Increasing Hostility
IDF claims "peace activists" harass, provoke Israeli troops.
harm's way when he was shot in the back of the head.
While the IDF has expressed sorrow at the chain of
injuries, it claims ISM activists increasingly cross the
line of neutrality. One example occurred on March 27,
when IDF forces launched a manhunt for a top Islamic
Jihad terrorist in Jenin.
Intelligence information led the IDF to believe that
Shadi Sukia was being hidden in a Jenin compound
that holds a bank, a Red Cross office and the ISM
office. After combing the entire building and finding
nothing, the soldiers asked two ISM activists for per-
mission to search their offices. ISM coordinator Susan
Barcley refused. The soldiers insisted, forcing their way
in.
The intelligence information proved correct: Sukia
had taken shelter with the ISM. Both he and Barcley
were arrested. Wallace claims that Barcley found Sukia
wet and shivering outside the ISM office, "and asked
the boy to come in."
MATTHEW GUTMAN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Tel Aviv
T
he bad blood between the Israeli army and
a group of international pro-Palestinian
activists continues to grow as more mem-
bers of the group are injured in Israeli anti-
terror operations.
A British activist was shot in the head April 11 as a
group of foreign and Palestinian protesters approached
a unit of Israeli tanks posted near the Rafah refugee
camp in the Gaza Strip. The incident ignited a crossfire
of words and accusations between the Israeli Defense
Forces (IDF) and the International Solidarity
Movement (ISM).
Thomas Hurndall, 21, from England, suffered a
head injury that left him brain dead. He was the third
casualty from the International Solidarity Movement in
a month. The ISM is a movement of international
activists working for "Palestinian freedom and an end
to Israeli occupation," according to its mission state-
ment, sometimes through illegal protests and rallies.
Though members of the group call themselves peace
activists, they work only to protect Palestinians from
Israeli anti-terror actions, making no attempt to protect
Israelis from Palestinian violence.
Hurndall was shot when a sniper on an IDF tank
allegedly fired on a group of protestors marching
toward them in an effort to thwart an IDF incursion
into Rafah. The Palestinian city, which straddles the
Gaza-Egyptian border, is one of the main zones for
arms smuggling into Palestinian areas.
The IDF said a tank fired only one round in the area
that day. It had targeted and killed a Palestinian sniper
who was hiding in the upper stories of a nearby apart-
ment building, firing at a column of armored vehicles,
military sources said.
Corrie Incident
Still, Hurndall's shooting is a disturbing addition to a
string of recent bloody confrontations between the IDF
and the ISM. Only a few hundred yards from where
the April 11 incident took place, American activist
Rachel Corrie, 23, was killed several weeks ago when
she tried to prevent a bulldozer from demolishing a ter-
rorist's home.
Witnesses said the bulldozer crushed Corrie, a stu-
dent from Olympia, Wash., and immediately backed
up. The army, which characterizes the death as an acci-
dent, said the driver didn't see Corrie.
Last week Bryan Avery, 24, of Albuquerque, was shot
in the face while walking with a fellow activist in the
West Bank city of Jenin. The IDF said it was not aware
that Israeli soldiers had shot Avery, but said soldiers had
been targeting Palestinian gunmen in the area.
"This goes beyond the pale," ISM leader Tom
Wallace said. "It was a sniper" that shot Hurndall, "and
4/18
2003
18
Hiding Terrorist
Rachel Corrie was part of the pro-Palestinian
International Solidarity Movement.
we know from experience they don't miss. The photo-
graph clearly shows that he was wearing a bright
orange vest, that he was clearly not a combatant."
Wallace considers the shooting a criminal act.
According to ISM activists and an Associated Press
photographer, Hurndall ran to scoop a child out of
Israel Insight
THE ISSUE
Congress and the Bush administration have
recently considered adding a $1 billion supple-
ment and $8 billion in loan guarantees to Israel's
annual aid package. The economic conditions in
the Jewish state justify the aid at this time
BEHIND THE ISSUE
Israel is in a deep recession, with more than 10 per-
i gross
cent unemployment and a 1 percent drop in
domestic product the past four years. In addition,
worker productivity has dropped because of
increased army call-ups to fight the Palestinians and
defend against a possible attack from Iraq. As a per-
centage of its budget, Israel spends three times what
the United States spends on defense, with home-
land defense costs alone topping $500 million.
— Allan Gale, Jewish Community
Council of Metropolitan Detroit
According to the IDF, Sukia is no boy. "He is a grown
man, one of the highest ranking members of the
Islamic Jihad in Jenin, responsible for recruiting several
suicide bombers, planning bombings himself, laying
mines and sniping," an IDF official said.
"All told, they gave him a change of clothes and a
blanket and a hot cup of tea," said Wallace, adding that
the ISM activists had no way of knowing the young
man's political affiliations or criminal history when they
cared for him.
Nonsense, the IDF responded. "Many of the ISM
activists are nothing short of provocateurs," the IDF
source said. "They try to incite the Palestinians. They're
almost spoiling for a fight."
One photograph of Corrie, for example, shows her
with her head covered like a religious Moslem woman,
burning a mock American flag in the Gaza Strip. The
IDF source intimated that Corrie's death, though
regrettable, was preventable.
"That day, they were running amok around the sol-
diers, not letting them do anything. Even when the
armored units pulled back, they chased them," the
source said.
Some of ISM's tactics are daring, Wallace admitted.
Others might call them downright foolish. "ISMers
often break curfew, just to show how ridiculous it is
and because curfews are illegal according to interna-
tional law," Wallace said.
The IDF source said the army maintains close rela-
tions with many humanitarian organizations, such as
the International Committee of the Red Cross, but has
yet to find an operational mode with the ISM.
"If the ISMers in Jenin had nothing to hide, why
prevent the soldiers from coming in" when they were
looking for Sukia? the IDF source asked. "If the guy
looked so innocent, why not let him come out and
prove it?" ❑