Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, June 2004, pages 32-33

Special Report

International Volunteer Groups Share Goal of Ending Israeli Occupation

By Peter Lippman

As “Marjorie,” a long-term activist with the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT), walks through the crowded market area of downtown Hebron wearing her customary red CPT baseball cap, people recognize the red cap and make way, whispering approvingly, “CPT, CPT.”

It’s clear that the CPT, a disciplined group of solidarity activists from the United States and Canada, has strong credibility among the Palestinians of Hebron district. What makes it possible for Palestinians to trust these people, when most foreigners, if they come to Hebron at all, come to abuse the local residents and steal their land? This was one of the fundamental questions I posed last fall to activists from CPT, the ISM (International Solidarity Movement to End the Occupation), and several other organizations working against the Israeli occupation from both sides of the Green Line.

Significant differences in style and approach between CPT and the ISM illuminate the nature of anti-occupation solidarity work and witnessing. The commonality in the work of both organizations is obvious: members of each regularly participate in such actions as monitoring and joining protests against human rights abuses committed by Israeli settlers and the Israeli army (IDF); accompanying children to school to protect them from settler/army violence; sleeping overnight in houses under threat of demolition, and many more similar activities.

Back home, returnees from both organizations work to educate their countrymen about the occupation and to galvanize action in support of the Palestinians. Both the ISM and CPT explicitly promote nonviolent direct action as the favored tactic in the struggle against the occupation.

At first glance, both CPT and ISM members are international activists who come from abroad to live with the Palestinians and work alongside them. Both take leadership from the Palestinians, trying to fit sensitively into the community and to enhance resistance to the occupation in a nonviolent way. CPT, however, is a compact group with a base in North America and a long history of activism both in Palestine (having first established their presence in Hebron in 1995) and other countries. The ISM was founded by Palestinians more recently, in 2001, to promote a nonviolent movement against the occupation. The internationals who participate in the ISM are perhaps the most visible component of the organization—Rachel Corrie, who was crushed to death in Gaza in May 2003, was an ISM volunteer. They, however, are not the leaders of the organization.

Another difference between the two organizations is that the CPT is a “faith-based” group whose members come from the church community. The CPT finds inspiration in the scriptures; its members consider that they are “doing the Lord’s work” when they witness and provide support to Palestinians under siege. One of their fundamental tenets, articulated by Mennonite leader Ron Sider, reads, “If soldiers are willing to die for peace, why can’t we civilians do the same?” CPT members take this wisdom to heart and stand on the front line of nonviolent action in Hebron district.

The ISM, meanwhile, is a solidly secular organization that takes its inspiration from humanist and progressive values, with the examples of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. taking a prominent place in their vocabulary of nonviolent action.

Returnees work to educate their countrymen about the occupation

This difference does not create a conflict between the two organizations, however; indeed, the CPT provided valuable help in the founding of ISM, providing nonviolence training and other support in an ongoing manner. In any case, although the CPT is rooted in Christian ethics, it reaches out to and welcomes cooperation with Muslims and Jews alike.

Size is another prominent difference between the two organizations. The CPT brings at most several dozen activists per year, primarily from the United States and Canada, to one district in the West Bank. CPT members are either long-term activists who are paid a stipend and go back and forth between Palestine and their home every three months, or they are “reserve members” who go to Hebron for a few weeks a year as needed. Prospective participants are first required to travel to the occupied territories with a delegation to learn about the occupation. Upon joining, they are given several weeks of intensive nonviolence training in North America before leaving for Palestine.

In contrast, the ISM brings hundreds of activists—perhaps as many as a thousand a year—to many parts of Palestine, from dozens of countries. ISM participants are given, at most, a day or two of pre-travel training, and another two-day training session upon arrival in the West Bank. They generally stay in the region for two or three weeks. The ISM organizes “campaigns” such as the Olive Harvest campaigns (accompanying farmers to their groves), the Right to Education campaign (accompanying children to school), and the Freedom Summer campaigns of 2002 and 2003 (involving multi-faceted solidarity work). In each campaign there may be upwards of several dozen participants in the country at any given time.

Differences in Logistics and Style

Not surprisingly, these logistical differences translate into great differences in style. Where the CPT is rooted in the Hebron community, the ISM by comparison is “all over the map.” CPT members come and go, and then they come back—many have been coming to Hebron regularly since 1995. ISM members, with the exception of a few “long-termers,” generally come to Palestine only once. They do not usually have the opportunity to gain a broad view of the occupation nor, as individuals, to form deep relationships with a local community in the way that CPT activists do.

