Maybe it’s a crime to ask why Germany is still paying off its debt to Israel for a massacre the Zionists claim the Nazi Fuhrer committed in 1940s. For more than half a century, the Germans, generation after generation, have been “compensating” Israel for a “Holocaust” half of the world is still questioning.
Perhaps it’s a crime to ask why the United States isn’t making up for the Native Americans or why Israel isn’t paying off its debt to the Palestinians, the Egyptians, the Lebanese, and recently the Emiratis. For more than half a century, the whole world has been watching Israel’s atrocities, massacres, usurpations, wars, assassinations, conspiracies and blackmail live on television networks, and of course Rupert Murdoch’s outlets excluded.
But it’s an undisputable right to ask why Arabs are still idle and indifferent about a shrinking Palestine. How can some Arab leaders sent congratulations letters to Israel for its creation 62 years ago. In less than a year, starting February 1948, Zionist gangs like the Haganah, the Irgun and LEHI started to systematically commit massacre after massacre in a bid, a successful one apparently, to force a mass dispossession of the Palestinians. 750 thousand Palestinians were ruthlessly uprooted from their destroyed homes and confiscated lands. This was later called the Nakba, or the catastrophe, and it was documented....
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As the case is today, the Palestinians surrendered their fate to the Arab League, in perhaps one of the biggest mistakes in the course of the Arab – Israeli conflict. Apparently, the Zionist were not very much concerned about the Arabs as much as they were about the strong international community that was shaping up after World War II. Blackmail was their most efficient weapon and their tool was of course the “Holocaust.” The United Nations was supposed to declare in the independence of Palestine in 1947, instead the world body issued the notorious partition resolution that stipulates allocating Palestinians less than half their country and the other bigger half to Israeli settlers.
The Zionists were compensated for the Holocaust with more than half of Palestine. It has nothing to do with religion as Zionists allege.
"There is a country, and its name is by chance Palestine. A country without a people and on the other hand, there is the Jewish people without a homeland," said Hayeem Wiseman who played a significant role in issuing the notorious Belford promise and then became the first Israeli president, said during the Nakba.
Seeking atonement, the Europeans did not stop and this was dwarfing the rights of the Palestinians on the one hand and encouraging Zionist gangs to commit massacres without fear of international condemnation; actually this has never stopped being the case.
Now that most of the Jews of Europe had set sail for Palestine, the Holocaust issue became much easier to tackle with a “state” representing the victims, not with the victims themselves. Edward Said’s “chain of victimization” began and the so called “Holocaust victims” now had victims of their own; the Palestinians.
The Europeans maintain a virtual silence toward what the Zionists are doing to the Palestinians under the pretext of showing sympathy for the “victims of the Holocaust.”
German chancellor, Angela Merkel last year made very biased speech in the Israeli Knesset. She did not mention the occupation, and only praised Israel as a “paragon of justice, democracy and civilization. She left the Palestinians with no hope for a different future.
To uproot more Palestinians and expand the Zionist entity with the consent of the International Community, demonizing the Palestinians was a prerequisite; otherwise the Israelis – in the international understanding - would be doing to the Palestinians what they claim the Nazis did to them. With the help of the United States of America, it sort of succeeded; after all, both entities had uprooted two different peoples and replaced them.
The Palestinians were labeled as “Mukharribeen” or ravagers and then terrorists because they’d decided to take matters from the Arab League’s hands into their own. The American veto at the UN Security Council was a very effective tool to give Israel more power to kill Palestinians and Arabs throughout decades.
On the 15th of May 1948, David Ben Gurion declared the "State of Israel,” and 62 years on, Western states and some spineless Arab leaders continue to celebrate this black day.
But on the other side of picture, Israel is ailing, exposed, vulnerable, and in its weakest states. The International community is no longer showing leniency after the Zionists crossed the line – in the European conception - and did to the Gazans what the Nazis allegedly did to the Jews; the US is trying to pressure defiant Israel over settlement construction; Turkey is turning its back on it; the economic crisis has plagued its economy as exports to Europe have extensively diminished; and most importantly, the resistance movement in the Middle East is growing stronger.
In 2000, Israel pulled out of most of south Lebanon by force, not settlements and concessions. In 2006, and after 33 days of war, Israel tasted the bitter defeat at the hands of a few thousand resistance fighter, after its “invincible army” used to defeat regular Arab armies in a less than a week. Today Israel is threatening Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and the whole region with war; a war that is strongly believed to be Israel’s very last.
