The self-immolation of Aaron Bushnell for the sake of Gaza brought to mind a friend who joined the International Solidarity Movement shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Steve had been returning home from San Jose State with the most astonishing supposedly college-educated facts about Israel that set my understanding of history and the world on its ear. But he invoked names like Noam Chomsky, whom my family had taught me to revere, so I just listened.
Eventually, my friend’s passion about “Palestine” led him to join the International Solidarity Movement. Steve used his connections in the international judo community as a pretext to enter Israel, after which the ISM smuggled him into Nablus, a city about 30 miles north of Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, the area today referred to as the West Bank.
Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian National Authority, the deadly rival to Hamas in Palestine, administers Nablus. But rivalries notwithstanding, both Hamas and Yasser Arafat’s groups try to persuade credulous college age kids to martyr themselves for Palestine.
While Steve served his month-long tour of duty in Nablus, I read about the ISM online, and I did not like what I found.
Lee Kaplan’s “StoptheISM” website was instrumental in helping me understand that the ISM was not a peace organization.
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Author: Ruth King
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