Statement Submitted by Investigative Reporter Lee Kaplan to the Haifa District Court, Regaring “Wrongful Death” Suit Filed by Craig and Cindy Corrie

My name is Lee Kaplan. I act as an investigative journalist who has been published internationally who writes on homeland security and terrorism issues. I am considered an expert on the ISM. I have attended undercover as a reporter ISM orientation and training sessions in the United States and attended ISM national conferences on US campuses where strategy is devised.. I have spent the last eight years researching and exposing the ISM and its affiliates in the US and abroad and have consulted US and Israeli law enforcement agencies. I have been interviewed on over two hundred and fifty nationally and internationally syndicated radio shows about the ISM and on national security matters and been a guest on Fox Cable TV’s Dayside with Linda Vester and Bill O’Reilly’s Factor. I am currently working on a book about America’s colleges in the War on Terror and the International Solidarity Movement as a threat to both Israel and the United States.

These are facts about Rachel Corrie and the ISM I believe the court needs to know:

1)Means of deception. The ISM training manuals in the possession of our agency, prepared for both the United States and the UK, stress the use of deceptive and contradictory language. Both the US manual, written by Norcal ISM leader Paul LaRudee and the London manual, written by Huwaida Arraf, tell ISM trainees that instead of calling themselves “human shields,” they should say they are “peace activists.” Ms. Corrie was neither a pacifist nor a peace activist, but was an anarchist by her own and her boyfriend’s definitions. She was recruited to ISM from Evergreen College in Washington State.

The information Ms. Corrie wrote home to her mother would have followed ISM dictates of deceptive language. Hence, weapons smuggling tunnels that are holes in the ground would be identified as “Palestinian water wells” and terrorists in those tunnels would be called “Palestinian municipal water workers.” This deception is repeatedly used by Ms. Corrie’s mother. One would have to assume that Mrs. Corrie is either following up on this deception or else naively repeating what she was told. As for Rachel Corrie, she would have had to have gone through ISM orientation and training both in Washington State and once she arrived in the Middle East, by so doing she would have had to read
and follow those manuals.

2)Rachel Corrie was involved in removing a dead body from an open field in a combat zone along with her fellow ISM activist Joseph Carr a.k.a. Joseph Smith. She did this under the direction of her Palestinian “handler” and “translator” (ISM activists are always supervised by plainclothes Palestinian handlers at all actions according to co-founder Adam Shapiro at the Ohio State conference in 2003).This particular action was recounted to me by Joseph Carr in a recording I have submitted to the court and can also be verified by an interview with Cindy Corrie, Rachel’s mother, done by George Cadman in Santa Cruz, California.
found on the Indybay.org website (also submitted to the court). When I asked Carr if he and Rachel were afraid of being arrested by the IDF he explained that they were not because they know if the IDF came out to get them they would be killed by the Arab snipers. This is the first suggestion of an active role in assisting terrorists as practiced by the ISM in Rafah doing “human shield” work.

3)A video taken by the IDF the day Corrie was killed and of the incident reveals she was not protecting a house, but had stationed herself in a trench opposite the D9 tractor which killed her. This video is visible on my websites at www.dafka.org and www.StoptheISM.com .

4)Rachel Corrie was potentially in the weapons smuggling tunnels two weeks before she died. An ISM media office report for mid-February confirms that ISM
activists in the same affinity group as Rachel in Gaza were requested by Rachel’s “handler” a Mohammed Qishta, to retrieve the dead body of a Palestinian Arab, most likely a Hamas member from a weapons smuggling tunnel. While Rachel isn’t mentioned by name in the communique, it is her same Rafah group that received the order from Qishta and went to carry it out. One of the two Arabs removed from the tunnels was also names Muhammed Kishta but is not the same person. Shortly after Rachel died, Cindy Corrie, her mother spoke at UC Santa Cruz where she stated the first time she figured her daughter was doing something dangerous was when she told her how she had helped to bring some dead bodies out of a tunnel. This means that Rachel was in the tunnels, knew of them and was certainly involved with them.

5. At the time of Rachel Corrie’s tragic death, the ISM website openly proclaimed that it endorsed the “armed struggle” of the Palestinians.

6. The most telling statement of all was that which Rachel Corrie told to the western media, shortly before her death:

“Think about the relative positions of the fighters and occupiers in this monumentally unequal struggle…. the few young fighters have NOTHING BUT THEIR WEAPON (and this not the most modern) – no helmet, bullet proof vest, radio contact or other protection. No back-up, no plane, helicopter, tank, APC, searchlight, dogs, flares, ambulance or refuge… every time the Israeli Command terrorises Nablus, more Martyrs are ready to defend the honour of Palestine and fight for the freedom of surely the most gentle, generous and peaceful people on earth.” (New Zealand Herald, 10 February 2003)