Some see it on the verge of collapse, others believe Israel has already slipped into the abyss and Nakba is very close to become just a memory that Palestinians, including the refugees who would have returned to Palestine, will recount to their children.
"Defying Israeli Occupation,Commemorating The Nakba
by politicaltheatrics
For many the Nakba,or “day of catastrophe”, is an unknown event; misunderstood, rarely acknowledged by Western media outlets or ignored en masse.
‘Al Nakba‘ is the term with which Palestinians refer to the refugee flight of the Palestinian Arabs during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War – the Palestinian exodus. This exodus remains a central and controversial topic in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
The total 2008 population of Palestinian refugee’s (including descendants): 4.62 million with the most significant populations found in the Gaza Strip, Jordan, the West Bank,Lebanon, Syria.
In May 2009, the Yisrael Beitenu party announced planned legislation to ban commemorations of Nakba Day, with a jail term of up to three years for violators. According to party spokesman Tal Nahum, “The draft law is intended to strengthen unity in the state of Israel and to ban marking Independence Day as a day of mourning.”Israeli Cabinet ministers changed the draft of the bill to bar spending government money to acknowledge Nakba Day.
More information on the Nakba can be found on NakbaOnline
I dreamt last night I was a Palestinian herded like a cow or a defeated Indian down some new Trail of Tears, into Gaza’s corral. And I dreamt that you watched me from the highest Wall.
I dreamt the whip cracked; how it bit my flesh! I was gaunter than the skeletons of Bangladesh. But I stood straight, upright. I refused to fall. And I dreamt that you watched me from the highest Wall.
I screamed aloud, but I refused to break though my geysering blood created red lakes. My oppressors laughed, Nazis!, but I stood tall. And I dreamt that you watched me from the highest Wall.
O, when will you see me, and meet my eye? O, when will you hear me, and regard my cry? You put me here. You helped build this cursed Wall with your nickels and your dimes and your pious calls for “democracy” and “freedom.” How your voice appalls!
Now we all mill here like cattle, in our abattoir stalls. It was you who interred us. Please, before it’s too late, break down the fucking wall, fling open hell’s gate!
No one can take away from me My identity, For it is mine.
Palestinian am I. I am the river that flows Through my land. I am the mountain Noble and magnificent Rising up out of chaos and destruction.
I greet the morning sun That shines down on my fertile valleys And parches my barren desert.
I am the red poppy and yellow daffodil That grow upon my bloodstained hills. I am the battle cry of freedom That echoes through my corridors And every fiber of my being.
Palestinian am I. I am the proud owner of Orange orchards and lemon blossoms And honey bees, wild and free.
I am the Palestinian David child wielding a single stone Against the Israeli Goliath. I am not afraid, For truth is with me and God is on my side. If I die, A choir of angels will honor me And later, my parents will grasp my outstretched hand And join me in Heaven.
I am the tears of Mothers weeping for their dead sons. I am the footsteps of ancient prophets Who foretold of doom and destruction To those who torture and oppress me.
My brethren are the doves, hummingbirds and seagulls That fly unhindered above my sea. I am Palestinian, Therefore, I am.
No one can take my identity Away from me, Not tanks or guns or bombs Meant to desecrate me and kill me. My country lives in me.
I am the cry of liberty. No matter what they take from me, They can’t take away my identity Or my dignity. Palestinian am I.
The Palestinian Exile, also known as Al Nakba (Arabic for "The Catastrophe"), refers to the ethnic cleansing of native Palestinian peoples ... all » during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
From December 1947 until November 1948, Zionist forces (namely the Irgun, Lehi, Haganah terrorist gangs) expelled approximately 750, 000 indigenous Palestinians--almost 2/3 of the population--from their homes.
Hundreds of Palestinians were also murdered for refusing to leave their homes. The most notable massacre is the Deir Yassin Massacre, in which an estimated 120 Palestinian civilians were brutally murdered by an Irgun-Lehi force. Other massacres include the ones at Sahila (70-80 killed), Lod (250 killed), and Abu Shusha (70 killed). About 40 other massacres were carried out by Zionist forces in just the summer of 1948.
