Paul Larudee (born April 25, 1946) is an Iranian-born American political activist who is a major figure in the pro-Palestinian movement.

[14] Larudee is an active member and local leader of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), in which capacity he has acted as a human shield in the West Bank.

[citation needed] Larudee was one of about 100 individuals who visited refugee camps in the vicinity of Bethlehem and Nablus between March 29 and April 13, 2002, to protest and, in his words, to "check on the families...to see how they were".

FGM has asserted that its activities fall under the banner of "civil resistance" and "direct action" against Israel's "brutal siege" and its "collective punishment" of Gazans.

He later said that he and his collaborators "locked arms to prevent the Israelis from coming in but they used electric tasers, stun grenades, and batons and they smashed the windows of the wheelhouse and then they tied us.

I took the calculated risk that Israel would find it hard to explain its failure to rescue me, and that the act might disrupt their operations to at least some extent".

[19] Although Larudee said he practiced nonviolence during this entire episode, he said that "it's not necessarily for everyone" and expressed his admiration for those on the Mavi Marmara, another boat in the flotilla, who resisted the IDF violently.

He was traveling this time under the false identity Paul Wilder because he had been banned from the country before due to his association with Palestinian terrorist groups according to Lee Kaplan.

[21] Larudee organized the 2011 Gaza Freedom Flotilla under the auspices of the Free Palestine Movement, but Greek authorities refused to let the ships leave port.

According to Larudee, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cautioned the 2011 flotilla organizers against "creating a situation in which the Israelis have a right to defend themselves".

They added that the Greek government had "humiliated itself by preventing a peaceful flotilla of boats from leaving its shores for Gaza in 2011, for the sake of relations with Israel".

And they concluded that the Global March to Jerusalem was "merely the latest and possibly the largest and most diverse expression" of swelling worldwide anti-Israeli sentiment.

[25] Larudee was taken into custody in December 2012 in Tirur in the Malappuram district of India, where he had spoken at a Student Islamic Organisation conference.

[26] According to one report, Larudee was taken into custody and was sent back due to his violation of the visa condition that tourists are not allowed to deliver speeches to the public.

[7] The Syria Solidarity Movement supports the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, which has been criticized as fascist and "rabidly anti-semitic".

[32] SSM was formed in 2013 to facilitate a North American speaking tour for Agnes Mariam de la Croix, a nun who argues that chemical attacks in Syria such as Ghouta in 2013, were perpetrated by rebels.

[7] In 2014, the SSM sponsored a delegation, including Larudee, to Syria to observe the 2014 elections, hosted by the International Union of Unified Ummah, an Iranian NGO.

[14][7] On the morning of the election, the delegation announced "The poll is about to demonstrate the real scale of public support President Assad is enjoying inside the country, heroically resisting foreign-sponsored aggression for more than three years."

Commenting in 2016 on the visit, Larudee said "It's easy for us to come off as apologists for Assad when we're working to correct the false information in the hostile Western media.

"[14] In 2017, the Association paid U.S. Representative from Ohio Dennis Kucinich $20,000 to attend a conference of the pro-Assad European Centre for the Study of Extremism in London.

[35] Former Ohio governor Ted Strickland, referring to Larudee, Obeid and the Association, described them as "a group that has been a cheerleader for this murderous dictator, with ties to the disgusting 9/11 truther movement, and... individuals who claim that Israel's goal is ethnic cleansing.

The group concluded that "the re-election of President Bashar al-Assad, of the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party and the National Progressive Front, is the legitimate, democratic expression of the Syrian people.