International Solidarity Movement

by Laura Flanders
Originally published by TomPaine.com

It began when Adam Shapiro from Brooklyn talked to the international media from inside Yasser Arafat’s compound Easter weekend. Shapiro, 30, is one of the founders of International Solidarity Movement a volunteer group that has helped to bring nonviolent activists from the world beyond into besieged Palestinian communities. After living in Ramallah for months, he entered Arafat’s office accompanying a doctor in … Continue reading

by Sheryl McCarthy
Originally published in Newsday

Wherever Stuart Shapiro may be, he gets my vote for father of the year.

His son, Adam, is a Jewish child of Brooklyn who in the last few years has been living in the Mideast and advocating for the rights of Palestinians. Last week, he spent a night in Yasser Arafat’s headquarters in Ramallah while Israeli soldiers shelled the town. Arafat’s bunker was filled with the dead and dying, and Adam Shapiro went there, he later explained, to try to persuade the Israelis to allow ambulances in to treat the wounded.

But after saying on television … Continue reading

PHILLIPS: Well, we’re about to get an eyewitness account now of the Israeli siege of Yasser Arafat’s headquarters in Ramallah. Adam Shapiro is an American living in Israel. He volunteered to help attend to wounded Arafat guards inside the compound. He joins us now live from Ramallah.

Hello, Adam.

ADAM SHAPIRO, VOLUNTEER RESCUE WORKER, INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT: Hello, how are you doing? I’d just like to correct one thing from the start. I’m an American citizen living in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, the occupied Palestinian territories not Israel.

PHILLIPS: Let’s talk about — let’s get down to why you are there, … Continue reading