Not only did Zionist forces conduct massacres of Palestinian civilians, rape occured as well. According to Israeli historian Benny Morris, "In Acre four soldiers raped a girl and murdered her and her father. In Jaffa, soldiers of the Kiryati Brigade raped one girl and tried to rape several more. At Hunin, which is in the Galilee, two girls were raped and then murdered. There were one or two cases of rape at Tantura, south of Haifa. There was one case of rape at Qula, in the center of the country. At the village of Abu Shusha, near Kibbutz Gezer [in the Ramle area] there were four female prisoners, one of whom was raped a number of times. And there were other cases. Usually more than one soldier was involved. Usually there were one or two Palestinian girls. In a large proportion of the cases the event ended with murder. Because neither the victims nor the rapists liked to report these events, we have to assume that the dozen cases of rape that were reported, which I found, are not the whole story. They are just the tip of the iceberg."
During Al Nakba, Palestinians were murdered, raped, and ethnically cleansed from their villages. According to Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe, "In a matter of seven months, 531 villages were destroyed and 11 urban neighborhoods emptied."
Palestinians were forced into were forced out of Palestine and into neighboring countries (i.e. Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan), where they lived in refugee camps. Many were also sent to camps in West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Most Palestinian towns were demolished and taken by the newly established Israeli government to make room for new Jewish immigrants. Old Palestinian infrastructures, as well as many ruins dating back from the Canaanites, Romans, Greeks, Crusaders, Arabs, and Ottoman Turks were completely destroyed. This signified the end of historical Palestine and the birth of modern-day Israel.
Al Nakba marked the beginning of the Palestinian refugee crisis. Al Nakba destroyed a thriving and diverse Palestinian society and scattered them into diaspora. According to the UNRWA, the number of registered Palestinian refugees today is approximately 4.5 million. These refugees are dispersed throughout the world, many of which are still living in poverty-stricken refugee camps. Today, the situation keeps worsening and thousands die from malnutrition, contaminated water, or scarce medical supply.
Israel has since refused to allow Palestinian refugees to return to their homes, and has refused to pay them compensation as required by UN Resolution 194, which was passed on December 11, 1948.
Historically, the Israeli government, Israeli schools, and Israeli historians have denied that Al Nakba has occured. However, The New Historians, a loosely-defined group of Israeli historians, have recently published information recognizing the Al Nakba tragedy and controversial views of matters concerning Israel, particularly events concerning its birth in 1948. Much of their material comes from recently declassified Israeli government papers. Leading scholars in this school include Benny Morris, Ilan Pappe, Avi Shlaim, and Tom Segev. Many of their conclusions have been attacked by other scholars and Israeli historians, who continue deny Al Nakba even occured.
"Israel’s Intimidation Tactics Won’t Stop Us: First Ship Sets Sail for Gaza!
by Huwaida Arraf
London – 14 May 2010 – At 22:45 local time tonight, the MV Rachel Corrie, a 1200-ton cargo ship, part of the eight-vesselFreedom Flotilla, set sail from Ireland on its way to the Mediterranean Sea. Three, ships from Turkey and Greece will join her, then sail to Gaza.
This past week reports from Israel have indicated that the Israeli authorities will not allow the Freedom Flotilla to reach Gaza with its cargo of much-needed reconstruction material, medical equipment, and school supplies. According to Israeli news sources, clear orders have been issued to prevent the ships from reaching Gaza, even if this necessitates military violence.
The Free Gaza Movement, which has launched eight other sea missions to Gaza, confirms that Israel has tried these kinds of threats and intimidation tactics before in order to try to stop the missions before they start. “They have not deterred us before and will not deter us now,” said one of the organizers....
It’s your birthday but you did not blow out the candles… Around your birthday cake we wait but feel helpless.. Did you have to go so young defending that which is right? Maybe so; despair not, as your name shines, like a star so bright And your memory will stay alive in everyone’s living heart Your courage that some ignorant dared call otherwise It’s your life you gave up with courage and expected no goodbyes For injustice and tyranny had no place in your eyes. And the ignorant and tyrants claim they yearn for peace, yet are in disguise Like sheep in wolves clothing, they are the unwise.
Your name will torment your killers until the end of time And the day will come when you will drag them to the Divine And you will ask: My Lord, ask them why they murdered me, and for what crime? They followed not your commandments nor did they cry When a child’s life they took and the mothers’ tears never did dry Lord here they are, those who dare claim to be chosen, It’s your wrath I do pray with which them you smite For your mercy they rejected and your power they ridiculed They thought they were infallible but now, they will taste your might And in your heaven I pray I join those, who my death, they cried.
"The following video shows the greatness of this person…. both as a child and as an adult. An adult whose life was snuffed out by the most vicious beast in the world today, zionism…
Rachel must never be forgotten and her murderers must never be forgiven!
