The most visible current issue is the Palestine Solidarity Movement's plan to hold its annual anti-Israel hate-fest at Georgetown University in mid-February. Conventional thinking would have Civilization's defenders writing letters of protest to Georgetown and its student newspaper, The Hoya. While a considerable amount of time and political "ammunition" has been expended to turn the conference into a public-relations disaster (and more will be expended in the coming weeks), an intelligent strategist attacks his enemy on multiple fronts. Success on any of them will result in disaster for the adversary and overwhelming political and public relations momentum for the victors.

Here are the fronts— at least those that can currently be discussed in public— on which Civilization's protectors are fighting.

(1)The PSM's annual divestment conference that is scheduled for Georgetown University

Detailed information has been sent to Georgetown's administration and also to its Directors (Trustees) that shows ISM/PSM's advocacy and facilitation of terroristic violence while proving that it is lying to the University.

(2) The PSM's own rank-and-file

One of the most effective ways to destroy any organization is to destroy the commitment of its rank-and-file. All volunteer organizations must somehow serve their followers and supporters, and the way to separate the followers from the organization is to prove to them that the organization is serving itself at their expense.

The International Solidarity Movement is now in the position of the far weaker power, noting that it dare not operate a forum like IsraPundit in which opposing and embarrassing viewpoints and information can be posted. If it did, eighty or ninety percent of its members would quit in disgust. We have already posted information that should easily cause ISM/PSM's female, Christian, and gay participants to spit on the Palestinian flag (and then use it for personal hygiene purposes). This information must be distributed as widely as possible.

(3) The ISM/PSM's tax-exempt support network

ISM/PSM is funded by 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations like the Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA) and the Brecht Forum. I am not an attorney, tax or otherwise, but we need to have one take a very close look at these organizations' Form 990 tax returns and also their activities and expenditures. I find it difficult to believe that spending money to send activists to engage in "direct action" against Israeli security and law enforcement activities is a legitimate use of tax exempt funds. From what I can see, these organizations forgot to tell the IRS about these activities and others, such as efforts to influence legislation and participation in antiwar protests.

Other 501(c)(3) organizations in ISM/PSM's network, like Mahdi Bray's Muslim-American Society, are on record as promoting and engaging in civil disobedience. Since even nonviolent lawbreaking is contrary to public policy, this may in fact disqualify them from being tax-exempt.

Once the IRS or other governmental agencies begin to investigate this network, there may be a domino effect in which other abuses of tax-exempt money are exposed and the entire thing goes down like a house of cards. This attack must be pressed as actively as possible.

Here are some ISM/PSM-affiliated organizations and other organizations to look at. Let me know if there are others.

Al-Adwa, Palestinian Right to Return Coalition
American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), aka American Friends of Terrorists and Submission to Islamofascism Committee
Brecht Forum and ISM-New York City
Global Exchange
Jewish Voice for Peace
Middle East Children's Alliance
Middle East Cultural and Charitable Society (parent of Electronic Intifada)
Muslim-American Society (MAS)
Pax Christi
Tikkun.org (Michael Lerner's group of DHIMMIs)
Voices in the Wilderness

(4) Taking over the enemy's issues: Rachel Corrie

Q: Why did seventeenth-century Polish infantry have only one pike to every ten or so muskets?
Hint: The function of pikemen was to hold off enemy cavalry while the musketeers reloaded.

Civilization's defenders tend to think defensively on issues like Rachel Corrie and we need to break this paradigm. So far, what they have mostly done is to stand their ground and level their "pikes" as it were to hold off ISM/PSM's accusation that Israel "murdered" a young, blonde, doe-eyed American peace activist with a Caterpillar bulldozer. The defense consists of arguments that her own conduct contributed to her death, that the bulldozer driver did not see her, and so on. Neither wars nor political controversies are won by defense.

Now let us answer the riddle we posed above; why did Polish infantry leave itself almost defenseless against cavalry attacks? The reason was, of course, that it rarely if ever had to defend itself against cavalry. Any Swedish Reiters, Turkish Spahis, or scimitar-waving Crimean Tartars who tried to charge Polish infantry usually found themselves confronting a rapidly-approaching stirrup-to-stirrup line of men who looked something like this:

The last thing that many Reiters, Spahis, and Tartars ever saw.
The Khan of the Crimean Horde did not, however, lose a single man to these guys at Vienna (1683). His solution involved two things: fast horses and a good head start.

The doctrine of most cavalry of that era was to engage other cavalry by firing pistols or by engaging in a sword-to-sword melee like the ones we see in movies. The armored Polish cavalry was, however, trained to smash through the enemy ranks— a doctrine that the Russian marshal Aleksandr Suvorov rediscovered only toward the end of the eighteenth century— and nothing on earth could survive that shock. (Only with the advent of sophisticated computer animation, as used in Lord of the Rings, could this "attack through" be portrayed without exposing stunt performers and extras to possibly-fatal collisions.) The Husaria were, in fact, used like modern tanks: an irresistible shock weapon that could smash anything foolish or unfortunate to find itself on open ground.

After dispersing the enemy cavalry, the Husaria were then quite capable of continuing their charge into the opposing infantry because the long and hollow lance, the kopia, was specifically designed to outreach infantry pikes. In other words, the Poles met a charge not by digging in and holding out pikes to keep the enemy away; they met it with a countercharge that not only annihilated the attackers but often carried through into the enemy's infantry, guns, and camp. People who have total superiority in a particular arm like cavalry or, in this case, the simple TRUTH don't need no stinkin' defense!

This is the thought process that must guide us as well. We do not defend ourselves against the other side's "charge" that the dirty "Zionists" "murdered" Rachel Corrie with a bulldozer. We do not even waste much time by pointing out that Ms. Corrie's own reckless actions contributed to her death. Instead, we "hit through" the enemy attack with our own, by exposing the ISM's negligence and recklessness (at best) and callous disregard for the peace activist's life. Then we use the momentum to carry our own attack through to the opposing "camp" by spreading the word that ISM leaders said openly that it was useful to get Rachel Corrie killed for publicity, that the ISM members who were present told conflicting stories and did nothing to try to save her, and that the ISM may have posted doctored photographs. We take over their issue and make it into our issue.

This approach has been highly successful because ISM/PSM has stopped talking about Rachel Corrie in any venue in which the above arguments can be presented. The fact that the other side has stopped talking about Rachel Corrie shows that this issue is indeed now ours and we should use it as aggressively as possible.

The same principle applies to the ISM/PSM's "charge" that the "Zionists" are "oppressing" the Palestinians. While it is certainly correct to argue that Israel has every right to protect itself from terrorists, ISM/PSM members don't care about Joooooz, excuse me, Zionists being riddled with poison-tipped nails from suicide bombs. We must therefore go on the offensive by exposing Palestinian oppression of women, Christians, and gay people. Palestinian culture must be portrayed as William Golding's Lord of the Flies starring adults instead of kids, a mental image that the election of Hamas terrorists easily reinforces.

In summary, our strategy must target ISM/PSM on at least four fronts:
(1) Its annual university conferences
(2) The commitment of the rank-and-file activists it seeks to recruit; "progressive" issues like women's rights and gay rights can easily be used against it.
(3) Its tax-exempt funding network and its tax-exempt affiliates
(4) Its own issues, such as Rachel Corrie and "oppression"

Note that a serious reverse on any of these fronts can easily bring down the entire organization. Although actions (already published in IsraPundit and elsewhere) are in progress on all these issues, assistance is welcome along with recommendations for other methods of attack.