ISM UK & ISM Ireland are offering pre-training sessions in Bristol and Belfast this month for prospective volunteers who are interested in joining the International Solidarity Movement on the ground in Palestine.
Attending the training session will give you a chance to get a first impression of ISM and the kind of work we do, receive training, connect with former volunteers and have your questions answered. You will also be filled in on how Palestinians are resisting the occupation and how we as internationals can work in solidarity with them using non-violent, direct action methods.
There is no obligation to join ISM after the training.
We ask participants to donate £5 to cover training costs.
Bristol
Date: July 24, 2022
Time: 10:30-16:00
Location: Bristol, UK
To sign up for the training, please contact training.ismlondon@riseup.net
Belfast
Date: July 24, 2022
Time: 10.30 – 4.30
Location: Belfast
To sign up for the training, click attending on Facebook here.
The International Solidarity Movement is calling all activists and supporters to take urgent action against Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Masafer Yatta region in the occupied West Bank.
What is Masafer Yatta?:
Masafer Yatta is a rural region to the south of Hebron along the southern border of the occupied West Bank. It is home to 12 Palestinian villages totalling about 2,800 residents. Since 1981, the Israeli army has used the land as a military training area, ‘Firing Zone 918’ which has been used as a pretext for dispossesing, evicting and demolishing Palestinian homes, making every-day life unbearable for residents.
The current situation:
On May 4 2022, the Israeli High Court of Justice rejected appeals by residents against a series of eviction orders, giving the green light to Israeli Occupation Forces to wipe out eight villages located within the firing zone. This puts around 1,200 Palestinian residents, including 500 children, at imminent risk of eviction and arbitrary displacement, according to the UN. This process has already begun. The village of Al Mirkez has already been flattened three times and the residents are living in caves next to the rubble that was formerly their community.
From June 20, Israeli forces will begin training exercises with live ammunition in the Masafer Yatta region. Our partners on the ground view the next 3 months as a critical period, which will determine whether their communities will survive … and we need to act now!
How Masafer Yatta communities are resisting:
ISM’s friends and comrades in the region will never give up and neither should we. Masafer Yatta’s People’s Committee for Protection and Resilience, along with the Youth of Samud (whose headquarters received its own demolition order last week) have come together to use non-violent resistance to stop this ethnic cleansing. Popular resistance groups from all over Palestine and teams of activists from ‘48 [Israel] have been joining them in a united effort to save the villages. They are calling for international support and international activists to come and join the struggle on the ground.
We need volunteers to join them:
ISM is sending volunteers to Masafer Yatta this summer. We are calling on all committed supporters of Palestine to volunteer with ISM in the West Bank, in response to calls for assistance from our partners in Masafer Yatta. ISM activists would be working in solidarity with the Masafer Yatta community to provide a protective presence in villages under threat of demolition. ISM previously supported efforts to halt the demolition of Palestinian village Khan al-Ahmar in 2018. We hope to replicate the same success in Masafer Yatta. For more information about volunteering with ISM (needed this July and August), please contact: ismtraining@riseup.net.
If you can’t volunteer on the ground you can still help the cause!
Donate to ISM to help us sponsor volunteers and keep us running. Alternatively you can contact us for information about grassroots groups from Masafer Yatta, who you can support with donations or in other ways.
Once again right-wing media, politicians, and even supposed academics are attacking the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) with spurious allegations that are easily disproved. This time it comes in their ongoing effort to undermine Representative Ilhan Omar, the Congresswoman from the 5th district of Minnesota.
On June 8, Rep. Omar retweeted a post by Marwa Fatafta, a well known and highly respected policy analyst and digital rights activist, that included a video watermarked with “International Solidarity Movement.” The video showed a young Palestinian boy wearing a backpack “snatched and detained by Israeli forces.” There is no timestamp on the video so we do not know when it was recorded, but we do know that this sort of violence directed at Palestinian children by the Israeli military is commonplace.
This tweet, and Omar’s sharing of it, were in response to Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s June 7 testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. During that hearing, Omar asked Blinken pointed questions about where Palestinians should turn in search of justice for the abuses they suffer at the hands of Israeli forces, settlers, and the government. Blinken’s response was that they should turn to the Israeli court system. This response is ridiculous on its face, and Marwa Fatafta used this video to highlight that.