""She was a girl from small-town America with dreams of being a poet or a dancer. So how, at just 23, did Rachel Corrie become a Palestinian martyr?"
Peace activist Rachel Corrie is shown at the Burning Man festival in a photo from September 2002, in Black Rock City, Nevada. Photograph: Denny Sternstein/AP
It is impossible to underestimate quite how much life for Rachel Corrie's family has changed since she was killed by an Israeli army Caterpillar D9 bulldozer in the Gaza Strip on 16 March 2003. As Rachel's elder sister Sarah puts it: 'What was normal doesn't exist for us now.'
'After Rachel was killed.' When I meet the Corries, it swiftly becomes clear that there is a great deal they want to speak out about, but it is these four words, heavy with loss, that they have repeated most over the past five years.
Before Rachel was killed trying to prevent a Palestinian home in Rafah from being demolished, they were a pretty ordinary West Coast American family. It has been said in the past that she came from a left-leaning, alternative background, but this is not strictly accurate. Craig Corrie is an insurance executive, who has spent 24 years of his career working for the same firm. Cindy Corrie is a musician and teacher. Since the mid-Seventies they have mostly lived in the same slate-grey house in Olympia, a small town with many coffee shops an hour's drive out of Seattle, and it was here that they raised their three children, Chris, Sarah and Rachel. True, the Corries liked to debate politics around the kitchen table. They also liked to talk about the cats and the chickens, going skiing at the weekend, the vegetable plot, the family holiday cottage in Minnesota. Whenever the conversation did turn towards the Palestinian issue, Craig and Cindy's sympathies would instinctively fall on the Israeli side.
After Rachel was killed, life changed abruptly. Over the past five years they've had to deal with the loss of their youngest daughter, at the age of 23. Cindy, a quietly spoken woman not given to over-statement or, indeed, self-pity, describes a period of mourning that will never really end.
Rachel's parents and sister have not returned to their jobs, although their schedule is relentless. Last week Craig and Cindy were in Vancouver. Next week they're heading to Alabama. As part of their work for the Rachel Corrie Foundation, an organisation they set up after their daughter died, to promote peace and justice in the Middle East, there are school talks and early-morning radio interviews about the human rights situation in Gaza and the West Bank, lobbying to have her death properly investigated and campaign meetings supporting their bid to fulfil Rachel's ambition to establish a sister city project between Rafah and Olympia. Twice they have visited the contentious 40km by 10km strip of land where Rachel died. Before Rachel was killed, Cindy had never been to Europe, let alone the chaotic, squalid, potentially dangerous refugee camp that is Rafah.
The routine of day-to-day life has been cast aside. Their two-acre garden, from where you can see the creek where the children used to swim in the summer and the rushes in which they'd play hide-and-seek, has an elegiac, abandoned feel. They're away so often the family cat now lives with Sarah. Even if Cindy had the time to cook dinner, she'd have nowhere to serve it up. Every surface of the house is smothered with paperwork.
Rachel had been a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement, a non-violent pro-Palestinian activist group. Within days of her death, the eloquent and vivid emails that she had sent from Gaza were published, with the consent of the Corries, in the Guardian. In 2005 they became the inspiration for an acclaimed play, My Name Is Rachel Corrie, based on Rachel's writing. Following two sell-out runs in London and a controversial last-minute cancellation in New York, the dramatic monologue, which follows Rachel's life from messy teenage bedroom through to Palestinian refugee camp, has been performed across America and Canada. Later this month, on the fifth anniversary of Rachel's death, it will be staged in Israel and the Corries will be there to watch the first performance in Arabic. This is a typically frenetic month. Next week sees the publication of Let Me Stand Alone, a collection of Rachel's writing and drawings from the ages of 10 to 23, the final piece written four days before she was killed.
Craig and Cindy Corrie have become well known in Olympia. This modest middle-aged couple with silver hair and sensible waterproof anoraks - in the winter it rains so much in this part of the world that umbrellas are pointless - are stopped in the street. Teenage girls in skinny jeans hover, wanting to say hello to the parents of Rachel Corrie. Cindy, in particular, lights up, as though caught in the glow from a torch beam. I ask Sarah if her mother and father are often approached.
'All the time,' she says. 'I've got used to it.'
'In the first hour after Rachel was killed,' Cindy recalls, 'I remember saying: we have to get her words out.'
