American peaceworker killed by Israeli Bulldozer- American Government...

[Camp_Democracy]

DOES NOTHING!!!

Does everyone know the story of Rachel Corrie?



Rachel Corrie, 23, was killed on 16 March when she was run over by an Israeli bulldozer. Rachel was trying to stop the bulldozer from demolishing the home of a Palestinian doctor in the Gaza Strip. Our hearts go out to her family and friends.

Scoop here presents a memorial photo-essay
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0303/S00153.htm




Here is some of her writings...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,916299,00.html

I have been in Palestine for two weeks and one hour now, and I still have very few words to describe what I see. It is most difficult for me to think about what's going on here when I sit down to write back to the United States. Something about the virtual portal into luxury. I don't know if many of the children here have ever existed without tank-shell holes in their walls and the towers of an occupying army surveying them constantly from the near horizons. I think, although I'm not entirely sure, that even the smallest of these children understand that life is not like this everywhere. An eight-year-old was shot and killed by an Israeli tank two days before I got here, and many of the children murmur his name to me - Ali - or point at the posters of him on the walls....

Just want to write to my Mom and tell her that I'm witnessing this chronic, insidious genocide and I'm really scared, and questioning my fundamental belief in the goodness of human nature. This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop. I don't think it's an extremist thing to do anymore. I still really want to dance around to Pat Benatar and have boyfriends and make comics for my coworkers. But I also want this to stop. Disbelief and horror is what I feel. Disappointment. I am disappointed that this is the base reality of our world and that we, in fact, participate in it. This is not at all what I asked for when I came into this world. This is not at all what the people here asked for when they came into this world. This is not the world you and Dad wanted me to come into when you decided to have me. This is not what I meant when I looked at Capital Lake and said: "This is the wide world and I'm coming to it." I did not mean that I was coming into a world where I could live a comfortable life and possibly, with no effort at all, exist in complete unawareness of my participation in genocide. More big explosions somewhere in the distance outside.

much much more- really interesting reading!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,916299,00.html


interesting MP3 about situation
http://twincities.indymedia.org/local/webcast/uploads/metafiles/why_do_they_hate_us.mp3

[malaise]

1. I will never forget

I cried that day.

[lonestarnot]

2. I remember this.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

3. It reminds me of the Tianamen Square tank guy.

Only the bulldozer driver didn't have the basic human decency the tank driver had.

[jonnyblitz]

4. this was discussed at DU quite a bit when it happened..

and believe it or not there were flame wars over it because some of the DU (cough) "moderates" thought she asked for it.

[Solly Mack]

9. I remember that

[Solo_in_MD]

20. There were also some of us who took the middle ground on it

and annoyed both sides. It was *colorful* discussion, and I don't think any minds were changed

[helderheid]

5. The recent attacks had me thinking about her again.

[uppityperson]

6. Rachel Corrie, RIP

thank you for her writings and the photo essay (hadn't seen that before)

[Poll_Blind]

7. Watch this interview with her on YouTube before she was murdered.

Interview with Rachel Corrie shortly before her murder

Snip from "The Killing Zone" documentary about Rachel and IDF actions in Gaza

Both are very short but give you a real idea of who she was any what she and many other brave citizens go up against.

PB

[Judi Lynn]

18. Thank you for posting these links. n/t

[Poll_Blind]

19. If you haven't done so already, at least watch the first 60 seconds of...

...the second link. Disturbing!

PB

[blonndee]

21. Wow.

These videos break my heart. It's one thing to read about it, but the videos bring to life the suffering of the Palestinian people as well as the heartlessness of those who so ruthlessly oppress them. :cry:

[Poll_Blind]

22. Yeah, when you actually see the Israeli APC firing its guns while..

...the old woman is trying to speak to them. Well, you won't forget that image for a while, I assure you.

PB

[reichstag911]

8. Most people at DU...

...remember this from '03, I suspect, at least those with any interest in the ME whatsoever.

btw, to DU!

[tnlefty]

10. I remember and I was stunned that the Decider decided not to take

Israel to task for it. Don't forget, you can't go to see the play about her in NYC either, as best I remember.

[bloom]

11. There is a theatre putting it on this fall nt

[acmejack]

12. Too Hot for New York

The slim book that was suddenly the most controversial work in the West in early March was not easy to find in the United States. Amazon said it wasn't available till April. The Strand bookstore didn't have it either. You could order it on Amazon-UK, but it would be a week getting here. I finally found an author in Michigan who kindly photocopied the British book and overnighted it to me; but to be on the safe side, I visited an activist's apartment on Eighth Avenue on the promise that I could take her much-in-demand copy to the lobby for half an hour. In the elevator, I flipped it open to a random passage:

"I can't cool boiling waters in Russia. I can't be Picasso. I can't be Jesus. I can't save the planet single-handedly. I can wash dishes."