Let’s clear up some of the misleading claims made by those attacking the International Solidarity Movement, such as in this article by Fox News.
The video was not “produced” by ISM; rather it was one of countless egregious abuses committed by Israeli soldiers that was captured on video by an ISM volunteer. Unfortunately, volunteers witness far more Israeli abuses than they’re able to capture on video.
That the ISM was “investigated by the FBI” is yet another blight on the agency, which spent years and scarce resources on a fishing expedition that revealed nothing but First Amendment-protected activity campaigning for Palestinian human rights and freedom. The ISM’s statement on this “investigation” can be read here. The investigation lasted for years and targeted ISM activists in 11 U.S. cities, myself included. No evidence of wrongdoing was ever found, according to the FBI.
As for being identified by the ADL as one of the top 10 anti-Israel organizations, see #2 as to why the ADL labels the ISM as “anti-Israel.”
The ADL itself is a deeply problematic organization. It describes itself as a “leading anti-hate organization,” but has a history of supporting racist-policing, surveillance, colonialism & apartheid, as detailed in a letter signed by over 100 human rights organizations.
Most recently, long time national director of the ADL (1987-2015) Abe Foxman went on a tirade against the New York Times for printing names and faces of more than 65 Palestinian children slain in Israel’s May 2021 onslaught on Gaza. According to Foxman, humanizing Palestinians is “blood libel”.
The ADL, like the entire Zionist project, is built on the propagation of Jewish supremacy, the vilification and erasure of Palestinians, and the defamation of anyone advocating for Palestinian freedom.
The second half of the Fox News article is devoted to quoting Prof. David Bernstein, whose relationship with facts & truth is tenuous, at best. I responded to a libelous 2015 Washington Post piece by Bernstein that can be read here.
Bernstein told Fox News that he “doesn’t believe ISM has ‘been very active lately.’” This is simply wrong. ISM activists are currently on-the-ground in occupied Palestine continuing to report, document rights abuses, and support popular resistance to colonialism & apartheid.
ISM activists also continue to be active around the world, organizing with allies against the forces that oppress Black, Brown, indigenous & poor peoples. We’re marching, engaging in BDS, #BlockTheBoat, #ShutElbitDown, all towards a #FreePalestine and a more just world for all our children.
Lastly, the Fox News article states at the end: “Neither Omar’s office nor ISM immediately responded to Fox News’ requests for comment.” For the record, ISM received no request for comment from Fox News.
WEBINAR: Palestine On The Ground: International Solidarity & Resisting Colonization
Saturday, December 19
11 AM PST – 2 PM EST – 7 PM UTC – 9 PM Palestine (EEST)
Register online to join the event: https://bit.ly/palestinewebinar
Join ISM Northern California for a webinar next Saturday, December 19, 2020 to learn about the current situation on the ground in Palestine, grassroots resistance and the work of the International Solidarity Movement. Hear from Palestinian rights defenders and international volunteers on the front lines of popular struggle in Palestine and learn more about how you can get involved.
Join us next Saturday, December 19th!
Speakers will include:
Abdel Karim Dalbah – Palestinian journalist, field researcher and human rights defender. An ISM coordinator for almost two decades and an educator in nonviolent resistance, Abdel has been campaigning for human rights and Palestinian emancipation since the 70’s.
Edmond Sichrovsky – Edmond is an ISM activist of Jewish origin, currently based in northern Europe. In the summer and fall of 2019 he volunteered with ISM in Palestine, taking part in solidarity actions in East Jerusalem, Hebron, and the Jordan Valley. Banned by the Israeli government from returning, he now works to advocate for Palestine locally and in media.
Sophie – International Solidarity Movement volunteer from Spain.
Organized by the International Solidarity Movement – Northern California https://ism-norcal.org/
solidarity@ism-norcal.org
Resistance in a time of annexation and Covid-19 – an ISM webinar
June 30, 20:00 Ramallah time (EEST)
As the world reels from the global COVID-19 pandemic, and the global struggle for racial equality and justice spreads, Palestine once again finds itself at a pivotal moment in the history of its struggle for freedom and human rights.