I'm sitting with Cindy and Sarah in one of Olympia's oldest coffee shops, a place where the Corries used to come as a family when the children were growing up. One by one they piece together the events of 16 March 2003. It was a humdrum Sunday. Sarah, not long married to her husband, Kelly, was living in the family home while her parents were based temporarily in North Carolina, where Craig was working.
'I caught the end of a message on the answer machine, someone saying, "I just heard the sad news,"' says Sarah, 'and it dawned on me. It was something to do with Rachel.' She found out her sister had died by reading the ticker tape along the bottom of the television screen: 'Olympia woman killed in Gaza.'
'My first thought was that maybe it wasn't Rachel. My next was that Mom and Dad didn't know. I started trying to dial and I remember looking at the handset and thinking, "I don't know how to punch in the numbers."'
Meanwhile, in North Carolina, Craig was doing the laundry when the phone rang. Cindy picked it up. It was her son-in-law, Kelly.
'I could hear that there was something wrong in his voice,' recalls Cindy. 'I could hear Sarah crying hysterically in the background. She came onto the phone and said, "It's Rachel." And I said, "Is she dead?" I just knew I had to ask about the very worst possibility so that maybe that option would go away.'
While she took the phone to her husband, the news was confirmed on the television screen back in Olympia. 'It says her name,' Sarah told her mother. 'It says her name.'
It would be days before they had a chance to mourn in private. First they flew to Washington DC to be with their son, Chris - 'He was the only one who could function,' recalls Craig - from where they began the logistical nightmare of organising the return of their daughter's body. Craig was in such a hurry to pack he slung a pillowcase into his overnight bag mistaking it for a shirt. A journalist pitched up on their driveway in Olympia. There were more in Washington. A congressman suggested they hold a press conference. The death of an American citizen in Gaza was front page news - all this at a time when the atmosphere in America was already intense. The Iraq war would begin four days after Rachel was killed.
Craig recalls how, at one point, he picked up the telephone to learn that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was on the line. 'He told me: "She is your daughter but she is also the daughter of all Palestinians. She is ours too now."'
'If someone had told me 10 years ago that this was going to happen to us,' says Cindy, 'I'd never have predicted any of the things that we have done. I would have said, "You're crazy. If anything happened to a child of mine I would not draw another breath." But, amazingly, you do take the next step.'
For Cindy, as for the rest of the family, that next step seemed to be exploring the words Rachel had written. 'Immediately I was drawn to the writing,' she says. 'Because the writing was what we had, and what we still have, of Rachel. Nobody was thinking of a book back then but, even early on, when we were in such searing pain, we were drawn to what Rachel had written. As a comfort, as a connection.'
Most of Rachel's words had been kept in plastic tubs in the garage, or the attic. Journals, email printouts, poems, letters, assignments for creative writing classes, scraps written on paper napkins. Sarah, who has painstakingly edited the book over the past year, recites one of the first lines she read after Rachel died: 'There is something that I'm supposed to do. I know there is something big that I am supposed to do. I just don't know what it is yet.'
In the early pages of Let Me Stand Alone there is the sense of someone comfortable with the notion of revealing her inner world on the page: the style is uninhibited, experimental, confident. While it's clear this is a dreamy little girl who likes to dance and to visit her grandmother, she also has an easy relationship with words. Her parents don't describe themselves as writers but they remember their daughter sitting on the floor with pens and crayons before she went to nursery.
What emerges is someone who could be variously idealistic, knowing, self-deprecating, earnest, quirky, pretentious, fanciful, melodramatic, obsessive, flip and wise. Some of the pieces are uneven - whose private musings wouldn't be? - but at its best Let Me Stand Alone is a window into the private preoccupations of a singular girl growing up in middle-class America in the Eighties and Nineties, a girl discovering her own lucid and original voice. Some of the passages, particularly her accounts of her intense love affair with a young man called Colin, are breathtakingly vivid and personal.
It is impossible to read about how Rachel lived without thinking about how she died. There are times when her words are chillingly prescient as she describes dreams about falling, fears of tumbling, being out of control. 'Death smells like homemade apple sauce as it cooks on the stove. It is not the strangling sense of illness. It is not fear. It is freedom,' she writes on 19 May 1993. Aged just 14.
Early on there is a surprising empathy for outsiders and I realise that in a media obsessed with the Paris Hiltons of this world, we don't often get to hear about young, politicised American women. 'Maybe,' writes Rachel, aged 11, 'if people stopped thinking of themselves, and started thinking of the other sides of things, people wouldn't hurt each other.' But there is a healthy streak of self-obsession too, and a wicked sense of humour. She grows up into a chain-smoking Pat Benatar fan. Some of the most poignant moments are Rachel's 'to do' wish lists. A teenager who imagines there are years and years ahead of her.
