The Village Against the Fence

By Amira Hass
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/392934.html

A serious-looking black dog, whose eyes looked almost hollow, freely crossed the naked strip of land west of the villages of Qibiya and Budrus, which stretches from the village of Rantis, about five kilometers to the north.

A young resident of Qibiya guiding the visitors among the olive groves and fruit orchards of his village, up to the route of the fence, hastened to cross the ditch that has already been dug on both sides of the route, and to disappear among the trees. It was soon clear why – an Israeli security vehicle was approaching from the north toward those walking on the exposed strip, as soon as it detected them.

The vehicle stopped and two men got out. One, the shorter and older, carrying a rifle, was from Kfar Yonah; the second was from a Bedouin community in the Galilee. The one with the rifle angrily demanded that the visitors who came on foot leave immediately, or he would call the police so they would explain, if you insist, that this is a closed military area, even if he had no papers to prove it. His friend, who served in the army for seven years and was discharged half a year ago, calmed things down before they heated up.

The one with the rifle asserted that the presence of cameras encourages people to come and demonstrate, and that’s how the waves of riots begin. “Isn’t it you, by your work, who are causing the waves of rioting?” he asked, and the question wasn’t quite understood. What are you talking about, we are doing our work, explained the younger man. And of course I support the fence, so I won’t explode with my family in a restaurant.

The “riots” the two were talking about are a series of demonstrations against the fence that have been held by the residents of Budrus for about a month. “We decided that unlike other places until now, where international peace activists conducted the battle against the fence and the Palestinians supported them, we, the residents of Budrus, would wage our own battle.”

Those are the words of Ayad Murar, 42, a veteran Fatah activist, who with his brother Naim was among the founders of the popular committee in the village “for the struggle against the apartheid wall.” The popular committee, he says, emphasized to the people that the battle against the bulldozers and the many soldiers and police who protect them must be conducted without violence.

Curfew and arrests

All residents answered the call to demonstrate – young and old, men and women. What began as a strike along the route of the fence reached a climax on December 30. Somebody saw a bulldozer approaching the olive grove. The speaker in the mosque quickly announced it, and everyone who was in the village ran westward, toward the grove.

School children ran out of the classrooms, books in hand. Tear gas, rubber bullets and blows did not stop the villagers, who dispersed and returned to stand or to sit in front of the soldiers and the police, on the ground. Eyewitnesses say that the female students sat in front of the many soldiers, who retreated to their jeeps. The appearance of several television cameras helped.

During the following days, the Israel Defense Forces imposed a curfew on the village in order to prevent the residents from going out to demonstrate. Mainly young men violated the curfew and walked to the olive grove, to prevent the bulldozers from doing their work. Up to this week, the bulldozers have not returned to work – after they already uprooted about 60 olive trees. The people of Budrus attribute this to their stubbornness and determination.

A few days after this demonstration, the IDF arrested Naim Murar. He was released on January 11, but didn’t manage to be home for more than three days when the army came again to arrest him and his brother Ayad. The military prosecutor demanded that they be placed under administrative detention.

In the military court at the Ofer army base, the judge, Major Adrian Agassi, decided to release Ayad. “I found it proper to intervene in the decision of the military commander,” ruled Agassi in his decision. “After all, we cannot allow the military commander to use his authority to order the administrative detention of a person only because of this activity [against the fence]. In my opinion, this is a mistaken decision that did not stem from clear security considerations.”

But the judge decided to approve the decision of the military commander to place Naim Murar under administrative detention. As is customary in administrative detention, only the judge was allowed to peruse the classified documents given to him by members of the Shin Bet security services, and according to these documents, “the intelligence material attributes to him activity in support of terror, in the context of the Tanzim organization.”

But in Budrus people are convinced that the second detention of Naim Murar – like that of eight other activists against the fence – is an attempt to dismantle the opposition in the village. From Budrus’ threatened olive grove sounds of firing can be heard – sounds of training exercises. They come from the Adam military base, which is a few dozen meters to the west, 20-30 meters west of the Green Line.

In Budrus they believe that because of this army base, which is a few dozen meters from the Green Line, the route of the fence was pushed straight into the beautiful olive grove that they have been nurturing for decades. Budrus lost most of its lands in 1948 – many thousands of dunams, some count up to 20,000, remained on the western side of the Green Line.

Some land remained in the demilitarized zone, which both Israeli and Jordanian forces were forbidden to enter. Since 1967, say the villagers, the demilitarized zone has become Israeli, and they weren’t allowed to return to work their land there as well.

The route that is planned according to the map of the Israeli security services looks as though it is right on the Green Line. But in reality, all the difference lies in several dozen meters east of the Green Line. Now, of the 5,000 dunams that remain to the approximately 1,400 residents of Budrus, they estimate that they will lose about one fifth.

Some of this land is being confiscated for the fence itself, part of the area of the village will remain behind the fence – between the fence and the Green Line. The villagers estimate that 3,000 olive trees, which cover an area of about 5,000 dunams, will be lost under the teeth of the bulldozers or will be trapped in areas where entry is forbidden.

They figure that the “fence” – namely, two ditches that will be dug on both sides of it, and the two barbed wire fences, and the electronic fence with the sensors, and the patrol roads between them, and the watchtowers – will almost touch some of the most western houses in the village, including the school.

Imprisoned enclave

The occupation and preparation of the land here, west of Kibiya and Budrus, are being carried out in the context of the second stage of the building of the security fence. According to the plan, and as long as it has not been decided or proved otherwise, in the context of this stage two Palestinian enclaves will be created west of Ramallah.

These are two out of 81 Palestinian enclaves that have been created and will be created all along the fence, which are discussed in the report by B’Tselem. Some will be between the fence and the Green Line, some in small “loops” created by the fence, and some will be the result of “secondary obstacles,” as the army puts it.

