Israeli Crimes and Jewish Supremism
Subj: Rachel Corrie: An American Martyr
Date: 3/17/2003 7:09:43 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: nationaldirector@whitecivilrights.com
To: rsisemore1@cs.com
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European-American Unity and Rights Organization (EURO) is
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[Rachel Corrie was a University student in Washington who decided
to go to Israel and try to stop the killing of Palestinians and the
destruction of their homes. By reading her letter it is obvious that
she became immediately aware of the realities of Jewish supremacism.
Though she was probably liberal, her bravery and commitment to her
convictions are something to be honored and respected. For those
who still don't understand the realities of the Israeli occupation and
oppression of the Palestinian people, here is a reality check. A picture
of Rachel can be found on our website at www.davidduke.com]
Excerpts from an e-mail from Rachel Corrie to her family on
February 7, 2003 from the Gaza Strip.
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. The children also love to get me to practice my
limited Arabic by asking me "Kaif Sharon?" "Kaif Bush?" and they
laugh when I say "Bush Majnoon" "Sharon Majnoon" back in my
limited Arabic. (How is Sharon? How is Bush? Bush is crazy. Sharon
is crazy.) Of course this isn't quite what I believe, and some of the
adults who have the English correct me: Bush mish Majnoon... Bush
is a businessman. Today I tried to learn to say "Bush is a tool", but I
don't think it translated quite right. But anyway, there are eight-year-
olds here much more aware of the workings of the global power
structure than I was just a few years ago--at least regarding Israel.
Nevertheless, I think about the fact that no amount of reading,
attendance at conferences, documentary viewing and word of
mouth could have prepared me for the reality of the situation here.
You just can't imagine it unless you see it, and even then you are
always well aware that your experience is not at all the reality: what
with the difficulties the Israeli Army would face if they shot an unarmed
US citizen, and with the fact that I have money to buy water when the
army destroys wells, and, of course, the fact 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. 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 half way
between Mud Bay and downtown Olympia at a checkpoint?a soldier
with the power to decide whether I can go about my business, and
whether I can get home again when I'm done. So, if I feel outrage
at arriving and entering briefly and incompletely into the world in
which these children exist, I wonder conversely about how it would
be for them to arrive in my world.
They know that children in the United States don't usually have their
parents shot and they know they sometimes get to see the ocean.
But once you have seen the ocean and lived in a silent place, where
water is taken for granted and not stolen in the night by bulldozers,
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--
once 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. That is something I wonder about these children. I wonder
what would happen if they really knew.
As an afterthought to all this rambling, I am in Rafah, a city of about
140,000 people, approximately 60 percent of whom are refugees--
many of whom are twice or three times refugees. Rafah existed prior
to 1948, but most of the people here are themselves or are descendants
of people who were relocated here from their homes in historic
Palestine--now Israel. Rafah was split in half when the Sinai returned
to Egypt. 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. The number of homes that have been partially destroyed
is greater.
Today as I walked on top of the rubble where homes once stood,
Egyptian soldiers called to me from the other side of the border,
"Go! Go!" because a tank was coming. Followed by waving and
"what's your name?". There is something disturbing about this
friendly curiosity. It reminded me of how much, to some degree, we
are all kids curious about other kids: Egyptian kids shouting at strange
women wandering into the path of tanks. Palestinian kids shot from
the tanks when they peak out from behind walls to see what's going
on. International kids standing in front of tanks with banners. Israeli
kids in the tanks anonymously, occasionally shouting-- and also
occasionally waving--many forced to be here, many just aggressive,
shooting into the houses as we wander away.
In addition to the constant presence of tanks along the border and
in the western region between Rafah and settlements along the coast,
there are more IDF towers here than I can count--along the horizon,at
the end of streets. Some just army green metal. Others these strange
spiral staircases draped in some kind of netting to make the activity
within anonymous. Some hidden,just beneath the horizon of buildings.
A new one went up the other day in the time it took us to do laundry
and to cross town twice to hang banners. Despite the fact that some of
the areas nearest the border are the original Rafah with families who
have lived on this land for at least a century, only the 1948 camps in
the center of the city are Palestinian controlled areas under Oslo. But
as far as I can tell, there are few if any places that are not within the
sights of some tower or another. Certainly there is no place
invulnerable to apache helicopters or to the cameras of invisible
drones we hear buzzing over the city for hours at a time.
I've been having trouble accessing news about the outside world here,
but I hear an escalation of war on Iraq is inevitable. There is a great
deal of concern here about the "reoccupation of Gaza." Gaza is
reoccupied every day to various extents, but I think the fear is that the
tanks will enter all the streets and remain here, instead of entering
some of the streets and then withdrawing after some hours or days to
observe and shoot from the edges of the communities. If people aren't
already thinking about the consequences of this war for the people of
the entire region then I hope they will start.
I also hope you'll come here. We've been wavering between five
and six internationals. The neighborhoods that have asked us for
some form of presence are Yibna, Tel El Sultan, Hi Salam, Brazil,
Block J, Zorob, and Block O. There is also need for constant night-
time presence at a well on the outskirts of Rafah since the Israeli
army destroyed the two largest wells. According to the municipal
water office the wells destroyed last week provided half of Rafah?s
water supply. Many of the communities have requested internationals
to be present at night to attempt to shield houses from further
demolition. After about ten p.m. it is very difficult to move at night
because the Israeli army treats anyone in the streets as resistance
and shoots at them. So clearly we are too few.
I continue to believe that my home, Olympia, could gain a lot and offer
a lot by deciding to make a commitment to Rafah in the form of a
sister-community relationship. Some teachers and children's groups
have expressed interest in e-mail exchanges, but this is only the tip of
the iceberg of solidarity work that might be done. Many people want
their voices to be heard, and I think we need to use some of our
privilege as internationals to get those voices heard directly in the US,
rather than through the filter of well-meaning internationals such as
myself. I am just beginning to learn, from what I expect to be a very
intense tutelage, about the ability of people to organize against all odds,
and to resist against all odds.
Thanks for the news I've been getting from friends in the US. I just
read a report back from a friend who organized a peace group in
Shelton, Washington, and was able to be part of a delegation to the
large January 18th protest in Washington DC. People here watch the
media, and they told me again today that there have been large
protests in the United States and "problems for the government" in the
UK. So thanks for allowing me to not feel like a complete polyanna
when I tentatively tell people here that many people in the United States
do not support the policies of our government, and that we are learning
from global examples how to resist.
--
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