A trip to a remote part of Russia as a teenager, just after the fall of Communism, is clearly a catalyst. So are stints staffing telephone crisis lines and volunteering for mental health organisations. 'I know I scare you,' she writes to her mother when she's 19. 'But being on a tightrope, with a safety net and a costume, doesn't work for me... I have to do things that scare you. I'm sorry I scare you. I hope I'm not ugly in your eyes. But I want to write and I want to see. And what would I write about if I only stayed within the doll's house, the flower world I grew up in?'
She is a student at Evergreen State College, a famously liberal university with a tradition of activism, when the two planes fly into the Twin Towers. Rachel Corrie, blonde, skinny, high cheek-boned, carelessly beautiful, is already looking beyond the claustrophobic confines of Olympia and into the world beyond.However, when it emerges that she is saving up to go to Gaza in order to volunteer for the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) the rest of the family are dead against the idea. Her sister remembers the tension: 'I didn't want her to go. It was extremely stressful; I couldn't talk to her about it.'
Her mother adds: 'I think all of us hoped that Rachel would not quite get her act together to go.'
Her father: 'I was concerned. Why not work in a soup kitchen or something like that, I said to her. But if that is what she really wanted to do, you can't ask your child to do less.' This quietly thoughtful man, a former Vietnam veteran who masks his sadness with a droll sense of humour, pauses. 'I was concerned. But not really, really frightened. To be honest, it wasn't until she got there that I got really, really frightened.'
The writing from Rafah, Gaza, steps up a gear. Her emails home are passionate, articulate and forensic. She's been criticised for being naive about the dangers. I suspect many people, even seasoned war reporters, might admit to being blindsided by the situation on the ground in Gaza. She researched the region before she got there and attended an ISM training session, but the shock of being in the midst of chaos is immediately apparent. A day after arriving she's helping someone move the body of a child. She describes a colleague with shrapnel in her shoes.
Gradually Rachel seems to adapt to this new level of anxiety. She makes friends with Palestinian families, looks after their children, learns bits of Arabic. Television footage of Rachel from this time shows her draped in the traditional black and white kaffiyeh, looking drawn. A tank rumbles by in the background. She sounds resolute: 'I feel like I'm witnessing the systematic destruction of a people's ability to survive,' she tells the reporter. 'It takes a while to get what's happening here. Sometimes I sit down to dinner with people and I realise there is a massive military machine surrounding us, trying to kill the people I'm having dinner with.'
I wonder if the family understood that, along with other ISM volunteers, she was acting as a human shield - or 'a bulldozer cowgirl' as she puts it. Cindy says: 'We knew what she was doing. We knew she was staying at different houses.' Initially Craig believed that the worst that might happen was that she would be arrested. 'But then when she started reporting back, I realised that this was a military out of control, where there was no discipline. I said to her brother a week before she was killed: "She can't continue to do this sort of thing. Sooner or later it's not going to work."' Cindy adds, 'You were just holding your breath.'
It sounds agonising for the family left behind. Sarah agrees. 'You may not be talking about it every day, but you're thinking about it. She knew that was what we would be doing. I don't think it was an easy decision for her to be there knowing how worried we were going to be.' Has Sarah ever been angry with her sister? 'People ask that,' she replies. 'I never feel angry about Rachel because she didn't intend to die. There was no part of her that intended to die. I can't be mad at Rachel for something she didn't intend to happen. So, no.'
This kind of bereavement, premature and violent, is hard to imagine. Now add the fact that Rachel swiftly became both a worldwide news story and a debating point and it's difficult to comprehend the amount of stress the family must have been under. Within a few hours, Cindy's email account had crashed. Absurdly, in the first hours of mourning they were trying to work out how to set up a new computer inbox. They received 10,000 emails in the first fortnight alone. In one of what must have been many dream-like moments, Craig recalls a candlelit vigil held three days after his daughter died: a stranger carried a huge poster-sized picture of Rachel, a photograph he hadn't even seen before.
Overnight in Rafah there was graffiti dedicated to the young woman who believed there would be a democratic Israeli-Palestinian state in her lifetime - 'Rachel was a US citizen with Palestinian blood.' She had become a victim of their intifada, a heroine who had stood up to the mighty Israeli army. New mothers christened their daughters Rachel. A kindergarten was named after her. Palestinians living in America would approach the Corries crying, barely able to speak. 'It should have been me,' they told them.