Budrus is one of the nine Palestinian villages that will find themselves in an enclave with an area of 53.2 square kilometers. These villages include Luban al Gharabiyeh, Rantis, Shuqba, Qibiya, Shabtin, Budrus, Midya, Na’lin and Dir Kadis. The village of Midiya will be surrounded on all sides by the separation fence, as in a loop.

According to the map of the Israeli security services, one could have concluded immediately that an enclave would be created here. The routes of the western and eastern fences are the same color, as though there is no difference between them.

Military spokesman did in fact explain to members of the support unit of the Palestinian negotiating division that the eastern fence would not be similar to the western one, and would apparently be composed of what is called a “secondary obstacle” (a system of ditches and barbed wire fences) and an eastern gate on the roads to Ramallah and the villages surrounding it – which would be locked and blocked off only in case of security alerts. But in any case, this promise does not reassure the village residents, who know that they are losing thousands of dunams of their land.

In the past three years they have already had a taste of checkpoints that prevented their access to the neighboring villages or to the district center, Ramallah. And even if the gate or the gates in the eastern, “secondary” fence are open most of the time – in Rantis, Budrus and the other villages they point to the maps and to the new political geography that is being created before their eyes.

The two small Palestinian enclaves that are being created west of Ramallah leave two large settlement blocs outside of them, which cut deep into the Palestinian territory and are joined within Israel itself, until one can no longer see that there was a Green Line.

“That’s why we are fighting against this fence,” says Ayad Murar from his home, talking about this new geography. “It is part of our struggle for a peaceful solution to the conflict – the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.”

Between November and December 2003, military orders began to be posted in the Rantis, Budrus and other villages, regarding the “temporary” seizure of land (until December 2005) for military purposes. According to these orders, which are signed by the chief of Central Command Major General Moshe Kaplinsky, the width of the strips of land confiscated from the villages will range from 68 to 490 meters. The entire length of the (primary and secondary) fence that will surround the nine villages in the enclave – 32.2 kilometers.

Meanwhile, some of the residents of Budrus continue to sneak into Israel on foot, to make a living, mainly in construction. Others, who have lost their jobs in Israel in recent years, have found various jobs in the Ramallah area. But if they are closed within an enclave, they are liable to lose these places of work. Palestinian employers cannot withstand the frequent incidents of lateness caused by the blocks and the checkpoints.

“Come to live in Ramallah, or leave the job,” they are told. Grocery store owners are feeling the difference. People come in infrequently, buy on credit, they buy only what is essential. It’s hard to imagine what else will happen when the large olive grove is crushed beneath the teeth of the bulldozers or is swallowed up on the other side of the fence, and when it won’t be possible to work in Israel at all any longer.

Guardian Obituary: Tom Hurndall

An aspiring photojournalist and committed peace activist
By Carl Arrindell
Originally published in The Guardian

In the spring of 2002, Tom Hurndall made a journey around Europe, which then took him on to Egypt and Jordan. He was young, a soon-to-be student, interested in philosophy – and most interested in the contrast between cultures. It was a formative experience. Indeed, an abiding image for his friends is of Tom, who has died aged 22, on his motorcycle, cigarette in hand, riding into the Egyptian desert.

Back in England, he was accepted by Manchester Metropolitan University to study criminology and philosophy. But his passion and natural gifts were for photography and writing, which he saw as ways of highlighting what was important in life. So he switched to a degree in photographic journalism.

A year ago, he photographed the million-strong London anti-Iraq war demonstration. During it, he encountered the group planning to provide human shields in Iraq against the threat of attack by Anglo-American forces.

By February 2003, he was in Iraq, having told his Manchester faculty head that he would still make his course deadlines. He was, after all, amassing a photographic record, and writing journals. But rather than sending the volunteers to hospitals and schools, Saddam regime officials detailed them to power stations and strategic targets.

Tom headed for Jordan. There he offered his remaining £500 to provide medical supplies for Jordanian Iraqi refugee camps, helped courier supplies and worked on building temporary shelters. In Jordan, he encountered the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), whose volunteers – committed to non-violence – were working with Palestinians as they faced the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. By foot, taxi and bus, Tom set off for Gaza, with the aim of recording what he saw.

He arrived in the town of Rafah on April 6 2003 and began emailing images of the IDF and the Palestinians back to his family. The tone of his journals changed dramatically. “No one could say I wasn’t seeing what needs to be seen now,” he wrote.

The practice of ISM members in Rafah was, while waving their passports, to accompany Palestinians as they attempted to restore water supplies, and telecommunications shot up by the IDF, and to prevent the demolition of houses. On April 11 2003 Tom, dressed in a fluorescent orange ISM vest, was at the end of a Rafah street observing an earthen mound where a score of children were playing. As IDF rifle fire hit the mound, the children fled. But three, aged between four and seven, were paralysed by fear.

Tom, having taken a boy to safety, returned for the girls. He was hit in the head by a single bullet, fired by an IDF soldier. After a two-hour delay on the border, Tom was taken to a specialist hospital in Be’ersheva, and then back to London, where he survived, in a vegetative state, until his death.

Tom was the second of four children born in Camden in north London, the son of a property lawyer and the head of a school learning support unit. He was educated at the Hall School in Hampstead, Highfield in Hampshire and at Winchester College before, back in London, joining Camden School for Girls mixed sixth form. Various jobs followed before that first trip to the Middle East and subsequent student enrolment in Manchester.

