International Solidarity Movement
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September 1, 2006 Dear Friends, As you can see from this issue of Muste Notes, we’ve had a busy summer. On top NewsMUSTE from the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute of a packed cycle of general grants, we made 12 grants from our new Counter- Recruitment Fund and took on a new sponsored project. On a sad note, our friend Norma Becker NOTES died in June. Norma was a longtime member of the Muste Institute board, and her VOL. 14, NUMBER 1 FALL 2006 daughter Diane Tosh was acting executive director during my sabbatical in 2002-03. Norma is remembered here by the Institute’s New Sponsoree: first executive director, Van Zwisohn. Many thanks to all of you who responded International Solidarity Movement to Rebecca Libed’s recent letter by sending generous contributions to the Muste In June, the Muste Institute approved support of international and Israeli Institute. If you didn’t donate yet (or even if fiscal sponsorship for the International activists. Bil’in’s protests have focused a Solidarity Movement’s work supporting spotlight on Israeli government efforts to you did), please take a moment to send us a nonviolent resistance against the Israeli seize Palestinian land for Wall construc- check or contribute through the JustGive occupation of Palestine. This article is by tion and the expansion of illegal Israeli button on our website. With your help, we Patrick O’Connor, an ISM activist based in settlements. The Wall will annex 10% of will keep expanding our support for the New York City. For updated information, the West Bank to Israel and divide the many groups around the country and the see the ISM website at www.palsolidarity.org rest into a series of disconnected ghettos. world who are using nonviolent action to The International Solidarity Movement Israeli military restrictions on carry out their struggles for social justice. (ISM), founded in 2001, is a Palestinian- entering the Gaza Strip have prevented led movement committed to resisting international activists from maintaining In peace, the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land a continual presence there since 2003, using nonviolent, direct action methods when ISM activist Rachel Corrie was and principles. crushed to death by an Israeli military Murray Rosenblith This past July and August, more than bulldozer, and ISM activist Tom Executive Director 100 international activists traveled to Hurndall was fatally wounded by an Palestine for ISM’s fifth annual Freedom Israeli army sniper. Both incidents took Summer campaign. These activists place in Rafah, Gaza. Israel intensified its joined Palestinian communities in military assault on Gaza in March 2006, the longstanding Israeli government effort resisting the construction of Israel’s Wall and again on June 25 when Palestinians to crush grassroots, nonviolent resistance. on Palestinian land in villages like Bil’in captured an Israeli soldier: from then Since Israel began building its West Bank in Ramallah district. Bil’in has been until the end of August, according to the Wall in 2002, the Israeli military has killed protesting the construction of the Wall Israeli human rights organization ten Palestinian protesters, wounded hun- for almost a year and a half, with the B’Tselem, the Israeli military killed 226 dreds—including four Israeli activists Palestinians in Gaza, 54 of them minors. who were seriously injured—and arrested M S I When the Israeli military expanded hundreds of Palestinian, international and Y B its attacks to Lebanon on July 12, Israeli protesters. Over 100 international O T O activists associated with ISM joined ISM activists have been denied entry to H P worldwide protests. On July 14 in Israel and tens deported. Stockholm, 100 protesters blocked Despite these challenges, Palestinian, Sweden’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, international and Israeli activists are forcing a meeting with the Minister. US- inspired by the leadership of Palestinian based support groups for ISM have organizers like Mohammed Khatib from helped mobilize protests around the Bil’in. In an op-ed in the International country, including a July 30 march by Herald Tribune a year ago, Khatib 1,500 people across the Brooklyn Bridge. explained: “We refuse to be strangled by Rina Klauman, an ISM member from Back in Bil’in, the weekly nonviolent the wall in silence. In a famous Copenhagen (center), joins Palestinian, Israeli protest was greeted on August 11 by Palestinian short story, ‘Men in the Sun,’ and international demonstrators at the weekly cries from an Israeli officer that “This is Palestinian workers suffocate inside a protest in Bil’in on August 11. The Lebanon.” The soldiers then wounded tanker truck. Upon discovering them, demonstrators carried fake bloodied bodies 11 protesters, two seriously. An Israeli the driver screams, ‘Why didn't you symbolizing an entire family killed by the lawyer was shot in the head from 15 bang on the sides of the tank?’