At 26 seconds we see Ayas in the foreground of the shot sporting only a cut lip with no serious injuries and fleeing toward the camera. However, in the same frame we can also discern Colonel Eisner trying to restrain the man with the baseball cap, who moved to where Ayas had been standing and refused to disperse. The Colonel attempts to arrest him but due to his hand injury cannot hold him, and another ISM activist grabs the man in the baseball cap and helps him escape. The interloper is arrested by other soldiers, while Colonel Eisner is relegated to a spectator’s role as he clearly cannot use one of his hands. The rest of the video shows female ISMers breaking the line and interfering with the soldiers again; another anarchist tactic is to send women in so it can be claimed the soldiers abuse the fairer sex. Be that as it may, anyone caught interfering with an arrest or even touching a police officer elicits an uncompromising response in any Western country. The end of the film shows a woman that had been arrested sitting next to the male ISM activist who had run interference on Colonel Eisen’s arrest, and the Colonel chatting with them.
As mentioned, ISM activists like Ayas are told during training not to fear or even respect IDF soldiers. They are told that the soldiers really have no authority over them and are under orders not to hurt them, and the activists are thus encouraged to challenge the soldiers at every turn. If instructed by soldiers to back up ten feet, we were trained to back up only five feet, in order to maintain a consistent and intense level of interference. In training we were told that the soldiers are allowed to detain us but not arrest us, and that the soldiers must call and wait for police, a wait that facilitates a getaway. We were told to photocopy our passports so that if detained, we could slip away. Our training emphasized that when in closed military zones, such as the one in which Ayas was struck, and if ordered to disperse or leave the area, that we must refuse and demand to see the soldier’s orders in writing.
This elaborate tutelage has essentially turned interference with the IDF into a titillating game for college anarchists in America and Europe, who are recruited for “summer vacations in Palestine” to mess with the IDF soldiers. In a perverse type of package deal, they can get that “revolutionary” experience and raise hell without the risk of being shot – as in Tiananmen Square or Tehran – or even endure the rough handling of an American police officer. Interfering with the IDF and aiding Arabs in attacking them has bestowed upon ISMers cult status within American universities, and now one university even has an ISM chapter dedicated to prepare students for such missions. Andreas Ayas wannabes are recruited every week on US and UK campuses, and Colonel Eisner was merely another pawn – and victim – in the ISM’s game plan.
These ISM activists from the US and Europe do more than just abuse free speech to interfere with the IDF, nor are they starry-eyed pacifists. They represent a definite security risk to Israel and are documented terrorist confederates. In the photo below are ISM activists, one from Denmark like Ayas, who gleefully pose with AK47s in Jericho alongside Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade terrorists.
Note that the woman is dressed to look like a female Jewish settler, even though she is not Jewish. ISM activists routinely work to smuggle Arabs or parcels that may contain weapons or explosives past checkpoints into Israel. The ISM even organized an event called the Tel Rumeida Circus, which performed juggling and fire tricks at checkpoints to distract the IDF soldiers and facilitate the smuggling enterprise.
A Rogue’s Gallery
Paul LaRudee, one of ISM’s major organizers in the US, was caught and deported from Israel after I tipped off the Israeli government to the fact that he was traveling to Israel under an assumed name, Paul Wilder. Until that point, he had been slipping in and out of the country, regularly meeting with members of Hamas. After exhausting the appeals process in Israeli courts, he went on to Lebanon to assist Hezbollah during the 2006 war.