The initial IDF field report, which went to the British Embassy in Tel Aviv and to Tom’s family, exonerated the soldier who had killed him. He claimed that Tom was in camouflage, and wielding a gun. In the face of a clutch of witness statements, such suggestions were withdrawn. Just before Tom’s death, the soldier, a Bedouin Arab of the IDF, was indicted on six charges, of which the most serious was aggravated assault, implying no intention to kill. Since Tom was shot by a rifle with an advanced telescopic lens, his parents are demanding that the charge be murder, but they are also demanding the eradication of the “culture of impunity” with which the IDF operates in the occupied territories of Palestine.

According to B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, between September 29 2000 and December 18 2003 some 377 Israeli civilians and 80 security forces members were killed in Israel. Some 196 Israeli civilians and 180 IDF members were killed in the occupied territories.

In that period, 2,289 Palestinians were killed in the occupied territories, with many tens of thousands injured, most of whom have been civilians. From the end of 2002 to the spring of 2003, four “internationals” were killed in the occupied territories of whom three, including Tom, were British citizens. There have only been a handful of IDF investigations and just two convictions, with lenient sentences. Tom’s case is a landmark. For B’Tselem’s director Jessica Montell, it “has made a real contribution to the cause of greater military accountability”.

Tom, blind to nationalities and borders, exuded humanity. He wanted, he wrote in his journal, “to make a difference”. He did. He also had an outrageous sense of humour and will be missed, most of all, because he made those of us who were his friends smile. He is survived by his parents, sister Sophie, and his brothers Billy and Freddy.

Thomas Peter Hurndall, student, born November 27 1981; died January 13 2004

Tom Hurndall was a young man with a dream…he paid for it with his life

A young British photographer shot by an Israeli soldier on the Gaza strip has died after nine months in a coma. Sally Pook and Nicola Woolcock report.
Originally published by The Telegraph.

Tom Hurndall left England with a dream to document the lives of people living under conflict. A first year photography student at Manchester Metropolitan University, he hoped to emulate his hero, the renowned war photographer Don McCullin.

He travelled first to Iraq, before moving to Jordan and then on to Israel. It was a trip he had saved for and planned for some time, a trip that would form part of his degree course and one he knew would prove deeply challenging.

The son of middle-class parents from north London, Mr Hurndall was politically aware and passionate about human rights. He took part in anti-war demonstrations in London before leaving for Iraq.

His sense of adventure, together with his love of photography, propelled him to document the lives of ordinary people in areas of conflict in the Middle East.

His mother, Jocelyn, a teacher, described him as highly intelligent, articulate and inquisitive, a young man with an adventurous spirit who continually asked questions. It was typical of her son, she said, to put another’s safety before his own.

“It used to worry me that his feelings for others would override any care for his own safety,” she wrote before he died.

Mr Hurndall’s journey began in February last year, when the 21-year-old travelled to Baghdad with a group who would act as human shields. It was his passport into the country. “I want to put a real face on the situation,” he told reporters at Heathrow.

“He saw that war with Iraq was looming and saw it as his chance to do what he wanted to do,” his sister, Sophie, said yesterday.

“The college tried to stop him. While he was there he had an e-mail from his tutor trying to pressure him to come home. But he had absolutely decided what he was going to do.”

He quickly became disenchanted with Iraq when he was denied access to the places and people he wanted to see.

“He disagreed sometimes with what was going on. He went out there as an observer. But they wanted him to stand in front of buildings such as factories. Tom said he would protect schools and hospitals but that was it,” said Miss Hurndall. “So they asked him to leave.”

Mr Hurndall left for Jordan, where he spent time in refugee camps taking photographs, building tents and buying supplies.

Once again, he became frustrated, feeling he was not making enough of a difference, and tried to return to Iraq. It proved too difficult and too expensive from Jordan. So he chose Israel.

Although he has been labelled a peace activist, his family insist he was primarily acting as an amateur photo-journalist in Israel. According to his family, he wanted to cut through the propaganda.

“He wanted to find out for himself what was going on, cover these stories and bring the truth back to Britain,” said his sister.

He chose to gain access to the refugee camps by joining the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), which required him to undertake a short training course before he travelled to Gaza.

His decision to sign up with the ISM was initially a way of getting into the refugee camps; but he also joined because he wanted to cover the story of the death of Rachel Corrie, the 23-year-old American member of the movement who was crushed to death by an Israeli armoured bulldozer weeks before Mr Hurndall was shot.

“He also wanted to work alongside them. He believed in their cause,” said Miss Hurndall.

“Three days before he was shot he saw a child shot in front of him. That is why he acted when he saw children being shot at and tried to protect them, he knew there was a chance they could be killed.”

During his five days in Gaza, Mr Hurndall photographed children and ISM activists opposing Israeli bulldozers. Other photographs show children playing in the ruins of bombed homes in Rafah, members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, a family living in a house directly in front of an Israeli tower.

In photographs taken of him at the time, he appears fresh-faced and enthusiastic. On the morning of April 11, the day he was fatally wounded, he e-mailed one of his professors to tell her how excited he was about the pictures he was compiling. He said he would be back in England soon.

That afternoon, he travelled to Rafah, carrying his camera and wearing an orange day-glo jacket.

It was broad daylight still, at around 5pm, when he was shot in the head as he tried to shepherd two young girls to safety. Witnesses said a group of Palestinian children had been trapped under fire in the Yibna area of Rafah.

Mr Hurndall twice crossed the line of fire. He managed to get one child, a boy named Salem Baroum, to safety but as he went back for the two girls he was shot in the head.

According to witnesses at the scene, there were no Palestinian gunmen in the area.

At the European hospital near Rafah, a brain scan found that the bullet had left hundreds of particles of shrapnel in his head. Mr Hurndall never regained consciousness.

His family travelled to Gaza to begin their own investigation into the shooting. They believe he was targeted by the Israeli Defence Force as part of a strategy of suppressing foreign witnesses in the occupied territories.

