[April 13, 2002]

A Different Drummer

A fellow scribe wrote me last month, that when he sees what's going on in Israel, he feels like flying over there, to enlist in the Israeli Defense Forces. I'm not even sure if my colleague is a Jew, but I have felt the same sentiment more than once over the years, and in earlier struggles for Israeli survival, American Jews have done just that. Indeed, American Col. David "Mickey" Marcus, gave his life, in 1948, ensuring that Jews could live in Israel, without falling prey to the second Holocaust the Arabs sought — and still seek — to pull off.

But we live in strange times, in which American Jews — only a few, thank goodness — have headed over to Israel, to seek to ensure that Israel is destroyed, and the Arabs realize their genocidal dream. Which brings us to Adam Shapiro.

For the past week or so, Shapiro was written up in newspapers, and portrayed on the TV news in New York, as a heroic "Brooklyn Jew," a "pacifist" and "humanitarian worker" who found himself trapped in Yasir Arafat's Ramallah headquarters. After New York Jews denounced Shapiro as a "traitor," the media portrayed his family as victims of the intolerance of "his Sheepshead Bay neighborhood," "forced to leave," amid death threats.

The truth is, Adam Shapiro was no more "trapped" in PLO headquarters, than an arsonist who lights a match inside a paint factory, is trapped in the ensuing cauldron. Shapiro is also no pacifist. And Sheepshead Bay, the Jewish, Brooklyn neighborhood where Shapiro grew up, surrounded by Holocaust survivors, is no longer his neighborhood. For Adam Shapiro has renounced Judaism, and his neighborhood is Ramallah.

As a publicity stunt, and in order to show solidarity with, and protect the world's leading terrorist, Shapiro traversed a battlefield in a Red Crescent ambulance, and entered Yasir Arafat's compound. (With Osama bin Laden dead or laying low, and Arafat undertaking an ambitious program of carnage, the latter has reclaimed his old title.) Pacifists do not aid and abet those who delight in slaughtering women, small, and even unborn children, and 80-year-old men. The term for those who aid and abet terrorists is ... terrorists.

I fail to see how Shapiro's conduct was any different than it would have been for a Jew, in 1945, to infiltrate Allied lines, and enter Hitler's bunker, in order to show solidarity with, and protect the Fuehrer. Just as Hitler made it his life's goal to liquidate all of European Jewry, Arafat long ago made it his life's goal to liquidate all of Israeli Jewry.

Shapiro had breakfast with Arafat, in a room full of PLO murderers and "journalists," the latter of whom also had run to the bunker to physically protect the man whose minions had threatened to kill any journalists reporting on Arab celebrations of the 9/11 slaughter. Adam Shapiro donned a Red Crescent vest, and went in with an ambulance crew. He called himself a medic, but I have not found any pre-March 30 mentions of him as one.

Shapiro is the co-founder, with his "Palestinian" fiance (from Detroit), Huwaida Arraf, of a PLO front, the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). Shapiro, Arraf, & Co. have announced their goal of acting as "human shields" protecting so-called Palestinians from Israeli soldiers. They also glory in committing sabotage, such as dismantling Israeli road blocks, as part of their contribution to the "Palestinian" genocide effort.

The universal military response to saboteurs is to shoot them on sight. Indeed, the "Palestinians" Shapiro, Arraf, & Co. are fighting for, summarily execute anyone suspected of collaborating with the enemy. Shapiro, Arraf, & Co. have arranged for heavy press coverage, to protect them from getting shot. I suspect that, aside from copying the practice of the U.S. military and much of the world, one of the reasons the Israeli military has forbidden the media from entering the war zone, is to free its soldiers to deal with ISM and other saboteurs, in time-honored fashion.

(In vilifying the Israeli military's refusal to permit journalists at the front lines of the war in the territories, the American and international media have conveniently forgotten that neither during the Gulf War in 1991, nor during the war still being fought in Afghanistan, did the U.S. military permit journalists to accompany soldiers to the front lines, much less allow enemy saboteurs to operate. And in earlier wars, most notably World War II and Korea, when journalists were permitted at the front lines, their work had to go through military censors, before it could be published. If the Israelis have made a mistake, it was in not permitting a select few journalists to accompany their troops, so that they could later counter the Arab blood libels of the week, alleging Israeli "massacres.")

The notion that ISM is a humanitarian or peace movement is a myth perpetrated by the reporters who see Shapiro as useful for their strategy of aiding Arab terrorism. A peace movement would have begun by protesting Arab violence — since it is the Arabs, who in September, 2000, launched war against Israel — and would have sought to protect Jewish civilians from suicide bombers and snipers. Conversely, Shapiro & Co. refuse to even acknowledge that the "Palestinians" employ terror. The only time they use the word terror, is in the phrase "state terrorism," which they apply exclusively to Israel.

ISM is dedicated to the cause of killing Jews, and stealing their country. Its members wave "Palestinian" flags, which Huwaida Arraf even proudly paints on her cheeks for sabotage actions.

Let's look at ISM's own statements. Its December 18, 2001 press release — apparently written by Arraf, the only contact person listed — shows a photograph of Yasir Arafat and ISM members, with the caption, "Peace Campaigners Welcomed by Yasser Arafat."

