nice!...

"It appears less and less likely that we will ever again have a civil relationship with our son. He really needs help. Deprogramming might not even be enough. He has cut himself off from anyone who ever really cared about him, his family, his girlfriend, and he has made his obsession with ISM politics the centerpiece of his life. He has no real job or any prospects. My guess is that as soon has he can, he will go back to the West Bank. All that he needs is someone to bankroll him, and people are continuing to give these useful idiots money. Be that as it may, he is putting his life in danger. He may not realize it, but to his Palestinian handlers, he is worth more dead than alive. He is valuable to the ISM in that with his Jewish background he can pretend to be Jewish so they can pretend not to be anti-Semites. But over there, a nice dead white American martyr would be great Public Relations..."

The local director of the Solidarity Movement, George Rishmawi, explained to the San Francisco Chronicle that the recruitment of American student volunteers is useful to the Palestinian Movement because "if some of these foreign volunteers get shot or even killed, then the international media will sit up and take notice."

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