“The soldier had a telescopic lens and we have been told by a military expert that he could have taken the buttons off Tom’s coat,” said Sophie.

In May, his family managed to get Mr Hurndall flown back to England where he remained in a deep coma at the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability in Putney, south-west London.

He died on Tuesday night, aged 22, after contracting pneumonia, just as his mother had left his bedside to buy some coffee.

“The doctors said on Monday that he had less than a week left to live,” said his sister.

“My father and brothers, Frankie and Billy, stayed with him on Monday then my mother took over for a shift early on Tuesday. She had been with him all day, and just went to get a coffee. The doctors rang her on her mobile to say what had happened.”

In his diary, Mr Hurndall appeared to have anticipated his fate, writing that he would not wish to survive if he was severely injured.

Letter from Balata

by an International Women’s Peace Service volunteer

Today is the day after the international day of action against the Apartheid Wall. In Jenin 35 internationals and 25 Israeli anarchists backed by dozens of locals cut down a 12 metre hole in the fence there, while the army watched in amazement.

I wish I could say that that good news is the defining event right now, but no. In Nablus and Balata camp three Palestinians have died in the last couple of days including a father of five who was doing nothing against Israel or Israelis. Last week at 38 year-old woman was shot while exiting her house in the middle of the night in the Old City; she was cooperating with Israeli orders to evacuate the street. Another man died in the hospital after being shot in the leg a few days ago.

Last night the army appeared, searched two houses in Balata, and arrested nine people in the middle of the night. In each case the guy they were looking for was not there, and in one case I was told by the family has not been for six months. The army shot up every room in the house for good measure after putting the family outside from 2:30am in the rain and cold for three hours.

M-16 were shells visible all over and holes in closets and walls.

They also poured cooking oil all over the floor of the kitchen and actually shot a hole in the main gas supply risking burning the whole house down. And the obligatory wrecking of the water resevoirs on the roof.

In another Balata house the son sought wasn’t there so soldiers contented themselves with shooting a 17-year old brother in the stomach and then arrested him and threatened to return and blow up the house if the family don’t produce the suspect by tonight, a standard empty threat.

Much of this is in response to a suicide bomber being from a nearby neighbourhood in the city proper called Rafidia.

This morning i was just getting a cup of tea to my lips when it was time to move. Jeeps all over the entrances to the camp, greeted by the shebab, the street kids with rocks. The main throughway had couple of jeeps at either end and we split the team into two groups. In the main intersection internationals began inserting themselves between the jeeps and the rockthrowers, as per usual. Soon we were joined by a massive tank that four of us made a sad attempt to blockade on the road; it was ignored and Joey was the last to jump out of the way plus 12 inches from a tread.

That was seen to be a new level of aggression hitherto unseen here. Also new was the firing of a large ballistic projectile filled with rubber bullets. Mika got hit by one of them in the elbow stepping into a soldier’s line of fire. Not hurt. 73 year old Welshman Ray, on his seventh time here, took flak from live ammo fired at point-blank into the ground. This guy is calm as Buddha. A cut shin, no worse for him.

Likewise for Kelly, who marched at one point right up to between a jeep and a tank in the middle of the large intersection and had a soldier firing his rifle right past her head while she stood her ground and argued with them. Later one of the same riflemen was playing chicken and laughing while pointing his barrel at us both when he could risk opening his door to fire our way. At that point our way included half-a-dozen kids who’d been bringing it all morning from a storefront, one of them with a slingshot. Two of the younger kids made a point of standing right behind me.

Also unprecedented was the accidental appearance of a UN delegation that was simply here to see a school or some such thing. Ray and my Swedish buddy seized the opportunity to talk to them. Apparently they were Canadian parliamentarians and were quite interested, totally supportive, and got the fuck out of there right quick, hustled away by their handlers. But they got a photo or two first before they left.

The shebab were chucking lime-based paint in bottles as well today and my Swedish buddy came away looking like a milk bar-fight casualty, as did the tank and a jeep. One kid nailed a jeep side-mirror, which is always extra points as it restricts the drivers’ surveillance capacity. The whole three hour engagement left me with a distinct feeling of over-exposure, not least of which a result of taking a sound bomb at five metres. A bloody nasty interruption second thing in the morning.

The reality of living in a prolonged zone of conflict has made these refugees into some very tough people, and its beyond me to understand their tenacity. I think its beyond the Israelis as well who’ve no other response but endless rounds of collective punishment.

Speculative Journalism: The making of “The Death of Rachel Corrie”

By Phan Nguyen

Mother Jones demonstrated how low it could set its standards for investigative journalism when it hired Newsweek reporter Joshua Hammer to surf the web and write a 7000-word feature story on Rachel Corrie and the International Solidarity Movement (“The Death of Rachel Corrie”, Sept/Oct 2003). Indeed fact-checking and verification was not a priority in the production of this article. Before I had even finished reading the article I had already discovered that Hammer had no shame in culling information from indiscriminate websurfing and no compunction against committing plagiarism.

Take, for instance, Hammer’s description of a memorial service held for Corrie in Rafah soon after she was killed:

Days after Corrie’s death, Arafat’s Fatah Party sponsored a memorial service for her in Rafah, attended by representatives of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades as well as ordinary Palestinians. Midway through the service, an Israeli tank pulled up beside the mourners and sprayed them with tear gas. Peace activists chased the tank and tossed flowers, and the Israeli soldiers inside threatened, in return, to run them down. After 15 minutes of cat and mouse, Israeli bulldozers and APCs rolled in, firing guns and percussion bombs and putting a quick end to the memorial.

