The Latest American Heroes: Internationals risk their lives to shield civilians in the West Bank

For days they've been calling one of my fellow New Yorkers "traitor." For city dwellers who've been encouraged to feel pretty darn protective of one another, such dangerous talk comes as a shock.

It began when Adam Shapiro from Brooklyn talked to the international media from inside Yasser Arafat's compound Easter weekend. Shapiro, 30, is one of the founders of International Solidarity Movement a volunteer group that has helped to bring nonviolent activists from the world beyond into besieged Palestinian communities. After living in Ramallah for months, he entered Arafat's office accompanying a doctor in an ambulance, later telling the New York Times that he’d had breakfast on Saturday with Arafat.

The Israeli shooting was relentless, electricity was cut and food and water were running out, he reported. Live on CNN, he described the Israeli raids on Palestinian communities as "terrrorist" attacks. Israeli troops, he said, go "house to house, much like the Nazis did."