Elsewhere the response was more mixed. The death of a young blonde female American in the Middle East aroused extreme reactions. Angry messages to pro-Israel websites suggested 'she should burn in hell for an eternity'. Critics of the Palestinian cause suggested that the houses in Rafah hid tunnels which supplied arms. A picture of Rachel burning a makeshift American flag in front of Gaza schoolchildren was circulated. There was heated debate on the campus at Evergreen. Sarah and her brother Chris began filtering out some of the hate mail that arrived.
'I don't think people understand how divisive this issue is, and how much people care,' says Craig. 'I don't think we did.'
Rachel Corrie was both lionised and demonised. 'In some ways,' says Cindy, 'both reactions are threatening. Because Rachel was a very human person. I used to worry about the adulation - what happens when they find out that the real person was as flawed as we all are? On the other hand, I know she has given a lot of people hope and something to aspire to. I think it is important to people to have figures in their lives that provide that for them.'
The Corries take me around Olympia in their car, past the places where Rachel grew up. While Craig drives he recalls descriptive passages from her journals and tries to retrace his daughter's steps in his mind's eye. Even on a winter's day you can see how beautiful it is: noble Douglas firs, a glint of water, secluded wooden houses with verandas.
Two years ago some of the Nasrallah family visited Olympia. They were the owners of the concrete house, pockmarked with tank shell holes, that Rachel had died defending. The two families were invited on a speaking tour to talk about the situation in the Middle East. When Khaled Nasrallah saw where Rachel had grown up he turned to her parents and said, wide-eyed: 'She gave up this paradise, for us?'
In turn, the Corries have twice visited Gaza since Rachel was killed. 'My feeling,' says Craig, 'was that she wrote about those people with warmth. Going to Gaza was a real need to see who Rachel wrote about and to thank them for the care they took of her while she was there.' They negotiated the same checkpoints, the same rubble-strewn streets as their daughter had done. Armed men in watchtowers looked down on them. At night they slept through the sound of tracer fire. I imagine how proud, and perhaps astonished, their daughter would have been (on occasion she'd railed against her father for having 'his head in the sand' politically). The Corries' instinct is to play down the danger they were in: gunfire whistled past Craig and, one evening, dinner with the Nasrallah family was interrupted by the menacing sound of a bulldozer outside the window. On their second visit in 2006 they were woken in the middle of the night by men with Kalashnikovs. Craig and Cindy Corrie would be valuable bargaining tools in an area that has become even more desperate since Rachel was killed. As it was, the Nasrallahs managed to persuade the men to go on their way. It was said that they killed two security guards on the Egyptian border instead.
In one of her final emails home Rachel said, 'This has to stop! I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop.' It's clear that her parents have taken her at her word. Sarah says, 'She wanted them to go there. In her writing she says you need to meet these people. Now our lives are intertwined with what goes on in Rafah and Gaza and Israel and Palestine.' Meanwhile, in the five years since Rachel was killed, the humanitarian situation in Gaza - effectively imprisoned by Israel, with limited fuel, electricity and medical supplies - has grown worse, not better.
The family is still seeking information about what happened to Rachel and to have her death accounted for. According to former US secretary of state Colin Powell's chief of staff, the Israeli government's report was not 'thorough, credible or transparent', yet there is no sign that the US government plans to take any further action. Four months ago Sarah discovered distressing reports that Rachel's autopsy was not carried out according to their stipulations. The Corries, along with four Palestinian families, are waiting for court action against Caterpillar Inc, the American company that makes the bulldozer that killed Rachel, to be reheard.
Sarah recalls, three weeks after Rachel died, her mother meeting the family of Amy Biehl, an American anti-apartheid campaigner killed in South Africa in 1993. 'I remember Mom asking Amy's mother, "Do you ever get the normal back?" She paused for a long while and in the end she said, "No, not really." I knew then that this is what was going to happen to our family. First you have to mourn Rachel. Then you have to mourn the loss of your family and the life that you had.
I stand by the people of Palestine, because they don't breach the international regulations. I stand by the people of Palestine, because they are standing on their own feet. I stand by the people of Palestine because they don't occupy, terrorize and massacre. I stand by the people of Palestine, because they don't pay the mainstream media to stage psychological warfare. I stand by the people of Palestine, because they haven't been subject to any UNSC resolution. I stand by the people of Palestine, because they haven't been supported by any of the imperialistic powers so far. I stand by the people of Palestine, because they don't receive $7.0 million of military aide from the United States per day. I stand by the people of Palestine, because they don't dream of expanding their frontiers from the Euphrates to Nile. I stand by the people of Palestine, because they've been, and are, submissive to the laws of morality, laws of humanity. I stand by the people of Palestine, because they're real human beings.