What struck me as I read it was that I had seen the exact same phrasing before. So I looked it up and found an article by Sandra Jordan in the UK Observer from March 23:

In Rafah, Arafat’s political party Fatah held a wake for “Retchell Corie”, attended by representatives of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs brigade, among others. These are the militant Islamic fronts condemned by Rachel’s government as terrorists. Their people mingled with secular organisations and droves of ordinary Palestinians who came to pay their respects…

Later in the article, Jordan writes about another memorial service:

As the memorial service got under way, the Israeli army sent its own representative. A tank pulled up beside the mourners and sprayed them with tear gas. A bizarre game of cat-and-mouse began as the peace activists chased the tank around to throw flowers on it, and the Israeli soldiers inside threatened, in return, to run them down.

The game ended when the Israeli bulldozers came out, accompanied by more APCs, firing guns and percussion bombs. The insult was as clear as the danger of the situation and the people went home, the service halted.

We can break down the sentences to reveal how Hammer slightly restructured Jordan’s words. Selections from Jordan’s article (in italics) are followed by Hammer’s sentences in his own chronology.

In Rafah, Arafat’s political party Fatah held a wake…attended by representatives of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs brigade, among others… Their people mingled with secular organisations and droves of ordinary Palestinians…

Days after Corrie’s death, Arafat’s Fatah Party sponsored a memorial service for her in Rafah, attended by representatives of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades as well as ordinary Palestinians.

As the memorial service got under way…A tank pulled up beside the mourners and sprayed them with tear gas.

Midway through the service, an Israeli tank pulled up beside the mourners and sprayed them with tear gas.

…the peace activists chased the tank around to throw flowers on it, and the Israeli soldiers inside threatened, in return, to run them down.

Peace activists chased the tank and tossed flowers, and the Israeli soldiers inside threatened, in return, to run them down.

A bizarre game of cat-and-mouse began…

After 15 minutes of cat and mouse…

The game ended when the Israeli bulldozers came out, accompanied by more APCs, firing guns and percussion bombs.

…Israeli bulldozers and APCs rolled in, firing guns and percussion bombs and putting a quick end to the memorial.

Hammer produced an exemplary model of plagiarism, but with one major flaw. Because he had so casually swiped three paragraphs from the Observer and subtly restructured it, he incorrectly combined the “Fatah-sponsored wake” with the separate memorial service that was held at the site of her killing. Sandra Jordan did not make it clear in her article that the two were separate, and so Hammer misinterprets the article as he steals from it, thus presenting us not only with a clear case of plagiarism, but also misinformation. Once we realize this, it is not surprising to find other discrepancies in Hammer’s article.

Such is the case in Hammer’s description of the International Solidarity Movement. According to Hammer,

the ISM upholds the right of Palestinians to carry out “armed struggle” and seeks “to establish divestment campaigns in the U.S. and Europe to put economic pressure on Israel the same way the international community put pressure [on] South Africa during the apartheid regimes.”

And curiously, according to Myles Kantor in an article written for David Horowitz’s Front Page Magazine last April:

ISM refers to a “right” of Palestinian “armed struggle” and seeks “to establish divestment campaigns in the US and Europe to put economic pressure on Israel the same way the international community put pressure [on] South Africa during the apartheid regimes.”

Somehow, Hammer managed to selectively extract and distort the exact same 32 words from ISM’s 900-word mission statement as did an extreme right-wing website. Indeed both articles selected the least significant aspects from the mission statement, which least described ISM’s activities.

The mission statement had been drafted in the early days of ISM (as it is clearly dated “December 2001”), when ISM’s focus was envisioned to be broader than it currently is. Thus the reference to divestment campaigns is obsolete, as there are no ISM-coordinated divestment campaigns. Yet Hammer still felt it was significant enough to single out as a definitive aspect of ISM, simply because his right-wing web source had already done so.

The other portion of ISM’s mission statement which Hammer cites is the reference to “armed struggle.” However, if Hammer will ever decide to read ISM’s mission statement, he will learn that it refers to armed struggle only in the context of clearing the misperceptions that such is the only method of resistance and that all Palestinians engage in it. In contrast, the mission statement declares that ISM exclusively engages in “the proactive tactics of non-violent direct action epitomized by Gandhi, Archbishop Tutu, Dr. Martin Luther King, and other practitioners of creative non-violent resistance.” If Hammer reads further, he will find that while armed struggle is mentioned only once—and only in the context just described—the bulk of the mission statement refers to nonviolent resistance—that is, the only form of resistance practiced by ISM.

Ironically while Kantor’s article stated that “ISM refers to a ‘right’ of Palestinian ‘armed struggle,’” Hammer altered it to read that ISM “upholds” the right, which is even more misleading. He does not explain how ISM “upholds” this right. ISM explicitly states that it acknowledges the right of Palestinians to resist occupation in accordance with international laws. This is not a blanket “uphold[ing]” of “armed struggle,” as Hammer seems to claim.

And of all the right-wing articles Hammer could choose to swipe from, he chose to swipe from Kantor’s article, which is full of false statements, such as the libelous allegation that ISM activist Susan Barclay was working for Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Kantor even falsely attributes a quote to Rachel Corrie: “More Martyrs are ready to defend the honor of Palestine.” None of this seems to trouble Hammer, who still finds Kantor credible enough to sample.

While Hammer doesn’t mind flat-out plagiarism, he is just as capable of misleading when he does mention his sources. In describing The Evergreen State College, the school that Rachel Corrie attended, Hammer references only one quote:

“The radical ideologies espoused every day at Evergreen State College are of every nasty branch of extremism,” one columnist recently wrote. “Anti-Americanism. Anti-God. Anti-life. Anti-Israel. Anti-capitalism. Anti-tradition.”

And yet who is this single “columnist” that Hammer chooses to quote? Hammer doesn’t say, but a simple Google search reveals his source: A young ultraconservative named Hans Zeiger. Zeiger, who is 18 years old, has never attended The Evergreen State College. In fact, in the article from which Hammer quoted, Zeiger cites only two visits to Evergreen—one of which was when he was in the seventh grade!

