The Anniversary of Rachel Corrie’s... Birth
Nour Rida
She fought for the Palestinian cause; she supported the people of the occupied land after she had witnessed their suffering under "Israel's" occupation.
Today, March 16 is the anniversary of Rachel Corrie's death; in fact it's a birth as she lives in the hearts of people and has inspired the youth. Rachel Corrie was a 23-year-old American peace activist from Olympia, Washington, who was crushed to death by an "Israeli" bulldozer on 16 March 2003, while undertaking nonviolent direct action to protect the home of a Palestinian family from demolition.
Since her killing, an enormous amount of solidarity activities have been carried out in her name around the world.
The words she had written in the mails to her parents and friends back in the United States speak for themselves on the situation in the Occupied Palestine.
On the 7th of February 2003, Rachel wrote "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. 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."
She wondered if Palestinian children know that life is not only shelling and bombing, and that its different outside the borders of their homeland. "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," she wrote.
"You just can't imagine it unless you see it. What with the fact that I have money to buy water when the army destroys wells, and the fact, of course, that I have the option of leaving. Nobody in my family has been shot, driving in their car, by a rocket launcher from a tower at the end of a major street in my hometown," she added.
And more she writes describing "I have a home. I am allowed to go see the ocean. Ostensibly it is still quite difficult for me to be held for months or years on end without a trial (this because I am a white US citizen, as opposed to so many others). When I leave for school or work I can be relatively certain that there will not be a heavily armed soldier waiting halfway between Mud Bay and downtown Olympia at a checkpoint with the power to decide whether I can go about my business, and whether I can get home again when I'm done ."
".... and once you have spent an evening when you haven't wondered if the walls of your home might suddenly fall inward waking you from your sleep, and once you‚ve met people who have never lost anyone one you have experienced the reality of a world that isn't surrounded by murderous towers, tanks, armed "settlements" and now a giant metal wall, I wonder if you can forgive the world for all the years of your childhood spent existing-just existing-in resistance to the constant stranglehold of the world's fourth largest military-backed by the world's only superpower-in it's attempt to erase you from your home."
"Currently, the "Israeli" army is building a fourteen-meter-high wall between Rafah in Palestine and the border, carving a no-mans land from the houses along the border. Six hundred and two homes have been completely bulldozed according to the Rafah Popular Refugee Committee."
These were the very words Rachel wrote in her letters, and despite all she had written, words of truth that many speak but these go unheard, she was accused of being a terrorist.
The words of a letter from a Haifa University professor, Steven Plaut posted on The Jewish Press posted in 2010 resonate in the heads of the Corrie family and those who loved Rachel.
Plaut wrote "Rachel Corrie, you may recall, was a clueless American-flag-burning undergraduate from Evergreen State College in Washington. Urged on by her radical professors, she decided to join the missions organized by the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). She and her comrades were sent off to the "occupied territories" to assist Palestinian terrorist groups.
He added that ISM openly endorses Palestinian "armed struggle" against "Israel" - which in realistic terms means terrorism against Jews. It was the goal of Corrie and her friends to stop "Israeli" anti-terror operations - an act that by its very implication would have made it easier for Hamas and its clones to murder "Israeli" civilians."
He further claimed insufficient health care was the reason behind her death "Corrie died after being taken away for care in a Palestinian medical facility, possibly from medical incompetence." Also, he criticized her attitude describing "her behavior that day in Gaza resembled that of a teenager playing chicken with vehicles on the New Jersey Turnpike in the dark."
"Israeli" authorities claim that the driver was unable to see Corrie, due to the restricted vision from his perch, and that she acted recklessly by inserting herself into the path of the bulldozer. But as always is the case in the Middle East, "Israel" is caught red handed in crimes and then lies trump truth.
On the ground, Corrie was well known as a pacifist activist who helped the Palestinians and was there to protest the killing, demolition, and other aggressive acts the "Israeli" soldiers committed against the people of Palestine, young and old.
The Rachel Corrie Foundation carries on its fight to reveal the truth and prove it in light of "Israel's" failure to perform a credible investigation into the killing of Rachel Corrie.
The foundation had highlighted that reports generated by international NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International had noted a pattern of negligence in "Israeli" investigations into civilians killed by the IDF.
Rachel Corrie is alive, in the heart of every true human being, and is an inspiration to the thousands of "Rachel Corries" who also support the Palestinian plight .