The book is the play My Name Is Rachel Corrie. Composed from the journal entries and e-mails of the 23-year-old from Washington State who was crushed to death in Gaza three years ago under a bulldozer operated by the Israeli army, the play had two successful runs in London last year and then became a cause celebre after a progressive New York theater company decided to postpone its American premiere indefinitely out of concern for the sensitivities of (unnamed) Jewish groups unsettled by Hamas's victory in the Palestinian elections. When the English producers denounced the decision by the New York Theatre Workshop as "censorship" and withdrew the show, even the mainstream media could not ignore the implications. Why is it that the eloquent words of an American radical could not be heard in this country--not, that is, without what the Workshop had called "contextualizing," framing the play with political discussions, maybe even mounting a companion piece that would somehow "mollify" the Jewish community?

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060403/weiss

[tnlefty]

16. I read about it here and in my copy of The Nation. I was watching a

young woman reading excerpts from the blogger, Riverbend, on c-span the other night and I thought that if someone tried to put that into theater it would probably meet the same fate.

[mmonk]

13. Yep, I've been a frequent poster of her picture

in threads here and there, especially lately.

[chookie]

14. US & Israeli governments were okay about her getting killed

The Israeli official response: "The International Solidarity Movement, to which Corrie belonged, was directly responsible for illegal behavior and conduct in the area of Corrie's death and their actions directly led to this tragedy."

The Bush government agreed, and took the line that it was her personal choice to confront an Israeli tank, therefore it was her own responsibility that she died. I still remember the gleeful freepfests, ridiculing her and celebrating her death.

Imagine if she had been run over by a Palestianian -- there would have been howls of outrage and demands for vengence. If an American would be killed as Rachel was, but by a Palestinian, in recent days, I have no doubt that the US would make the incident a pretext to directly get involved in the war. AFter all, they would say, we have to protect our citizens.

[mmonk]

15. And that's the crux of it all.

[mmonk]

38. Israeli tank? It was a fricken bulldozer.

[Jacobin]

17. When neo-cons and Likudniks get together we are all fucked

That is what is happening in this country, in the M.E. and to the Democratic party.

It sucks

[tnlefty]

34. And I couldn't agree with you more.

When hardline rwingers are in charge things always take a BIG turn for the worse.

[Just Me]

23. *cry*

:cry:

And the way the RWers make fun of her death is so beyond me,...I can only label it absolute evil.

She was a pure person, on a peace-making mission and witnessed such barbaric, murderous treatment of people,...a people far weaker than their predators.

[blonndee]

35. It's not just RWers who make fun of her death

or cheer it, apparently.

[Fozzledick]

24. Degrees of incredulity

I find the claim that Rachel Corrie was deliberately killed less credible than the claim that she deliberately committed suicide to seek "martyrdom", and both far less credible than the eyewitness reports that she recklessly lay down in the path of a large moving machine in a spot where the driver could not see her.

What I find totally absurd is the claim that a terrorist sympathizer and supporter was a "peaceworker".

[mmonk]

25. Man, that's pretty dark.

[mmonk]

26. I guess backing back over her again wasn't in anyway

deliberate either. I guess those gears are hard to deal with.

[Behind the Aegis]

27. Good job!

Fight the ISM propaganda!

[mmonk]

28. Can't get in the way of those neighborhood beautification projects.

[Behind the Aegis]

33. That is true!

Or you end up....

[TomClash]

37. Some day that may be . . .

. . . you. So don't gloat over the senseless death of others.

[Behind the Aegis]

42. I don't plan on standing in front of heavy machinery.

And, I wasn't gloating. Just because I don't assign martyrdom to her, doesn't mean I am happy she is dead! Get real!

[blonndee]

29. You can't believe she was deliberately killed?

Why not? The IDF deliberately kills people whenever it wishes, with no repercussions nor fear of them.

"Terrorist sympathizer," my ass. Do you also think that peace activists in the U.S. are terrorist sympathizers?

[Taverner]

30. I don't think she was a terrorist symp, but I do think she was delusional

At best...

IT might have been a suicide for martyrdom, or she just might have been dumb.

IN any case, I don't find her to be the hero everyone else does.

[AnOhioan]

43. Your post is disgusting. n/t

[cantstandbush]

31. You bet we do. nt

[leftchick]

32. God Bless the Peacemakers

RIP Rachel. :cry:

[shance]

36. An amazing and fiercely compassionate young woman.

God bless Rachel Corrie and her family.

She did more in her brief time here than most of us ever achieve in a lifetime.

[mmonk]

39. Man, people's blood runs stone cold over the Israeli/Palestinian issue.

Too much so for me. I hate life is considered so cheap if one makes a choice determined wrong by someone else. I'm out.

[Scurrilous]

40. You should have been in here...

...on the anniversary of her death when our fellow progressives broke-out the bulldozer avatars and IHOP sig lines.

[blonndee]

41. That's disgusting.

Shows you that some people think SOME lives are valuable and others don't count. Much like what's being played out at the expense of Lebanon right now.

[undergroundrailroad]

44. Locking per I/P Guidelines

Photos are not permitted in the Israeli/Palestinian Forum.

Please review posting guidelines when starting a new thread in the I/P Forum.

Undergroundrailroad
DU Moderator
Israeli/Palestinian Forum