Interestingly Hammer does not bother to quote Zeiger’s homophobic statement in the same article. Nor does Hammer note Zeiger’s suggestion that Evergreen may have connections to “terrorist organizations,” or his ridiculous claim that Corrie “had stood guard outside of Yasser Arafat’s compound”, when in fact she had never even set foot in Ramallah. Hammer conveniently ignores all these revelatory tidbits because that would destroy the credibility of the man whom Hammer selectively quotes and refers to simply as a “columnist.”

Of course credibility is something that Hammer has trouble judging. He finds contradiction in the testimony of Joe “Smith,” who witnessed Corrie’s killing. “Smith” insists that the bulldozer driver saw Corrie as he approached her, and saw her when she climbed atop the dirt pile that he was pushing, while elsewhere “Smith” “acknowledged that the bulldozer operator could well have lost sight of Corrie after she tumbled down the dirt pile” that he was pushing—that is, the driver eventually lost sight of her as he was driving over her. That would seem to be common sense, and Hammer fails to explain where the contradiction lay.

Hammer also implies that ISM activists intentionally misrepresented the photos taken during the day of Corrie’s killing, that the activists merely “claimed” that the news wires had miscaptioned the photos. His baseless conclusion is that the activists were “probably just too young and inexperienced to know” not to “burn” the media. Of course he merely speculates when he says “probably,” but that seems to be good enough for his style of journalism. Instead of seeking the truth, Hammer is satisfied with his own speculation and moves on.

This type of shallow skepticism is reserved for the activists, while Israeli military claims are treated with respect by Hammer and often go unquestioned, even when the statements are clearly disputable and even laughable. While ISM activists “claimed” their versions of the story, Hammer trusts IDF spokesperson Sharon Feingold as having “assured” and “explained” to him the facts. Feingold “assured” him that the IDF “do[es] not target civilians,” that Tom Hurndall was shot in the head simply because he was too close to a Palestinian gunman. Feingold “explained” that reporter James Miller was killed because he was caught in some crossfire. Hammer questions neither of Feingold’s claims, despite numerous witnesses to both killings who all contradict the claims. In the case of James Miller, the Israeli military even evolved its explanation, since the autopsy report contradicted the earlier IDF claims that Miller was killed by Palestinians. Indeed, video footage of the Miller shooting, filmed by a fellow journalist and also clearly contradicting IDF claims, is publicly available.

Hammer gives no indication that he has viewed the footage of his fellow Middle East journalists. However he admits to having viewed an Israeli propaganda video that was produced specifically to absolve the military of any responsiblity in Rachel Corrie’s death. The video, along with a PowerPoint slideshow that was distributed to US Congress members, was produced prior to the conclusion of the Israeli investigation. This does not keep Hammer from finding that the propaganda video—which featured the inside of a D9 bulldozer—made “a credible case” of innocence for the Israelis. Nor does he wonder why the Israeli investigation, which he states was supposed to be “transparent,” has not been made public. And nor does he mention that according to the Israeli investigation, at no point did the bulldozer even drive over Corrie’s body, clearly contradicting the tread marks that appear in the photo reproduced in the Mother Jones article, not to mention contradicting the Israeli autopsy report and all the eyewitnesses who were interviewed for the investigation.

And when Feingold informs Hammer that “Palestinian terrorists are using the [Palestinian] civilians to hide behind,” he finds it worthy to quote but not to question, despite the fact that there is no clear documentation to corroborate Feingold’s accusation. Conversely, there is a wealth of documentation of Israeli soldiers using Palestinian civilians as human shields—what the IDF refers to as the “neighbor procedure”—as can be found in the mainstream Israeli press, in accounts of ISM activists, and in the work of several human rights groups, such as Human Rights Watch. In fact Hammer extensively interviewed and quoted Miranda Sissons, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, but somehow failed to ask her about this use of human shields, as if Feingold’s “assurances” were adequate enough.

As well, Hammer informs us that when the Israeli military conducts home demolitions, “residents can gather their belongings; and each house is searched for occupants before it is demolished.” There have been numerous cases that prove otherwise. We can read one such Human Rights Watch report from Rafah in late 2002: “At least 20 people were injured, nine of them children, when the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) prevented residents from evacuating their home while the IDF was demolishing the next-door house…” Just two weeks before Corrie was killed, a pregnant Palestinian woman, Nuha Sweidan, was killed in the process of an Israeli-conducted house demolition. And in the cases where residents are actually allowed to “gather their belongings,” Hammer fails to mention that such accomodations are often afforded fifteen minutes or less. Again, Hammer saw fit to print the Israeli claims and felt no need to question them in the face of documented facts.

But Hammer already proves that he is too willing to document and judge things he knows nothing about. For example, he revealed that “some of [Rachel Corrie’s] causes verged on New Age parody.” But he provided only one example—one that reveals his own ignorance: “She paraded through Olympia dressed as a dove in the ‘Procession of the Species,’ billed as an ‘environmentally aware celebration of the earth and life.’” Rather than being “New Age parody,” the Procession of the Species is actually a large annual family event in Corrie’s hometown that attracts tens of thousands of locals of all backgrounds. Last year Corrie organized scores of Olympia residents, young and old, to participate as doves for the event. Hammer does not bother to research the event before dismissing it as “New Age parody.” Based on this single false assumption, Hammer concluded that “some of her causes verged on New Age parody.” Was this Hammer’s attempt to make his story more colorful?

