Israel arrests & deports peace activists....

You can't see me, but I'm sitting here shaking my head in disbelief and sorrow. This story just seems to keep getting worse.

Today, Israel cracked down on the activities of foreign nationals in the Palestinian territories, targeting the group, International Solidarity Movement (ISM), to which Americans Rachel Corrie and Brian Avery, and British national, Thomas Hurndall, all belonged.

As you know, I've blogged a lot about ISM activists. They have suffered several deaths in the past two months at the hands of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). In March, Corrie was run down and killed by an IDF bulldozer. Then in April, Hurndall was shot by an IDF sniper (he remains in a coma) and Avery came under heavy machine gun fire and was seriously wounded in the face.

So far, no Israeli soldiers have been held accountable for the deaths or injuries.

Today, about 22 (!) IDF jeeps surrounded ISM's offices in the village of Beit Sahour and soldiers entered and confiscated six computers, numerous disks and other equipment and arrested three activists. One, Christine Razowsky, 28, is from Chicago; the other foreigner, an Australian woman, works for the New York-based Human Rights Watch. The third woman is Palestinian.

An article in the Israeli newspaper, HaAretz, referred to ISM as a "pro-Palestinian organization," which in Israel and elsewhere is tantamount to labeling them "terrorists." The arrested foreigners are being deported on charges of illegally entering a restricted military zone.

The Israelis are justifying their actions by saying that two British men involved in a recent suicide bombing on a Tel Aviv pub, Mike's Place, posed as ISM volunteers while in the Gaza Strip.

ISM vehemently denies this. From a recent ISM press release:

...There is no connection. They never tried to infiltrate ISM. They never contacted the ISM. They could have attended a memorial service for Rachel Corrie in Rafah that was open to anybody. As far as we know, the reports of them attending a demonstration sponsored by ISM are wrong. However, that too would have been open to the public.

As a policy, ISM requires two days of training for all of its activists. This functions as a screening in addition to training in non-violent peaceful resistance and orientation to the ISM guidelines. All of our groups function by consensus. This process discourages any individuals from acting impulsively. We know our activists, and none have engaged in or have been accused of engaging in, any aggressive, confrontational, or illegal activity.

General Yaalon of the Israeli Army gave an order on the eve of the Jewish festival of Passover to remove ISM from the West Bank and Gaza. This order long preceded the bombing in Tel Aviv. The Israeli army wants us to leave because we are providing witness to the atrocities committed by the Israeli army... [Emphasis mine.]

So, the bombing of Mike's Place gave Israelis the pretext to crack-down on ISM. On a much larger scale but in the same manner, 9/11 gave Bush his excuse to invade Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein--an objective advanced for more than a decade by Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle and others at the Project for the New American Century.

Also like the American neocons to whom they have close ties, the Israelis plan further measures to militarize civic administration and stifle dissent. From an article in today's HaAretz:

In a further move to clamp down on foreign activity in the territories, the IDF is to take over control of the entry of foreign nationals into the Gaza Strip, Israel Radio reported Friday.

According to the report, individuals who are not Israeli or Palestinian must request personal authorization to visit Gaza from the army, which has taken over all administrative procedures relating to entry to the Strip.

In a separate measure, Israel has demanded that all foreign nationals entering the Gaza Strip sign a waiver exempting Israel from any responsibility should they be killed or injured, a move that has hitherto been restricted to Israelis.

Amnesty International on Friday condemned the demand, saying that it was "categorically opposed to any attempt to get people to sign away their rights."

[...]

The [Amnesty International] site also said that several of Amnesty delegates, who had refused to sign the waivers, were prevented from entering Gaza on Friday.

I wonder when Attorney General Ashcroft will require American anti-war demonstrators to sign waivers before being allowed to protest....

Israel's fear and loathing of suicide bombers are both real and justified. What I don't understand is how they can possibly believe that their increasingly draconian measures are going to do anything but encourage more Palestinian martyrs.