The two styles of activism each have their advantages. What ISM internationals lack in depth of exposure, they make up for in their intense, up-close observation of the worst aspects of the occupation, and a consequent ability to give effective reports back home. The high turnover of ISM volunteers increases the possible number of personal presentations to their constituencies. Furthermore, with a relatively large number of ISM activists in the region, the organization has the mobility to place dozens of volunteers in a sensitive zone—resisting a home demolition, for example, or participating in an important demonstration against the “Apartheid Wall,” or in an action resisting the uprooting of an olive orchard.

At the same time, CPT members clearly have the trust of their community and, as individuals, a deep familiarity with the history of the Hebron district. CPT has been with the families of Hebron and its surrounding villages through much of the Oslo period and the current intifada. The group has an enviably close cooperation with activists and grassroots organizations in the district, built upon trust.

A critical element of the witnessing and direct action performed by CPT and ISM internationals is what they do with their experiences and understanding when they go home. The CPT has a made-to-order infrastructure in the form of the many churches from which its members come. As grassroots institutions, these churches and their social action task forces can not only listen and learn from the CPT, but can include themselves in North American campaigns against the occupation. And the CPT has its home office to support and coordinate this work.

For the ISM, reporting back is more complicated, because the home office is in Beit Sahour, Palestine, while most internationals are members of far-flung, decentralized “support chapters.” Palestine ISM knows that it wants returning internationals to work at home to influence world opinion (and, where applicable, to change their governments’ policies), but it has little power to make this happen. However, the ISM is working toward fulfilling this task. Last fall, ISM in the United States and Canada formed a loose North American structure to enhance communication, and since then has made progress in coordinated activism on this continent, especially in the realm of media work. ISM support chapters in Europe are communicating about developing a similar network.

It is becoming apparent that, to an extent, the ISM is becoming increasingly similar to CPT. Palestine ISM is insisting on more and better pre-training and screening of potential participants before their arrival in the occupied territories. Further, ISM has taken a hiatus from its customary non-stop campaigns. Over the first two years of its existence, the ISM worked exclusively in “crisis mode,” responding to one IDF invasion after another. This winter the organization took a step back from this frenetic pace to hold a series of discussions on “restructuring,” and it is not planning a new campaign until this summer.

The ISM continues to receive and train newly arrived volunteers, placing them in locations of need. But it has been orienting itself toward developing deeper roots within Palestinian communities by fostering the creation of local committees whose members will work with internationals to promote a consciously political, organic use of nonviolent direct action in opposition to the occupation. The ISM, in short, is gaining maturity.

As the deaths of Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall illustrate, the Israeli government does not exempt international activists from its repressive measures. Although volunteers from abroad generally are subjected to far less violence, they experience the same unpredictability on the part of the occupiers. Generally, internationals rely on their status as foreigners for protection—indeed, they try to use this advantage to enhance their work, and the safety of Palestinians, in the occupied territories. Some incidents have shown, however, that a foreign passport does not guarantee protection.

The most notorious of these, of course, were the deliberate killings a year ago of Corrie and Hundall, both ISM volunteers. Several other international ISM members have been shot and wounded as well, and many have been arrested and summarily deported.

CPT members in Hebron in general are treated more gently, but CPT activist Greg Rollins was arbitrarily jailed without charge for 17 days. His case was dropped, but during a recent return trip to Israel he was barred from entry.

Indeed, it has become increasingly difficult for international activists to gain entry to the Israeli-occupied territories. Soon after Rachel Corrie’s death, it became extremely difficult to enter the Gaza Strip, where she was killed. The Israeli government recently put out the word that any foreigner intending to enter the West Bank must submit a written application, which (ostensibly) will be processed within five days. Failure to do so is possible grounds for deportation.

At this writing, however, ISM volunteers are still finding their way into the West Bank, maneuvering around checkpoints and mounds of earth just as Palestinians do.

Both the ISM and CPT continue to examine their work in order to provide effective solidarity to the Palestinians. As the occupation intensifies and the Apartheid Wall stretches toward Hebron, the two organizations will, along with the Palestinians, experience increasing stress. Readers who wish to learn more about these organizations and to support them actively are encouraged to visit their Web sites: <http://www.cpt.org/hebron/hebron.php> and <www.palsolidarity.org>.

Peter Lippman is an independent human rights researcher based in Seattle.

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