by Haithem El-Zabri - March 16, 2004

 

The untimely death of Rachel Corrie has stirred passions and controversy across the world, and undoubtedly touched many people. Her heroism has been recognized, and clinics, streets, organizations, and even Palestinian children have been named after her. Her death touches many issues, including human ethics, injustice and oppression, and politics.

 

Compassion, Self-Sacrifice, Courage

 

Rachel will be long remembered for her human compassion and her selflessness in standing up for what is right, even when risking her personal safety. Her e-mails from Gaza to her family in the United States all articulated the great injustices she saw inflicted against civilians, and she pointed to the complicity of the U.S. government, and the world’s indifference. Rachel was tormented by such destruction of lives and homes, victimization of young and old alike, and Israel’s cruel collective punishment of a captive population.

 

Unable to be a passive bystander, Rachel courageously blocked a 9-ton bulldozer from demolishing another Palestinian home, fully aware that the bulldozer driver belonged to an army that has killed thousands of civilians. For that, Rachel will forever be a shining example of compassion, self-sacrifice, and courage.

 

Rogue Israel

 

Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories has become more oppressive than ever, especially with Ariel Sharon as Prime Minister. During the past three years, the Israeli Occupation Forces have killed more than 2,800 Palestinians, mostly civilians and including children, as well as demolishing numerous homes leaving thousands of Palestinians homeless, confiscating lands, uprooting trees, and even firing at schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, medics and journalists. Israel has detained men, women, and children without charge, and the Knesset has endorsed the policy of “targetted assassinations” of political leaders, often killing bystanders too.

 

Israel’s disregard for international law, human rights, and bodies such as the United Nations, is unparalleled. After Israel’s brutal assault on the Jenin refugee camp in April 2002, Israel refused to allow a UN to investigate allegations of a massacre, and even refused entry to rescue teams aiming to find survivors still under the rubble of the hundreds of demolished homes. The bulldozer driver who demolished most of the homes, even with their residents inside, was awarded a medal of honor. Two years later, when the International Court of Justice convened to discuss the Apartheid Wall that Israel is building within the occupied territories, Israel boycotted and condemned the session, and sped up construction of the wall.

 

Israel’s indifference to international public opinion enables it to target human rights activists and journalists. Less than 3 weeks after Rachel’s murder, activist Brian Avery, 23, from New Mexico, was shot in the face. Less than one week after that, yet another activist, Tom Hurndall, was shot in the head as he tried to rescue Palestinian children from Israeli gunfire. And 3 weeks after that, British journalist James Miller was shot and killed, while wearing clear “TV” markings.

 

Four direct attacks on internationals in the space of less than 2 months. Were these accidents, or a calculated warning to keep international human rights activists away? Such brutality indicates that Israel believes it is above international law, and with the US standing firmly by its side, it does get away with murder.

 

Complicity of the US Government

 

The United States provides astounding amounts of economic, military, and diplomatic support to Israel, enabling it to continue committing such crimes with impunity. The F-16s that bomb crowded residential areas in Gaza, the Apache helicopters that fire missiles in targetted assassinations, the M-16 rifles that are used to shoot unarmed civilians, and the Caterpillar bulldozers that raze home after home, are all supplied by the US, even in violation of its own Arms Export Control Act. When the international community attempts to condemn Israeli crimes, the US consistently vetoes such resolutions at the UN. The US can only be seen as a direct accomplice in Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people, and equally responsible for them.

 

US foreign policy often seems to put Israeli interests ahead of American interests – one glaring example is when Israeli forces deliberately sank the USS Liberty in 1967, killing 34 American sailors and wounding 172. The US government covered up the details and insisted that it was an accident – even though survivors provide clear evidence to the contrary. Now, a foreign army has murdered a US citizen, and the US government is satisfied with an Israeli army verdict that proclaims itself not guilty!

 

Solidarity with Palestine

 

In these modern times, when there are principles of human rights and international law, bodies such as the United Nations, and conventions such as the Geneva Convention, one would imagine that such crimes against humanity can be halted. However, Israel continues these crimes unabated, and the Palestinian people feel abandoned and betrayed by the world community.

 

But one ray of light comes from a group of international activists focusing on non-violent resistance to the occupation - the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). Rachel Corrie belonged to this group, as did Tom Hurndall and Brian Avery. ISM volunteers come from all over the world to help protect Palestinian civilians and to bear witness to Israel’s crimes. They ride in ambulances to discourage the Israeli army from blocking their passage, they protest the building of the Apartheid Wall, and they stay in Palestinian homes that are in danger of being demolished.

 

ISM’s work has given hope to the Palestinian people that they have not been completely abandoned, and that there are individuals who will stand up and oppose the continuing injustices, even at great personal risk. Rachel Corrie has become the poster child of true compassion and solidarity.

 

Haithem El-Zabri is the webmaster of Rachel Corrie’s Memorial web site, www.rachelcorrie.org. 

