Veterans For Peace Rachel Corrie Tribute
Rachel Corrie
An American hero that main stream media will never tell you about, and you should ask why.
In Memoriam
~ Rachel Corrie ~
1979 – 2003?
Imad Jadaa*
Rachel was guilty. Guilty according to Israeli statements of being in the wrong country at the wrong time with the wrong people. She was guilty of not staying home to dance in the discotheques of the United States, of ceasing to be a common, ordinary citizen.
She chose to stand in front of a Palestinian home at the moment an Israeli bulldozer was trying to tear it down. In the first image captured on camera, she is challenging the driver with a megaphone in her hand. Her hair is loose around her shoulders. She places her body between the weakened wall of the house and the brutal shovel of the bulldozer. The scene takes place in Rafah, in Gaza, and her protective gesture is poignant. Never has such an undefended, fragile person challenged a vehicle transformed into a machine of death and destruction.
One cannot hear her words. Next to her in the first photograph is another young solidarity worker, perhaps of her same nationality.
In the second photo, she is on the ground bleeding. According to witnesses the bulldozer, after stopping for awhile, decided to move forward. After knocking her down with the first blow, it backed up and attacked once again. With a turn of the steering wheel, the driver drove away from the scene. He changed direction and left her there to one side, like some unimportant object: the house still standing, the young woman on the ground.
The image has no sound. ?What was she shouting at her assassin? Her cries were not in Hebrew, but in the purest English pronounced by a pure girl.
The Israeli soldier could not understand why the shouts were directed at him in the same language of his godfather and protector. Maybe he thought for an instant how odd were these blond Palestinians speaking English, a second before he floored the accelerator for the final attack.
Silence. The death of a blond young woman, 23 years old, crushed to death in Gaza, deserves silence. There are no investigations. No one orders the assassin arrested because that would mean one less driver for the bulldozers, for the tanks, one less soldier to carry on the killing. And all of them are needed to keep carrying out these crimes.
No one has expressed regret to Rachel’s parents. Only the Palestinian leader has expressed his condolences. Nothing important has happened because no one has to ask forgiveness in the United States or Israel. No one has begged forgiveness or even contemplated the collateral damage. It is not necessary.
Perhaps they may even think that the Palestinians were responsible, for not preventing her from standing in front of that house at the hour of the disaster.
If the young woman stood together with the Arab people under attack, together with the Third World, it is a certain fact that she was not a legitimate U.S. citizen. If she were one, she would have been like the President of her country, on the side of Zionism.
Something is missing from their statistics: Rachel Corrie is the first U.S. martyr, the first U.S. blood shed on Palestinian soil in Gaza. Now her banner is raised and flies in the wind. From now on she will accompany the struggle, because she has entered into history to accompany the sadness and pain of the Palestinian nation.
Missiles and bombs will fall now on Bagdad, the mourning will spread to new homes and this image will remain as the terrible face of the United States. The United States has two faces, the contemptible face of Bush, and the sweet face of Rachel .
He, arrogance, she, solidarity; he, disrespect for a sovereign people, she, admiration and love of humanity.
Unlike everything that W. Bush stands for, Rachel represents the beautiful face of the United States, and the beautifully human face is everlasting.
(*Palestinian Ambassador to Cuba)
This article was published in the Cuban newspaper Juventud Rebelde
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She was an angel, but, wasn’t it Isreal that had Jesus nailed to the cross? What’s the life of an angel? I have to ask, why do we support them? Do we support them because this is the place Jesus will return.
I say if Jesus returns to Isreal, it will be to judge them who killed him, innocent women, children and Rachel Corrie, an angel sent from God.
THIS IS A REALLY GREAT SONG.
?http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1248.shtml
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| Rachel Corrie (ISM Handout) |
Photostory: Israeli bulldozer driver murders American peace activist
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| Picture taken between 3:00-4:00PM, 16 March 2003, Rafah, Occupied Gaza. Rachel Corrie (L) and Nick (R) oppose the potential destruction of this home (to the west of the Doctor’s home where Rachel was killed). In the instance pictured, the bulldozer did not stop and Rachel was pinned between the scooped earth and the fence behind her. On this occasion, the driver stopped before seriously injuring her. Photo by Joseph Smith (ISM Handout). |
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| Picture taken between 3:00-4:00PM on 16 March 2003, Rafah, Occupied Gaza. A clearly marked Rachel Corrie, holding a megaphone, confronts the driver of one of two Israeli bulldozers in the area that were attempting to demolish a Palestinian homes. She was confronting the bulldozer in order to disrupt its work, and prevent it from threatening any homes. Photo by Joseph Smith. (ISM Handout) |
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| Picture taken at 4:45PM on 16 March 2003, Rafah, Occupied Gaza. Other peace activists tend to Rachel after she was fatally injured by the driver of the Israeli bulldozer (in background). This photo was taken seconds after the bulldozer driver dragged his blade over her for the second time while reversingback over her body. He lifted the blade as seen in the photo only after he had dragged it back over Rachel’s body. This image clearly shows that had he lifted his blade at any time he may have avoided killing her, as the bottom section of the bulldozer is raised off the ground. Photo by Richard Purssell. (ISM Handout) |
| Picture taken at 4:47PM on 16 March 2003, Rafah, Occupied Gaza. Rachel Corrie lies on the ground fatally injured by the Israeli bulldozer driver. Rachel’s fellow activists have dug her a little out of the sand and are trying to keep her neck straight due to spinal injury. Photo by Joseph Smith. (ISM Handout) |
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| Rachel in Najjar hostpital, Rafah, Occupied Gaza. Rachel arrived in the emergency room at 5:05PM and doctors scrambled to save her. By 5:20PM, she was gone. Ha’aretz newspaper reported that Dr. Ali Musa, a doctor at Al-Najjar, stated that the cause of death was “skull and chest fractures”. (Mohammad Al-Moghair) |
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| An ISM volunteer holds up Rachel Corrie’s US passport as another peace activist sits in shock, Al-Najjar Hospital, Rafah, Occupied Gaza. Rachel was killed by an Israeli bulldozer driver while protesting the demolition of a Palestinian home. (Mohammad Al-Moghair) |
The world Peace YouTube Playlist (39 video’s of Rachel Corrie)
Dear Sir,
….. i am a muslim…. i have cried after reading this blog.
Its our holy Month of Ramadan….. and I pray with all my heart that may God bring peace to this world the way she wanted….
I am inspired by this woman the way she gave her life…. and i am inspired by you carrying on this noble cause….
Its because of you I came to know her…. and i know there are hundreds others who have come to known this through you….
I pray God gives you courage as he has given you the direction that you found the purpose of your existance…
Regards
Zeeshan Qureshi
Thanks, God who knows and sees all knows that I’m nothing special. But yes this woman was. She was young and beautiful and lived in the happy part of the world with parents who could easily pay for her college. She could have met a man, fell in love and lived happily ever after just like every little girls dream. But instead she went to Gaza to stand up for what was right and got killed. Though the major tv channels, radio stations and news print didn’t even cover it. The heavens looked down and noticed.
There is a reason some are born in this world with so little and suffer so, it is so those who have so much will willingly give to those who have nothing. This is there opportunity to earn the good will they have been given, sadly they do not head the call, but rather take more and wrongly believe it belongs to them. And I believe this strongly, Jesus will return. But this time he will not be as a lamb led to slaughter, but rather a lion who will devour all those who have what was not there’s to take. The spoils will be be doubled and shared with all those who had nothing. Weapons will be turned into plows and there will be peace that has never been known all over the earth.