THE HANDSTAND

july 2005

 tHE iNTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT

The ISM's controversial activists
The trial and conviction of an Israeli soldier for the manslaughter of Tom Hurndall have highlighted the controversial work of the "human shields" of the International Solidarity Movement.

To the Western peace activists themselves, they are helping defuse the situation by using non-violent means to act as a buffer between Israelis and Palestinians.

They claim Israel allows its soldiers to shoot civilians and children, and believe they can protect these victims because the Israeli Defence Force will think twice before shooting at a group that includes Westerners.

The ISM has already lost two members - the American Rachel Corrie, killed by an Israeli bulldozer, and Tom Hurndall, shot in the head.

To the Israeli authorities, the activists of the ISM are misguided outsiders who are allowing themselves to be manipulated by Palestinian militants. They say ISM members have met suicide bombers and helped gunmen, something the group vehemently denies. Some activists who left Israel
have been prevented from returning.

A spokeswoman for the Israeli embassy in London says: "Israel has no objection to foreign nationals participating in legitimate protests as long as they take place within the law and do not endanger human lives. "Nevertheless, over the past few months, the International Solidarity
Movement has actively inflamed an already tense and volatile situation.

Contrast

"The ISM is a Palestinian movement using Western activists to present itself as an international peace movement. "The ISM's radical anti-Israeli politics, combined with their illegal and provocative methods, stand in stark contrast to the behaviour of the other NGOs operating in the area."

The various arms of the ISM have been in existence since soon after the beginning of the latest Intifada in September 2000. Raphael Cohen, a British organiser within the ISM, says they are acting to prevent wanton killing. "No-one goes there in the belief that they are going to be shot," he
says. "Our presence in itself means the army are curtailed in the level of violence they can use."   "They can't just start firing at a crowd when they know there are foreigners in there. Palestinian lives are held very cheaply." "The rules of engagement for soldiers in the Gaza Strip have not been
made available publicly."

He says the shooting of Tom Hurndall is a perfect illustration of the Israeli army's disregard for life.   "We were taking part in an action to set up a tent on the edge of the civilian settlement in Rafah, on an area where there has been a lot of destruction to property, to create a buffer zone between their military positions on the border and the populated area. "They regularly drove tanks and would fire indiscriminately on the civilian population. Several people had been injured in the same week." And Mr. Cohen, who says he has been barred from entering Israel for "security reasons", vows that the ISM's work will continue.

Tom Hurndall

Soldier guilty of Briton's Killing
compiled from various newspaper reports
An Israeli military court has convicted a former Israeli soldier of manslaughter after the killing of a pro-Palestinian British activist. The defendant, Wahid Taysir, was accused of shooting Tom Hurndall in the head during an army operation in the Gaza Strip in April 2003. Witnesses said Hurndall, 22, was helping Palestinian children avoid Israeli tanks.

Hurndall lay in a comatose state for nine months before he died in a London hospital.

Defence lawyer Yariv Ronen had claimed that Hurndall did not die as a direct consequence of his client's actions, but because of malpractice by Hurndall's British doctors. The family dismissed these claims.   In its ruling, the military court found Taysir had shot Hurndall with a sniper rifle using a telescopic sight. It said there was no basis for the claim of malpractice, and said Taysir had given a "confused and even pathetic" version of events to the court. Taysir was also convicted of obstruction of justice, one count of submitting false testimony, obtaining false testimony and unbecoming behaviour.

Hurndall's sister, Sophie Hurndall, praised the verdict, but said the army must change its practices. "This kind of thing needs to stop happening. Until that has changed ... we won't really have won," she told Sky News TV. She said there had been little contact with Israeli authorities during the trial, and claimed there had been a "systematic process" of covering up the shooting. Hurndall, a student, was shot in the Rafah refugee camp, where he was photographing the work of the International Solidarity Movement. ISM activists often place themselves between Israeli forces and Palestinians to try to stop the Israeli military from carrying out operations.

The defense also argued that a confession from the soldier, on which the prosecution based its case, was forced. Taysir, a member of Israel's Bedouin Arab minority, charged the army with racism, saying he was prosecuted because he is an Arab and because his victim was a foreigner.

