Parents of activist killed in refugee camp criticize inquiry

[Resistance]

SeattlePI (AP)


DEARBORN, Mich. -- The parents of an American activist crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer in a Palestinian refugee camp criticized the Israeli government for not releasing the investigation report and renewed calls for an independent examination of their daughter's death.

Corrie's parents, Craig and Cindy Corrie, say Israeli officials are stonewalling efforts to release the report to U.S. representatives.

"What we want is what Prime Minister (Ariel) Sharon promised President Bush, an open and transparent investigation into Rachel's death. We haven't gotten that," said Craig Corrie.

Cindy Corrie said that according to eyewitnesses to the incident, her daughter was atop a mound of rubble and was clearly visible to the driver.

[lynx rufus]

1. let us never forget; never forgive

[Resistance]

2. how about this -

just let us investigate.

[BowlingForPalestine]

3. Kick....

[DuctapeFatwa]

4. Some excerpts from Rachel's emails to her parents

Love you. Really miss you. I have bad nightmares about tanks and bulldozers outside our house and you and me inside...

There used to be a middle class here - recently. We also get reports that in the past, Gazan flower shipments to Europe were delayed for two weeks at the Erez crossing for security inspections. You can imagine the value of two-week-old cut flowers in the European market, so that market dried up. And then the bulldozers come and take out people's vegetable farms and gardens. What is left for people? Tell me if you can think of anything. I can't....

If any of us had our lives and welfare completely strangled, lived with children in a shrinking place where we knew, because of previous experience, that soldiers and tanks and bulldozers could come for us at any moment and destroy all the greenhouses that we had been cultivating for however long, and did this while some of us were beaten and held captive with 149 other people for several hours - do you think we might try to use somewhat violent means to protect whatever fragments remained? I think about this especially when I see orchards and greenhouses and fruit trees destroyed - just years of care and cultivation. I think about you and how long it takes to make things grow and what a labour of love it is. I really think, in a similar situation, most people would defend themselves as best they could. I think Uncle Craig would. I think probably Grandma would. I think I would....

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....

When I am with Palestinian friends I tend to be somewhat less horrified than when I am trying to act in a role of human rights observer, documenter, or direct-action resister. They are a good example of how to be in it for the long haul. I know that the situation gets to them - and may ultimately get them - on all kinds of levels, but I am nevertheless amazed at their strength in being able to defend such a large degree of their humanity - laughter, generosity, family-time - against the incredible horror occurring in their lives and against the constant presence of death. I felt much better after this morning. I spent a lot of time writing about the disappointment of discovering, somewhat first-hand, the degree of evil of which we are still capable. I should at least mention that I am also discovering a degree of strength and of basic ability for humans to remain human in the direst of circumstances - which I also haven't seen before. I think the word is dignity. I wish you could meet these people. Maybe, hopefully, someday you will....

http://www.pchrgaza.org/images/2003/rachel/part1.htm

[Resistance]

5. She was murdered simply because she cared.

[DuctapeFatwa]

6. The thing that affects me most about these emails are not the parts

I posted. Reams have been written about Rachel the heroine, Rachel the martyr, and her descriptions of the horror around her in Palestine is excellently written, but just about anyone who has been there, or lives there, tells the same tale.

What stands out, if you click the link and read all the mails, are the brief little flashes of Rachel the ordinary girl, who liked to dance to Pat Benatar (go figure :P), pondering a trip to Scandinavia, what to do with her stuff.

She was not a nun or an ascete, I don't know if she was even religious at all, if she wasn't, I hope she gets a smile out of being a martyr according to the terms of two pretty popular faiths :)

She hadn't known oppression first hand. She was a typical child of privilege, IOF soldiers didn't kill her brother, block her mother's way to the hospital and kill her baby sister, she didn't even have to endure the humiliations of being an undesirable in the US.

I think that may be part of the inspiration to people everywhere, in all conditions, her embodiment of the goodness, the nobility that is to be found in some human beings, and the hope that the potential for it is there in all, even the most ordinary.

"We never know how high we are Till we are called to rise"

Emily Dickinson :)

[Resistance]

7. I know what you mean

She is truly inspirational. All the ISM workers are. Same with Tom Hurndall.

Pictures of Tom

Such bravery. These people are heroes.

[Desertrose]

8. thanks for the link....

oops...edited to remove photos that might offend or be removed or get the thread locked......These kids....who could easily have been my son and Rachel, could have been my daughter....I will not let them be forgotten.....

Peace
DR

think I'm out of this forum now

[Resistance]

9. How their governments could just ignore them

is such an outrage.

Good to see you down here, DR.