This kind of generalization also enables him to mysteriously state that the photo of Corrie burning a paper American flag “prompted anti-war protesters and other likely allies to distance themselves from her.” Once again, he makes a generalization and provides no elaboration. Just how many “anti-war protesters and other likely allies” did he find before he was satisfied enough to make a generalization? (Incidentally, the caption of the photo of Corrie with the burning paper flag incorrectly states that it occurred during a mock trial of the Bush administration. Actually it occurred during the worldwide protests against a pending US war on Iraq on February 15, in which Corrie was one of over 10 million protesters. The mock trial happened a few weeks later. There are several minor errors such as this throughout the article.)

He extends his generalizations with misleading accusations about the nature of ISM. In addition to misquoting ISM’s mission statement via Front Page Magazine, Hammer stereotypes ISM as “a motley collection of anti-globalization and animal-rights activists, self-described anarchists and seekers, most in their 20s.” The truth is ISM activists range in age from 18 to 77, and they come from all backgrounds, from college students to soccer moms to white collar professionals, and they have come from all over the world. Hammer merely demonstrates his limited experience and knowledge of ISM by applying a cliché. Out of the hundreds of internationals who have participated in ISM campaigns, how many ISM activists has Hammer met personally?

He goes on to falsely claim that ISM “embrac[es] Palestinian militants, even suicide bombers, as freedom fighters,” a baseless accusation commonly alleged and left unsubstantiated by right-wing pundits. As usual he proclaims and elaborates no further. Perhaps next time he should provide us with the website link.

In a move to show he prefers the Israeli military’s point of view, he claims that ISM “has adopted a risky policy of ‘direct action’—entering military zones…” What Hammer refers to as “military zones” are actually Palestinian cities and villages, residential neighborhoods where ISM is invited by the inhabitants. Only the Israeli military refers to them as military zones. Hamas may regard Tel Aviv as a “military zone,” but I doubt Hammer would consequently label Tel Aviv as such. Indeed, quite often the Israeli military declares a city to be a “military zone” after ISM activists have settled in.

What’s amazing is that in Hammer’s 7000-word article, he spends very little time explaining what ISM really is. He makes no mention of its purely nonviolent tactics or even its most basic activities, such as accompanying ambulances, assisting farmers in reaching their crops, clearing roadblocks, and walking children to school, perhaps because they’re not sensationalist enough to merit his attention. He does not even explain ISM’s goal, except for the misleading claim that ISM “upholds” the right to “armed resistance.” In truth ISM’s goal is to nonviolently resist the Israeli occupation. That simple objective is mentioned nowhere in his article. Instead, if we are to envision ISM according to Hammer’s description, we would have to imagine that it is a group of animal-rights activists in their 20s who enter military zones and establish divestment campaigns.

Hammer’s article freely quotes IDF spokesperson Sharon Feingold as she excuses the actions of the Israeli military. But when Hammer wishes to explain ISM, he selectively quotes from third parties who have limited experience with ISM, such as an anonymous “human-rights observer in Jerusalem” and Miranda Sissons, and he does so blatantly out-of-context. The anonymous human-rights observer is quoted immediately after Hammer incorrectly recounts two sensationalized ISM actions, while Sissons criticizes ISM in the context of what she admits are “unsubstantiated allegations.”

Hammer himself describes the “recklessness” of ISM but in the process once again exposes his own recklessness and low standard of journalism. He attempts to recount the case of a young Palestinian, Shadi Sukiya, who was captured by Israeli forces in the ISM office in Jenin. According to Hammer, “ISM insists he was an innocent, terrified teenager who’d asked for refuge during an Israeli sweep.” Here, Hammer resorts to fabrication. ISM issued a press release soon after Sukiya’s capture, which shows the extent of ISM’s “insistence”:

One of the volunteers went into the hallway to see what was happening and met a young man coming up the stairs. He looked terrified, was soaking wet and appeared to be in pain. Concerned about his welfare—under Israeli military curfew, Palestinians spotted in the streets are shot on site—he was brought into the apartment. He spoke only Arabic, which none of the ISM volunteers present understood. He was given a change of clothes, a hot drink and a blanket… Eventually the military knocked on the ISM door and 30 soldiers entered with their machine guns trained. They arrested the young man, claiming he was “wanted.” The two women were not able to prevent the soldiers from taking the young man, whose name they did not even know, but requested that he be treated humanely.

ISM reported only the events as they happened. ISM “insisted” nothing else. The question, as always, is where did Hammer come up with his claim? And where was the “recklessness?” Hammer appropriately recounts the IDF’s claim that Sukiya “was a ‘senior militant’ who’d sent four suicide attackers into Israel.” And yet he doesn’t follow up to reveal that Sukiya was subsequently held under administrative detention—that is, he was held indefinitely without charges. Hammer made no attempt to verify the IDF’s accusations. Hammer also doesn’t bother to note that the IDF additionally claimed they found either a pistol or two rifles in the ISM Jenin office when they apprehended Sukiya, a blatant lie which both the IDF and consequently the Associated Press were forced to retract. Apparently Hammer didn’t feel too “burned” by the IDF lies. (Incidentally, one of Hammer’s valued sources, Front Page Magazine, has not retracted its own claim that “a pistol and a cache of Kalashnikov rifles” were found in the Jenin office, and they have twice claimed that ISM volunteer Susan Barclay was hiding Sukiya in the Jenin office. In reality Barclay was in the United States at the time of the Sukiya “incident.”)

It is revealing that Hammer would fabricate an ISM claim that undermines the actual testimony of the activists, while he conveniently omits the proven lies of the IDF and his right-wing sources, which would reasonably undermine their own claims.

The other instance of supposed “recklessness” occurred when two Britons briefly visited the ISM Rafah office. One of the Britons later committed a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. Hammer claims that they were “posing as activists,” although he doesn’t bother to mention exactly how they posed as activists, because his allegation is false.