"[Ramallah] Yasser Arafat, President of the Palestinian Authority, today welcomed international peace campaigners after they staged a dramatic protest against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories. Over 70 International Solidarity Movement volunteers from Britain, the United States and continental Europe lay down in front of Israeli tanks stationed near President Arafat's HQ in Ramallah.

"President Arafat, who greeted each activist personally, thanked the group for their support. 'We are in need of your help,' he added." (So much for Shapiro's claim that his March 30 breakfast with Arafat was a fluke, and that they had previously been strangers.)

"Spokeswoman for the International Solidarity Movement Val Phillips said 'we are here today to support the Palestinian legitimate right to resist the illegal and brutal occupation and to draw attention to the failure of the international community to intervene against Israeli aggression.'"

So, massacres of civilians eating in pizzerias or celebrating religious holidays, are justified by "the Palestinian legitimate right to resist." In ISM's parallel universe, a person can support suicide bombers, while calling himself a "pacifist," a "peace activist," a "humanitarian worker." And note that ISM's language and that used by Arafat on March 31 — in calling for foreign intervention against "Israeli aggression" — were virtually identical.

ISM continues, "The demonstration marks the start of a series of protests taking place over the next two weeks, including dismantling one of the Israeli roadblocks, which prevent Palestinians traveling to work, school or hospital, and working with Palestinian youth on the front line in Hebron."

Translation: "Dismantling roadblocks" in a war zone means engaging in sabotage; "Palestinian youth" means terrorists.

The fact that Shapiro & Co. claim to be unarmed, does not mean they are not terrorists. Anyone who helps terrorists, is a terrorist. Remember Lori Berenson?

But Shapiro & Co. go far beyond Berenson. Anyone entering a war zone, and helping one of the combatants, is a combatant, whether or not he carries weapons. When Shapiro and his accomplices harass Israeli soldiers at checkpoints, where dozens of soldiers have already been massacred by "Palestinian" snipers, they are diverting the Jews' attention from Arab snipers who may be laying in wait, to pick them off.

In a war zone, under the best of circumstances, martial law prevails. And so, when Shapiro & Co. lie down in front of an Israeli tank in a war zone, it is the prerogative of the tank crew's commanding officer, whether or not to run them over. If the tank is under fire, anyone in its way is an enemy soldier, and will be dealt with accordingly. Shapiro and his accomplices have, with the media's connivance, propagated the notion, that they have a right to disrupt Israeli war operations. (Imagine if they pulled that, with an Arab army!) ISM members who tried doing that last week, after Ariel Sharon had made the already 18-month old war official, were shocked, shocked to find themselves wounded by Israeli fire.

In the eyes of the law, the unarmed getaway driver is no less of a bank robber than the gunmen who go in the bank. And considering Adam Shapiro's fondness for Red Crescent ambulances, which are increasingly employed as cover by terrorists transporting bombs and gunmen, he should be considered armed and dangerous.

When Israeli troops — without harming anyone — level Arab houses serving as terrorist sniper posts, border-area weapons smuggling depots, or terrorists' homes Shapiro and Arraf denounce it as an "atrocity," but they see suicide bombings as an understandable response to the "occupation." Similarly, they "call on Israel to immediately implement UN Resolutions and abide by international law. We urge the United Nations and our respective governments to take decisive action to ensure Israel's compliance therewith."

Yasir Arafat has gleefully violated every agreement he ever signed with Israel. The phrase "international law," as used by Shapiro and Arraf is a euphemism for, "Israel must follow our orders," while the terrorists enjoy carte blanche.

The historian and philosopher R.G. Collingwood, who observed in 1942, in The New Leviathan: or Man, Society, Civilization & Barbarism, that we live "in an age of rubber truncheons," would have chuckled at the rise of terrorists who call themselves "pacifists" and "humanitarian workers," and who charge the people whom they are trying to annihilate with "human rights abuses."

In a mix of national socialism and Marxism that has become all too common, Adam Shapiro, Huwaida Arraf, and their co-saboteurs, are stretching, beyond the breaking point, Western, democratic notions of human rights, in the service of genocidal totalitarianism. Following their "logic," Auschwitz would have to be seen as an understandable response to an international conspiracy of Jewish bankers.

P.S. I tried dozens of times, to reach Adam Shapiro, in order to get his side. When I did get through, I heard a recording from him, saying that the telephone wasn't working well, and an unclear alternative number, or he answered, saying he couldn't hear me, and hanging up, or a woman — presumably Arraf — picked up, asking me, "Can you hear me?," before hanging up.

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A Different Drummer is the New York-based web-samizdat of Nicholas Stix. An award-winning journalist, Stix provides news and commentary on the realities of race, education, and urban life that are censored by the mainstream media and education elites. His work has appeared in The (New York) Daily News; New York Post; Washington Times; Illinois Leader; Newsday; The American Enterprise; Weekly Standard; Insight; Chronicles; Toogood Reports; Ideas on Liberty; Middle American News; Academic Questions; CampusReports; and countless other publications. Read Stix' weekly column in Men's News Daily. E-Mail him your comments and feedback at Add1dda@aol.com