I’ve spent the last eight years of my life as a journalist under cover and reporting on the inner workings of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), in the United States and abroad. I’ve been through their training orientations and I have their training manuals. I operate a website where it lists the history, tactics, and media manipulations of the ISM and their leadership. I’ve also been responsible for the deportation of over 200 ISM activists from Israel, including some of their North American leadership.
At their orientation sessions in the US and UK in which I posed as an ISM volunteer, we were instructed that our purpose was to harass the IDF in any way possible in order to frustrate their anti-terror operations. We were informed that the ISM coordinates with Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the PFLP, which were constantly apprised of our locations in the villages. If we encountered armed terrorists while in the West Bank or Gaza, we were told, simply say hello to them and move on, as they were keenly aware that we were there to assist them.
In a recorded interview at the Ohio State national conference, Adam Shapiro, a co-founder of the ISM, personally told me there are plain-clothed Palestinian handlers at every ISM demonstration that direct the activities. I was also told about how ISM activists serve to draw sniper fire down on IDF soldiers when desired. Lisa Nessan, one of those ISM trainers, told me at an ISM Georgetown conference that standing as a human shield in front of an armed terrorist as he threw rocks or shot at an Israeli soldier was indeed considered “nonviolent.” Joseph Carr, a.k.a. Joseph Smith, another ISM trainer, told me in a recorded phone interview how he and Rachel Corrie retrieved the dead body of a Hamas terrorist in Gaza from a combat zone only weeks before she was killed by an IDF bulldozer. When asked whether he feared arrest by the IDF back then he blithely replied ‘no’ because he knew that Arab snipers would be there to fire at them. Rachel Corrie, who was trained by the ISM and had read their manual, also knew that Arab snipers would shoot at the IDF soldiers driving that bulldozer had they exited it to remove her.
The ISM uses a motto coined by the late Malcolm X – “By any means necessary” – in implementing what they consider to be revolutionary tactics in bringing down the Jewish state, which they see as a first step in bringing down Western democracy. Lying and media manipulation are encouraged and elevated to an art form. Talk of ‘nonviolent resistance’ is solely for media consumption, since the ISM promotes armed revolutionary ‘resistance’ against Israel by serving as human shields for terrorists.
And so, it is in this context that for two hours leading up to the two minute video of Colonel Shalom Eisner striking Danish ISM activist Andreas Ayas, the ISM used their bicycles, bodies, and even physical assaults to obstruct the IDF in a closed military zone and prevent anti-terror operations. Earlier in the day, Colonel Eisner was struck by a stick-wielding ISM activist, leaving him with a couple of broken fingers.
11 seconds into the video Colonel Eisner can be seen ordering the ISMers to disperse, one of them to his right with a baseball cap. The Colonel is holding his weapon like a stick to create a line that should not be crossed. He holds the weapon in a way that suggests his hand is injured. Ayas has his back to the camera, and is facing the Colonel in the foreground.
The film is then manipulated by editing. The ISMer with the baseball cap walks behind Colonel Eisner to break up the dispersal line the Colonel set up with his weapon. ISM activists routinely mingle among the soldiers and police in attempts to separate and free their comrades that have been arrested, as this video in Hebron shows. The ISM activists are trained to scream bloody murder, tug on the soldiers, and create mayhem before the cameras. Most of all, they do not allow the police or soldiers to create a line. They faithfully followed the script in this episode.
At 13 seconds, the film has been edited to show Ayas defiantly facing down the Colonel instead of dispersing as the other ISMers are seen doing. A casual viewer might think Ayas was just standing there. The Colonel’s eyes widen as Ayas challenges him verbally and refuses to move. This fits the ISM playbook, as the activists are told the soldiers cannot and will not hurt them for fear of punishment; and in the unlikely event that they do, cameras will be there to grab an edited Kodak moment for their weekly propaganda videos on YouTube. The Colonel, faced with an unrelenting and unmoved agitator and trying to hold the line with a couple of broken fingers, struck Ayas. The Danish consul may be demanding an explanation, but Colonel Eisner did nothing more than the Danish police do to unruly anarchists, as this video shows.