Soon after the Tel Aviv bombing, ISM activist Raphael Cohen testified at a press conference about his brief encounter with the two:

Shortly before noon on Friday, the 25th of April, about 15 people came to the ISM apartment in Rafah, the Gaza Strip. They were in three groups: 4 British citizens from London who were looking to prepare a summer camp in Gaza in conjunction with local Palestinians from Rafah; three Italians and two Britons. The last two have been accused of perpetrating the attack in Tel Aviv early last Wednesday morning.

Our group of 5 offered all of them tea. I asked them general questions like who they were? were they with any group? and what they were doing in Rafah? The two accused Britons answered that they weren’t with any particular organization but that they came with “alternative tourism”…We stayed in the apartment for approximately 15 minutes, before we went down to the place where Rachel Corrie was killed by an Israeli Occupation Force bulldozer on March 16. Owing to the presence and approach of an Israeli army tank, we were only able to spend a few minutes at the site where Rachel was killed. We placed a flower on the place in the dirt where Rachel was run over.

Our ISM group then went to the house of Dr. Samir Nasrallah, the house that Rachel died defending, while everybody else, including the group that had visited us, went their own way.

ISM neither harbored nor provided any assistance to the two. When the bombing happended, ISM activists stated upfront that they had briefly met the two. Again, Hammer fails to explain exactly what ISM did that was reckless—only that it was. He is always willing to list the charges, but as a journalist is unwilling to investigate them.

What’s more, even if the two Britons had posed as activists, it is unclear how that would make ISM in any way responsible. Last May, a man disguised as an observant Jew boarded a bus in the French Hill settlement and detonated the explosives strapped to his body. Would that make observant Jews reckless? Would that make the bus driver who allowed him to board reckless?

However, that is enough for Hammer to label the ISM “reckless.” Hammer goes on to write, “Still, the perception has lingered that the group is a sympathizer—and even a harborer—of terrorists.” Hammer doesn’t say among whom this “perception has lingered,” only that it has. Nor does he investigate the validity of his unattributed claim. For Hammer, reporting hearsay is enough. Such unsubstantiated allegations are best left to the gossip columns, if left anywhere at all—not in writing that purports to be investigative journalism.

But Hammer is too caught up in artistic license to report accurately, as when he claims, “Corrie had come to Rafah a paper radical, primed for outrage, but with little real-world experience. That changed immediately.” The truth is that Rachel was not “primed for outrage.” Her primary interest was in establishing a sister city relationship, so she was more “primed” for exchanging pen pal letters. That didn’t sound too exciting to Hammer, who took the opportunity to read Corrie’s mind.

Hammer concludes the article with his thesis that Rachel Corrie died for nothing. He claims that “momentum has faded for a U.S. congressional investigation,” which is incorrect. House Concurrent Resolution 111 started out with 11 sponsors and has grown to 49 sponsors in the House, with the latest two having signed on September 3 (Congress was out of session in August), so the resolution is still gaining sponsors. And on September 9, the Berkeley City Council voted to endorse Resolution 111. The reason the resolution has not moved is not because “momentum has faded,” but because action is required by the House Committee on International Relations, which, under control of Henry Hyde, is failing to address it.

Hammer continues: “Corrie herself has faded into obscurity, a subject of debate in Internet chat rooms and practically nowhere else.” Once again, reality contradicts Hammer’s world-view. Her letters from Rafah have now been published in mainstream English-language media such as Harper’s and The Guardian. They have been translated into numerous other languages and have been reprinted in publications throughout the world. In the Arab world, her name continues to resonate as a reminder that not all Americans support the policies of their president. Documentaries have been made about her in the US, Japan, the Middle East, and elsewhere. Around the world, including in Israel, songs and poems have been written about her. Participation in ISM has risen as a reaction to her killing. Memorials, scholarship funds, and humanitarian centers are being established in her name and in her honor. ISM has even been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, with special recognition of Corrie, Brian Avery, and Tom Hurndall. Arab parents are naming their children after her. Veterans for Peace has awarded her with a posthumous membership. Susan Sontag recognized her as she presented the Rothko Chapel Oscar Romero Award to Ishai Menuchin of Yesh Gvul, and Israeli conscientious objectors have evoked her name when they explain their refusal to serve in the Occupied Territories.

But perhaps Hammer is too busy debating on Internet chat rooms to notice. Or worse, Hammer merely wanted to add some melodrama to his story: “And that, perhaps, is what is saddest.”

The article is littered with other errors, many are of peripheral significance, but taken together, along with all of Hammer’s proclivities as described above, add up to a shoddy piece of work: Corrie did not “propose an independent-study program in which she would travel to Gaza”, she did not fly to Israel from Seattle, the friend who returned from five months in Gaza was not involved in ISM and thus did not “talk enthusiasically to Corrie about the International Solidarity Movement,” the Red Cross did not ask ISM to vacate its Jenin office, the Arabic sentence in the article was translated to English incorrectly, and the list goes on.

Hammer’s style of investigative reporting utilizes plagiarism, indiscriminate surfing of right-wing websites, unquestioning reliance on hearsay and authority figures, skimpy fact-checking, misinformed speculation, artistic license, and a contrived melodramatic thesis. What’s most amazing is how he is able to consolidate all these flaws into a single article. Ironically the cover story of this Mother Jones issue deals with environmental protection. Perhaps Mother Jones could have spared a few trees by omitting the Joshua Hammer article, and instead providing us with links to the websites where Hammer took his information from. Then we could judge the credibility of his sources ourselves.

Please take the time to write to Mother Jones and express your outrage at Hammer’s shoddy reporting. Send your letters to Backtalk, Mother Jones, 731 Market Street, Suite 600, San Francisco, CA 94103; fax: (415) 665-6696; or email backtalk@motherjones.com.