by KEN HECHTMAN

"Do not publish this before Dec. 4," Stefan Christoff said before he became the latest in a series of human shield volunteers to travel from Montreal to the Occupied Territories with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) last week. "The most important lessons we learned from Jaggi Singh's trip last December were to send a lower profile person, with no advance publicity."

For the same reason, the land crossing from Jordan has become the preferred point of entry for ISM activists. The odds of getting through are actually lower than the two out of three claimed for Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport, but nobody gets deported back home.

Christoff's attempt to play the odds failed on Saturday, Nov. 29, when he was refused entry at the Allenby Bridge border crossing. Typically, when an ISM activist is refused at the land border, he simply returns eight hours later and tries again when another group of guards is on shift. In Christoff's case, he says, the border guard entered his name in her computer, then called a group of senior officials to see the results. After a five-hour interrogation, the border guards declared him a threat to Israel's security, but wouldn't explain how or why. They stamped "Refused Entry" on his passport, meaning he can never use it to go through Israeli customs again. Christoff notes that a guard was holding his stamped passport while asking his opinions on Israel, indicating the decision had already been made.

Before leaving Montreal, Christoff himself told the Mirror, "The ISM is as much of a threat as the armed struggle. There's a worldwide network on the other end of my cell phone that can get the stories out, educate and apply pressure." ISM-Montreal spokesman Sam Singer continues the theme, saying, "Any tool that can document violations of human rights - like Stef's mini-disc recorder - is a threat to Israel's security."

Over the last year, the ISM has changed focus. After Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall were killed and left brain-dead respectively last spring, the organization learned that the Israeli army is less reluctant to kill foreigners than they were two years ago. In response, the ISM has partially recast itself as an independent news service, channelling on-the-ground reports through its media centre to the world press. This past October, the Israeli army mounted an invasion of the Gaza Strip city of Rafah, as big and as destructive as the April 2002 invasion of Jenin. The ISM was the first to get the story out.

At press time, Christoff was still in Jordan and planning to visit Palestinian refugee camps there while considering legal action to challenge his barring. Plan B, if he doesn't make it into the Occupied Territories, is to visit the refugee camps in Lebanon. "The situation there is bad and nobody talks about it," he says. "The refugees embody the Right of Return which is being negotiated away. Also, the Zionists always ask why we never talk about abuses by Arab states. The discrimination practiced by the Lebanese government needs to get talked about."