Covid-19 has caused severe disruptions around the world, and its effects have been extreme in the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip. The Israeli Occupation has exacerbated and taken advantage of the global health crisis. In the West Bank, inhumane checkpoints where Palestinians are inhumanely herded have proved major transmission zones for the virus, while illegal settlers increased violent attacks on Palestinians during lockdown. In Gaza, a decade of besiegement that has starved the strip of medical supplies, bombed hospitals, and daily power outages are only some of many problems. All of this has made preparation for the pandemic virtually impossible. Furthermore, the long term issues of overcrowding in refugee camps, water and food shortages, and Israeli bans on importing medical supplies all exacerbate the challenges of social distancing and disease containment. This has led to a rapidly deteriorating situation, termed “A Nightmare Within a Nightmare” by international health experts.
During the current pandemic, the Israeli government is moving to enact the annexation bill – to extend Israeli control across the Jordan Valley and much of the area surrounding the illegal settlements, legalizing their own crimes with self-created laws. Scheduled for July 1st, the annexation of the West Bank will increase violations of Palestinians’ few remaining rights and create new forms of discrimination and apartheid.
Scheduled on the eve of annexation, the International Solidarity Movement will host a webinar and Q&A session, providing a comprehensive overview of the current oppression of the Palestinians and nonviolent resistance to occupation. Our speakers will explore these issues from a legal, journalistic, and political perspective, together with activists on the ground joining us live from Tulkarem, Nabi Saleh and Gaza.
Huwaida Arraf
The webinar will be facilitated by Huwaida Arraf, a Palestinian-American joining us from Detroit. A civil rights attorney and human rights activist, Huwaida has conducted research for the Public International Law and Policy Group and is a former chairperson of the Free Gaza movement, part of a long career as a human rights and international law specialist. She is also one of the founding members of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM).
Bassem Tamimi
Joining us from the village of Nabi Saleh in the West Bank is Bassem Tamimi. Born ten weeks before the 1967 occupation of Palestine by the Israeli Occupation Forces, Bassem Tamimi has spent his entire life as a grassroots activist. His commitment to non-violent resistance has been recognized by the European Union and Amnesty International. His daughter, Ahed Tamimi, was imprisoned for 8 months as a child for slapping an Israeli soldier after her cousin was shot in the head. He mainly works in Nabi Saleh, a village that has become encircled by Israeli military infrastructure and illegal settlements.
Wafa Aludani
A journalist and coordinator of the Foreign Media Unit in Al-Thorayya, Wafa Aludaini will be joining us from Gaza, where her parents fled during the Nakba. As a journalist she has covered the Israeli siege of Gaza for over a decade, as well as Israeli invasions in 2008 and 2015. More recently, she has reported on the Great March of Return which she attended even as the UN found Israeli snipers had intentionally targeted and killed journalists during the protests.
Abdul-Karim Dalbah
Palestinian journalist, field researcher and human rights defender. An ISM coordinator for almost two decades and an educator in nonviolent resistance, Abdul Kareem has been campaigning for human rights and Palestinian emancipation since the 70’s. Abed will be be talking about the upcoming annexation and strategies for international solidarity with Palestine, based on his decades of experience, historical perspective, and current activism
Ahmed Abu Artema
Joining from Gaza is a founder of the Great March of Return, Ahmed Abu Artema. Thousands of Palestinians met his call on Facebook in 2018 to take part in a massive peaceful protest towards the barrier fence surrounding them, to demand freedom and the right of return. Ahmed was born in Rafah and is a refugee from Al Ramla village. He works as an independent journalist and author.
International Solidarity Movement (ISM)
The webinar is hosted by ISM. The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) is a Palestinian-led movement committed to resisting the long-entrenched and systematic oppression and dispossession of the Palestinian population, using non-violent, direct-action methods and principles. Founded in August 2001, ISM aims to support and strengthen Palestinian popular resistance with our activists working alongside Palestinians inside the West Bank and Gaza.
The Webinar will take place at 20:00 Ramallah time, EEST (17:00 GMT). It will consist of updates, news, and examples of how internationals can support Palestinians during these times. It will also feature an Q&A session; if you have a question, either for a specific activist, or in general, you are welcome to send it in, to ismtraining@riseup.net. The entire webinar will be streamed live on Facebook, Instagram and Youtube.