… Bil’in is Israeli army. Israeli forces violently attacked the yards with a rubber-coated steel bullet, banging, Bil’in is screaming. Please peaceful protest, and Klauman was hospitalized and a Danish woman was beaten in the stand with us so that we can achieve our with a severe concussion after an Israeli border head with a rifle butt. freedom by peaceful means.” policeman beat her in the head with his gun. The attacks in Bil’in are an example of — Patrick O’Connor 2 • Muste Notes Vol. 14/No. 1 N N A In Loving Memory: M E D E H Norma Becker 1930-2006 E C A R G Y There will be plenty said and written errors of your thinking. But the same B O about our friend and mentor Norma smile was there just to see you and T O H Becker, and there can’t be enough. It’s include you in what I took as her secret P hard to recognize now the courage it joke: this is good work, righteous work, took for a northern white woman in the but it’s a hell of a lot of fun, too. I recall mid-sixties to go into the racially segre- her explaining to me how it wasn’t alto- gated American South to teach black gether wrong to use slugs in the subway Norma in 1973, at the 50th anniversary children to read as part of the “Freedom turnstiles (I tended toward button-down conference of the War Resisters League in School” program. For Norma, though, it purity) since traveling in Our City Asilomar, California. may not have been that much of a should be free for all, and you couldn’t stretch. Her day job was teaching black use slugs in limousines. It’s them and us. later, in the late 80s, my family came to children to read in Harlem, in the For years the Muste Institute was run know Diane, her husband Steve, and racially segregated north. out of Ralph DiGia’s cubicle at the War their children again in different circum- It’s hard to recognize now the Resisters League, primarily as a stances. We rekindled a relationship with courage it took to be an out-front fundraising program to enable the Norma, seeing her quite often in perhaps activist and organizer in the midst of Institute to purchase the building it her most rewarding role – one of the the Civil Rights movement and in the shares with WRL at 339 Lafayette. world’s great Grandmas. As Norma’s early days of the Vietnam War, When I became the Institute’s first health worsened, she was less a leading founding the Teachers Committee actual Executive Director, I was com- figure in the movement and in politics. Against the War, organizing the Fifth muting from upstate New York a She was and is sorely missed there as Avenue Peace Parade Committee and couple of days a week. For two years or activist, worker, goad, truthsayer, talent, so much more. Norma and her col- so in the late 70s, I almost always had a and friend. But perhaps the greatest tes- leagues put thousands of people on the home at Norma’s Charles Street apart- tament to her is that in her darkest and street in New York City when “You ment. I began to think of the upstairs most fraught days she had the true love Commie, go back to Russia” was heard spare as “my room.” It’s hard to and constant support of her family. If a lot more often than “You go, Girl.” I describe the pleasure of latenight dis- you could hear Norma’s terrific grand- was part of those marches as a partici- cussions, gossip and dinner over those daughter describe her grandmother pant, bussing up from college, evenings I spent between the office during a particularly harrowing time, wondering at the excitement and seri- days. It would be hard to find her equal you would envy Norma as much as ousness and beauty of it all. for generosity of both spirit and things. grieve for her. Small comfort, perhaps for For most of us it’s impossible to com- I was among the many who learned Diane and Steve, Sarah, Nick and prehend the courage it took to go on, as a lot from Norma, all of which stood me Katrina Tosh, Anita Becker and Alicia Norma did, after the death of her in good stead as an organizer. How to Becker, but it may help to know that so beloved son Gene. run a phone bank, how to hire buses to many sorrow for their loss. Nevertheless, hers is an enviable go to unpopular places, to talk to police Norma had a cartoon on her refriger- resume: War Resisters League chair and politicians, to stay calm during con- ator that I particularly liked.