The Occupation of Palestine, and the violent resistance to that Occupation are taking a fierce toll of lives and property. However, Israeli public support for ending the Occupation has risen dramatically, along with a strengthened Israeli Peace Movement, and an open rebellion of reservists who reject service in the Occupied Territories as nothing more than oppression.

These positive developments did not come because of the increase in violence, but because of three things:

First, the vast majority of Palestinians have heroically held firm in their legitimate struggle for self-determination and an end to the illegal and brutal Occupation, most by nonviolent means.

Second, the true Israeli peace movement has mounted very large demonstrations in the past four months, and many Israelis have taken the risk to confront the Occupation personally by crossing the Green Line and standing in solidarity with their Palestinian brothers and sisters, and speaking the truth to the rest of Israeli society.

Third, a group of international citizens, the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), has joined Palestinian and Israeli activists in dramatic acts of nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience in the spirit of the anti-apartheid movement, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. The ISM is also helping to organize boycott and divestment campaigns to cease international—and particularly American—financial support of Israel.

Crucial to these is the International Solidarity Movement. Although Israeli soldiers and police have injured, arrested, and fired at the Americans, Italians, French, Brits, and other ISM volunteers,

--we provide much-needed protection for Palestinian activists,

--our involvement also attracts media attention.

--the willingness of common citizens from other nations, to risk their safety and lives for the cause of justice, true peace, and real security, strengthens the resolve of both Palestinian and Israeli activists. To learn more about the ISM, visit www.freepalestinecampaign.org or www.tswj.org .

We HAVE to keep the pressure up! We HAVE to press forward to expose the complete brutality of Israel’s policies, and of the hypocrisy of US support.

Please consider joining us, or donate money to this cause.

Contact Thom Saffold at this e-mail address or

2084 Pauline Blvd.
Apt. 2-B
Ann Arbor, MI 48103

Make checks payable to: Center for Creative Democracy, and put "ISM Campaign" in the memo line, and send it to the above address.

Dr. Martin Luther King called his movement in Birmingham an army, but, he said, a special army. It had, he said, "no supplies but its sincerity, no uniform but its determination, no arsenal except its faith, o currency but its conscience. It was an army that would move but not maul. It was an army that would sing but not slay. It was an army to storm the bastions of hatred, to lay siege to the fortress of segregation, to surround the symbols of discrimination." (Oates, Stephen, Let the Trumpet Sound, p. 210) This is the vision of the International Solidarity Movement.

Thom Saffold
Ann Arbor, MI
734-668-1549

The Street Wall Journal:  www.tswj.org
Free Palestine Campaign:  www.freepalestinecampaign.org