BACK FROM THE FRONT LINES OF HER CAUSE: Peace activist Radhika Sainath, 25, of Newport Beach recently returned from the West Bank. She is awaiting word on the status of her lawsuit against the Israeli government for false imprisonment. (OC Register Photo/Eugene Garcia)

Radhika Sainath knows she isn't bulletproof.

But she says she's had cocked and loaded M-16 rifles pointed at her head.

She isn't impervious to tear gas.

But she says she has experienced its choking effects dozens of times.

She was raised comfortably in Newport Beach.

But she has been jailed and interrogated more than once in Israel.

All, she says, in pursuit of peace.

Sainath, 25, recently returned from Israel, where for most of the past year she has worked as a volunteer for the International Solidarity Movement amid the war-zone conditions of the West Bank, contested by Israel and Palestinians.

She believes it is her responsibility – inspired by stories from her parents of Mohandas Gandhi's nonviolent movement to achieve independence in their home country, India – to go where violence is a daily threat to demonstrate the power of nonviolence.

That's why she's been working in the West Bank villages, organizing demonstrations and hoping her presence will lessen the chances that civilians are harmed as Israelis and Palestinians clash.

"I think it's really important that people do their part to change the world," she said last week via cell phone from Tel Aviv. "If people just sit in their living rooms or on the beach and don't pay attention to what's happening in the world around them and how the government and their tax dollars are affecting people on the outside, they have responsibilities for what the government is doing."

SINCERE BUT MISGUIDED?

The Israeli government calls volunteers like Sainath sincere in their beliefs, but misguided.

"They have good intentions. They believe they are fighting for a good cause. But they are being cynically used by a Palestinian-led organization," said Zvi Vapni, Israel's deputy consul general in the Los Angeles Consulate.

"It's really a shame when their lives are endangered. We are sorry for their families."

Some volunteers have been killed by placing themselves between Israeli forces and Palestinians.

Earlier this year, U.S. citizen Rachel Corrie was buried by an Israeli bulldozer as she got between it and a home that Israelis were knocking down because they believed it was being used by those they consider terrorists, such as suicide bombers.

Corrie's death was "an unfortunate accident," said Justin Levi, director of media relations for the Consulate General of Israel in Los Angeles.

"They were told not to be there. They were told it was unsafe," he said.

As Israelis literally build walls around Palestinian villages, Sainath said she believes the risks of serving the cause of nonviolence as a means to independence are worth it.

GETTING PEOPLE INVOLVED

"My experiences have solidified my belief in nonviolence as a powerful tool against injustice," she said. She has been among scores of volunteers who have put themselves in harm's way on Israel's West Bank and Gaza territory amid the suicide bombings, military reprisals and daily events that can erupt into violence.

AT THE BARRIER: Radhika Sainath and Palestinian farmers gather at a gate in Israel’s “separation” wall in September at the West Bank village of Faroun. (Photo Courtesy of Radhika Sainath)

Volunteers have been called human shields, but Sainath prefers to say she "accompanies" Palestinian civilians in the hopes she can protect their rights.

Like the students and teachers she accompanied home from school when curfews had been imposed. Or the Palestinian farmers she accompanied to harvest olives in their fields, which had been declared off-limits by authorities.

"She was a very good organizer, very good with people and very level-headed," said Flo Razowsky, a volunteer from Chicago who worked for months as Sainath's partner in the area around Tulkarem, a city of about 80,000.

"There's not anyone who wouldn't get nervous with tanks around and constant gunfire, but she thought it was important to stay calm. She helped people to not be afraid. And she worked very hard to get women involved, because the women are strong but not heard very often. And, hopefully, their presence at demonstrations lessens the violence."

Sainath believes the volunteers have been able to reduce violence by their presence.

"As an American, you often are treated so much better here," she said. "I can often go through checkpoints without as much difficulty. I've seen a wide range of attitudes from individual Israeli soldiers.

"Some say, 'Oh, you're from California. That's cool.' Other times, they get angry and think we are here to make trouble. Some ask if we are Muslims. Others say what a good job (the United States) did in Iraq."

The Israeli government, she believes, doesn't want its image to be one of harming peace demonstrators.

ARRESTED THREE TIMES

Still, she was arrested three times in Israel – twice, Vapni said, for "interfering."

The third time was Dec. 4, when she was picked up by Israeli immigration police in Tel Aviv.

The events that led to her most recent arrest began in November 2002, one month after she went to the northern West Bank.

She was seized by Israeli soldiers after a demonstration against a security fence being built near the village of Jayyous. She says she was detained for more than four days without being informed of charges against her and without being allowed to contact her attorney.

She sued for false imprisonment, which led her to re-enter the country last month for court proceedings.

She said she figured she would not have been let into the country again, so she changed the spelling of her name to get an entry visa.

After her court testimony, she took a bus with friends to a restaurant. She was arrested as she got off the bus.

She was confined to a friend's Tel Aviv apartment until she left eight days later. APPLYING TO COLUMBIA "She had been arrested twice before. She had been expelled. She was on a list. She came back under a different name. We are being very generous to allow her to leave again," Vapni said. While banned from Israel and awaiting word from her lawyer on her civil suit against the government - she asked for about $12,000 in damages for emotional distress - she's looking ahead.

She plans to continue human-rights work and to apply to Columbia University, perhaps to study international law, she said.

For a little while, she will enjoy her visit home. Her parents, who declined an interview request, respect her decisions to be in the front lines, despite concern for her safety, she said.

"It's really nice to be back in a place that is not under occupation," she said over chai tea at the Fashion Island Starbucks. "It's nice to be able to drive to Fashion Island without being stopped by soldiers."

Copyright 2003 The Orange County Register

###