Two other British citizens have been killed in the Israeli-Palestinian fighting. Cameraman James Miller was shot and killed in Rafah on May 2003 while filming a documentary about the impact of violence on children.
Brother petitions against denial of entry

William Hurndall, Thomas' brother, arrived in Israel early Monday and was held at the airport by immigration authorities. He filed an urgent petition with the Tel Aviv Administrative Tribunal through attorney Avigdor Feldman, in order to be allowed into the country. When Hurndall's father and brother arrived, Interior Ministry representative advised William he was allowed into Israel only under certain conditions: That his stay was limited to 24 hours, he travelled accompanied by an official representative of the British embassy and pledged not to enter the West Bank or the Gaza Strip. "As the brother of a victim of an offense seeking to use his acknowledged rights and attend an important ruling in the matter of his dear one," wrote Feldman in the administrative petition submitted before noon on Monday, "the petitioner expected to be treated respectfully and not to face an arbitrary salmming of doors and the stipulation of harsh terms."
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"I doubted the Israeli account instantly," said Tom Hurndall's mother, Jocelyn. "We knew this was not the case because we already had photographic evidence of Tom who had been wearing orange clothing. A child could have invented a better report. It was full of inconsistencies that confirmed what really we already knew: that the Israelis were not seeking to really uncover the truth."

Israeli authorities refused to meet the Hurndalls to discuss the case so Anthony, a solicitor, travelled to the Gaza Strip to conduct his own investigation. He spent weeks in Rafah interviewing witnesses and assessing the army's version.

"My whole approach at that point was not one of seeking to blame the Israelis but simply to find out what had happened," said Mr Hurndall. "The whole thing was slowly peeling away all the possibilities, accumulating all the evidence. Some members of the family and those around me were very angry for six or seven weeks because I was still putting forward the possibility that this was an accident." Mr Hurndall focused on where the shot that killed his son originated and what could be seen by the sniper. "I was not sure whether this was a deliberate shot or accidental, whether it was a stray shot or a warning shot," he said. "The other question for me was what could you see from the tower? It became quite clear to me this soldier must have seen that Tom was not in camouflage, was not carrying a gun, that he was a civilian, that he was wearing an orange jacket. "It took me a long time but in the end I was faced with only one conclusion: that Tom was shot deliberately."

Mr Hurndall produced a 50-page report that accused the Israeli army of lying, withholding evidence and major factual errors, including placing his son in a different location from where he was shot. The Israeli government still refused to discuss the Hurndalls' findings with the family but the British authorities were persuaded by the depth of the report and the photographic evidence. Mrs Hurndall wrote to Tony Blair demanding that he exert more pressure on the Israeli government to hold a transparent inquiry. The Foreign Office backed the family but also urged it not to go public. "We were told it would not help our case. This naturally angered us more," said Mrs Hurndall. "We were not diplomats and we did not have to work with these people the next day. It didn't matter if our relationship broke down as a result of having been straight and having stood on the truth. More than that, I sensed in the meetings we had with the Israelis that by going public we were helping the wheels of justice to move."

The Hurndalls got the army investigation they wanted. It concluded that Sgt Taysir had lied but they were disappointed that he was charged with manslaughter and not murder. But the Hurndalls were also concerned that a lone soldier was being forced to face responsibility for what the family believes is a culture of killing civilians with impunity in order to terrorise Palestinians. "This particular soldier is just a very small cog in a vast wheel," said Mrs Hurndall. "This is a minute part of justice. If one were to get a deep level of justice one would be looking up the chain of command all the way to [the Israeli prime minister] Ariel Sharon in order to get a picture of the true culture in which the soldier was functioning." "I don't think he was disobeying orders. I think he was doing exactly as he was told and he was hung out to dry. This isn't the end. We want to see others who carry a greater responsibility brought to justice. We won't leave it here." Chris McGreal.

Rachel Corrie

In March 2003, Rachel Corrie, 23, an ISM activist from Olympia, Wash., was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer in a Gaza refugee camp while trying to stop soldiers from demolishing a house. Her death was ruled accidental.

Two other British citizens have been killed in the current round of Israeli-Palestinian fighting, which erupted in September 2000. Cameraman James Miller was shot and killed in Rafah in May 2003 while filming a documentary about the impact of violence on children. Also, Israeli soldiers killed aid worker Iain Hook in November 2002 during a shootout with Palestinians in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank. More than 3,400 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting since 2000. The army says it has opened 92 investigations into shootings of Palestinians. Twenty-seven indictments and four convictions have been handed down.

According to the Israeli human rights group B'tselem, 11 foreign citizens have been killed by Israeli forces during the period. Monday's verdict was the first conviction.

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Compiled from various news reports. JB.Editor.