SUNDAY, MARCH 7

Today at 1 pm a group of about 150 Palestinians from surrounding villages, 7 internationals, and Arik from Rabbis for Human Rights went to peacefully confront two Caterpillar drills working the rocky hillside of Beit Duqqu to prepare the land for the construction of the Apartheid Wall. Demonstrators walked up the rocky hillside and sat around one of the Caterpillars at which point it stopped working. At this point there were two soldiers and three private, heavily armed security guards.
After 30 minutes, five more soldiers arrived and demonstration leaders asked the shebab (youth) to move further down the hill and away from the anticipated violence from soldiers. Those who remained sitting near the Caterpillar to continue preventing it from working were Palestinian women and older men, and the internationals. Slowly, soldiers joined by border police grew to 20 and began to surround the sitting demonstrators.
Around 2 pm the soldiers began to violently push the sitting demonstrators down the rocky hillside, hitting many with wooden and rubber-coated metal batons. People were dragged across rocks while others were shoved off of 5-foot cliffs. Some of the older women and men did not get up and move. After going limp with their bodies, they were roughly picked up by the soldiers and dropped further down the hillside.
Soldiers then threw concussion grenades directly towards the peaceful demonstrators as well as the crowd of shebab to disperse and attempt to incite the crowd. Once the demonstrators had been moved to a suitable distance from the Caterpillar, soldiers formed a security line between it and the demonstration.
One Palestinian grandmother, who owned the land being destroyed, remained behind the security line. Her presence single-handedly continued to prevent the Caterpillar from restarting its work. After about 20 minutes, five soldiers picked her up roughly and dragged her across the rocky slope. After she had been removed, the Caterpillar continued its work.
More soldiers arrived, and as the Caterpillar needed more room to work, soldiers charged the crowd from several directions attacking the peaceful demonstration with their boots and batons, pushing the crowd further down the rocky hillside, and inflicting many with injuries.
This pattern of attacking the peaceful demonstration in order to "protect us" from the potential of falling rocks as the Caterpillar moved horizontally across the hillside repeated itself for the duration of the day. Despite the soldiers’ attempts to incite the crowd to violence, the demonstration remained peaceful in its resistance. There were over 20 injuries from the batons. The demonstration ended at 5 pm, as the villagers and internationals returned to the center of Beit Duqqu, leaving behind the laughing soldiers, and their taunting of the retreating crowd.


MONDAY, MARCH 8

This morning at 9 am a group of 250 Palestinians and 25 internationals and Israeli peace activists set out from Beit Duqqu to the worksite where initial work for the Apartheid Wall is occurring on the opposite hillside from the village center. Demonstrators began walking down the hillside, as the road had been blocked at the base of the hill by a roaming Israeli checkpoint of two military jeeps. As the demonstration reached the bottom of the hill, it split itself into two separate marches.
The first group, of less physically-able people, began to walk along the road and towards the checkpoint. The second group continued to march through the hillside. As the first group reached the checkpoint, concussion grenades were fired at the crowd and people were prevented from passing through. At this point the second group, the one walking through the hillside, climbed up some rocks and reached a point in the road which was past the checkpoint. Soldiers, realizing their security line had been breached, immediately chased after this second group in one of the jeeps, hoping to prevent it from reaching the base of the hill where work was occurring.
With half the soldiers from the checkpoint now gone and chasing after the group which breached their security line, the first group, which was stuck at the checkpoint, now began to march past the remaining soldiers. As they walked past the checkpoint, soldiers fired more concussion grenades at the peaceful crowd.
At 9:55, demonstrators had reached the work site and seized it, thus stopping the construction by the Caterpillar drill. A group of Palestinian women sat on top of the Caterpillar, while others began to sit on the ground and surround it. Several more soldiers arrived bringing their total to 13, and within 15 minutes they had grown to about 30 and were loading tear gas into their vest pockets and guns.
At 10:25 soldiers gave an order to demonstrators to disperse peacefully by 10:45 or the soldiers would use force to clear the area and allow the construction to continue.
At 10:30 soldiers had grown in number to 40, and five minutes later began to fire tear gas and concussion grenades into the peaceful crowd before beginning to beat them with their boots and batons. Some demonstrators were pushed off 5-8 foot cliffs. A concussion grenade exploded directly on a man’s stomach who was lying directly under the Caterpillar’s drill tip. He was then beaten in the head by a soldier’s baton and suffered serious injuries. He had to be carried down the hill by others in the crowd. The soldiers’ charge lasted over 10 minutes and included more tear gas and concussion grenades. Another Palestinian man was struck in both eyes by the shrapnel from an exploding concussion grenade and is currently still blind at the writing of this report. Several others were taken to Ramallah Hospital after suffering broken limbs from the soldiers’ batons.
For the next several hours, soldiers intermittently used violence to push the peaceful demonstrators further down the hillside away from the Cat. and across the arbitrary security lines they were enforcing. The demonstration remained completely peaceful despite soldiers’ attempts to provoke the crowd into violent reactions from their brutal actions.
From 11:30-5 pm, demonstrators peacefully watched construction continue as soldiers took turns taunting various individuals in the crowd and sharing laughs amongst themselves. Soldiers also continued to kick people with their boots and beat people with their batons as demonstrators slowly crossed the arbitrary security lines.
Around 4:30 soldiers posed for a group picture and at 5:00 work ceased for the day, ending the incessant sound of rock drilling which had reverberated through the valley of Beit Duqqu since the day began. The remaining demonstrators returned to the village center of Beit Duqqu to get some well-needed rest.

Now, what about a nice poem?
I just love this poem and I like to share it with you all.

It has been written by a Palestinian young guy, and dedicated to American people.