She fought for the Palestinian cause; she supported the people of the occupied land after she had witnessed their suffering under "Israel's" occupation.
Today, March 16 is the anniversary of Rachel Corrie's death; in fact it's a birth as she lives in the hearts of people and has inspired the youth. Rachel Corrie was a 23-year-old American peace activist from Olympia, Washington, who was crushed to death by an "Israeli" bulldozer on 16 March 2003, while undertaking nonviolent direct action to protect the home of a Palestinian family from demolition.
Since her killing, an enormous amount of solidarity activities have been carried out in her name around the world. The words she had written in the mails to her parents and friends back in the United States speak for themselves on the situation in the Occupied Palestine.
On the 7th of February 2003, Rachel wrote "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. 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."
She wondered if Palestinian children know that life is not only shelling and bombing, and that its different outside the borders of their homeland. "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," she wrote.
"You just can't imagine it unless you see it. What with the fact that I have money to buy water when the army destroys wells, and the fact, of course, that I have the option of leaving. Nobody in my family has been shot, driving in their car, by a rocket launcher from a tower at the end of a major street in my hometown," she added.
And more she writes describing "I have a home. I am allowed to go see the ocean. Ostensibly it is still quite difficult for me to be held for months or years on end without a trial (this because I am a white US citizen, as opposed to so many others). When I leave for school or work I can be relatively certain that there will not be a heavily armed soldier waiting halfway between Mud Bay and downtown Olympia at a checkpoint with the power to decide whether I can go about my business, and whether I can get home again when I'm done ."
".... and once you have spent an evening when you haven't wondered if the walls of your home might suddenly fall inward waking you from your sleep, and once you‚ve met people who have never lost anyone one you have experienced the reality of a world that isn't surrounded by murderous towers, tanks, armed "settlements" and now a giant metal wall, I wonder if you can forgive the world for all the years of your childhood spent existing-just existing-in resistance to the constant stranglehold of the world's fourth largest military-backed by the world's only superpower-in it's attempt to erase you from your home."
"Currently, the "Israeli" army is building a fourteen-meter-high wall between Rafah in Palestine and the border, carving a no-mans land from the houses along the border. Six hundred and two homes have been completely bulldozed according to the Rafah Popular Refugee Committee."
These were the very words Rachel wrote in her letters, and despite all she had written, words of truth that many speak but these go unheard, she was accused of being a terrorist.
The words of a letter from a Haifa University professor, Steven Plaut posted on The Jewish Press posted in 2010 resonate in the heads of the Corrie family and those who loved Rachel.
Plaut wrote "Rachel Corrie, you may recall, was a clueless American-flag-burning undergraduate from Evergreen State College in Washington. Urged on by her radical professors, she decided to join the missions organized by the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). She and her comrades were sent off to the "occupied territories" to assist Palestinian terrorist groups.
He added that ISM openly endorses Palestinian "armed struggle" against "Israel" - which in realistic terms means terrorism against Jews. It was the goal of Corrie and her friends to stop "Israeli" anti-terror operations - an act that by its very implication would have made it easier for Hamas and its clones to murder "Israeli" civilians."
He further claimed insufficient health care was the reason behind her death "Corrie died after being taken away for care in a Palestinian medical facility, possibly from medical incompetence." Also, he criticized her attitude describing "her behavior that day in Gaza resembled that of a teenager playing chicken with vehicles on the New Jersey Turnpike in the dark."
"Israeli" authorities claim that the driver was unable to see Corrie, due to the restricted vision from his perch, and that she acted recklessly by inserting herself into the path of the bulldozer. But as always is the case in the Middle East, "Israel" is caught red handed in crimes and then lies trump truth.
On the ground, Corrie was well known as a pacifist activist who helped the Palestinians and was there to protest the killing, demolition, and other aggressive acts the "Israeli" soldiers committed against the people of Palestine, young and old.
The Rachel Corrie Foundation carries on its fight to reveal the truth and prove it in light of "Israel's" failure to perform a credible investigation into the killing of Rachel Corrie.
The foundation had highlighted that reports generated by international NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International had noted a pattern of negligence in "Israeli" investigations into civilians killed by the IDF.
Rachel Corrie is alive, in the heart of every true human being, and is an inspiration to the thousands of "Rachel Corries" who also support the Palestinian plight .
