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The
war on Iraq: Conceived in Israel
Washington's
Zionist hawks to reshape Mid-East for Israel
Zionists
"Think Tanks" Push America into War
Return of Zionist Extremist Elliott Abrams
Israel's
Proxy War?
Bush
is intent on painting allies and enemies in the Middle East as evil
Bush
planned Iraq 'regime change' before becoming President
Israel
- Germs, Gas And Nukes Fingers On All The Buttons...
Israeli
Spy Rumors Fly on Gusts of Truth with 9/11
Zionist Richard Perle:
'Inspections Or Not, We'll Attack Iraq
Media
coverage of Israel's underground in the US – and the 9/11 connection.
Conservatives
Against a War with Iraq by Rep. John J. Duncan
What
About the Iraqi Children?
Going
Off to War Supplied With Lies
The
Road to Bethany
The Injustice of Israel's Roadblocks
Top
Ten Bogus Justifications for the Iraqi War
The
Edge of Life Living Under Israel's Brutal Occupation
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Rachel
Corrie: In her own words
Rachel Corrie, writing from Rafah, occupied Palestine
17 March 2003
Excerpts from an e-mail from Rachel Corrie
to her family on February 7, 2003
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Rachel Corrie
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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.
American peace activist Rachel Corrie (23) from Olympia, Washington,
was murdered by an Israeli bulldozer driver on March 16, 2003 in
Rafah. Rachel was in Gaza opposing the bulldozing of a Palestinian
home as a volunteer with the International Solidarity
Movement.
WE
WILL NEVER FORGET
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