Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, the famous Torah scholar,
emphasized that Jews have a religious obligation to
defend the community from attack.
In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle (see ref), International Solidarity Movement founder and director George Rishmawi explained that the recruitment of American student volunteers is useful to the Palestinian cause because "if some of these foreign volunteers get shot or even killed, then the international media will sit up and take notice."
The press release for PSM's "Third Annual National Conference" stated as follows (see ref):
"Following in the path set by the first two conferences of the student/community Palestine solidarity movement, we are proud to announce that the third North American conference will be held from October 10-12, 2003 at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. Divestment movements have sprouted across the country, International Solidarity Movement activists have traveled to Palestine, and at campuses and in communities throughout the United States, organizers have taken action, rallied, demonstrated, spoken and educated—to bring the truth about Palestine to a broad audience and build a mass movement for action."
Although the conference did not in the end take place at Rutgers (the university refused permission to the meeting, which was then held at a Ramada Inn), this press statement by the meeting planners makes clear that the Movement's leaders make no differentiation between the Palestine Solidarity Movement and the International Solidarity Movement.