In a recent interview which I conducted with the brave Brazilian cartoonist Carlos Latuff, he told me that he has never seen a nation to be as strong and powerful as the Palestinian nation.
I admire his statement. He is right in his position to say that the Palestinians are one of the strongest nations of the world. Palestinians are not well-off and sumptuous as the people of northern Europe, their annual GDP does not equate with that of Canada and France, they're not equipped with the state-of-the-art productions of technology, they don't have the capability to send all of their children to school to help them realize their dream of becoming useful and valuable individuals for the society, they don't live in edifices and penthouses and they don't earn $30,000 a year; however, they've achieved such sublime zeniths that takes hundreds of years for the other nations to accomplish.
Over the past 60 years, they've been under the incessant and unrelenting fire of a racist regime which is controlled by the people who don't understand anything of logic and reason. They've paid a high cost to preserve their values and morals against this chauvinistic regime.
Since September 29, 2000, some 6,348 Palestinians have been killed of which 1,441 ones were children; however, no "human rights" organization ringed a single alarm of sympathy with the nation of Palestine, as if that 6,348 killed people were not human beings to be taken into account.
The incarceration of a Middle Eastern journalist or the death of a Latin American activist in prison provokes so many condemnations and expressions of concern from the four corners of the world that one instantaneously comes to believe the truthfulness and honesty of those who bring up the claims of defending the "human rights"; however, it's wonderfully unbelievable that the continuous and unremitting massacre of Palestinian people, who have been under the brutal oppression of Israeli apartheid for more than 60 years, does not incite any condemnation, implicitly being admitted by the silence of "international community".
So; who is this international community? With regards to Iran's nuclear program, it is simply comprised of three countries who are opposed to Iran's development of nuclear energy, excluding 180 other countries who don't seem to be that much concerned about a peaceful country developing energy to meet its electricity needs. With regards to the Palestinian issue, however, the international community seems to have been made of no members!
Since 1967, 24,145 Palestinian homes have been destructed by Israel and, to the international community, this is not considered to be a violation of human rights; Palestinians should construct new homes for themselves, because the expansionistic nature of the Israeli regime is not inclined to be changed!, so, they're the Palestinians who should adapt themselves to the policies of Tel Aviv: Israel destructs, Palestinians get displaced, and the international community watches apathetically.
What about the United Nations Security Council?! Well, it's parading its capability to function as the authorized representative of Israel in the United Nations. 65 UNSC resolutions have been adopted against Israel during the period between 1955 and 1992; none of them have been heard by the Tel Aviv officials, and UNSC didn't take any step to hold the occupying regime accountable. So, why should there exist such a body if its resolutions are so ineffective and useless? Why should the member states continue passing resolutions if they're going to be operationalized discriminatorily?
Why didn't the 5 bigs of UNSC ever object to Israel's disobedience to the Resolution 452 which called on Israel to cease building settlements in occupied territories? Why didn't the permanent members of UNSC ever protest to Tel Aviv's defiance against the Resolution 456 which deplored the ongoing settlements and asked all the member states not to assist Israel's settlement program?
Why didn't Israel's violation of Fourth Geneva Convention in deporting hundreds of Palestinians in the occupied territories in 1992 ever motivate any objection by the international community? Why was the adoption UNSC Resolution 799 followed by the international community's silence and inaction?
May 6, (Pal Telegraph)-Unlike children worldwide, Palestinians, including myself, growing up in Gaza, the West Bank or East Jerusalem never had a normal childhood. My friend and I would play with sand rather than toys. There are no playgrounds and amusement parks as there are in the west. Palestinian children growing up today inside Gaza and the West Bank also lack toys, amusement parks and playgrounds to exert their energies. The difference between my generation and those growing up now is the level of brutality and number massacred. There are moments when I remember the Israeli soldiers storming my home in 1992; they hit my mother and beat my 10-year old cousin. Although I was only 7, I still remember every single detail as if happened yesterday. During the Second Intifada, Israel bombed my neighbourhood several times. Many of my friends were killed. Death, blood and violence fill the memories of all Palestinian children. Can you imagine what the children of Israel’s massacre of Gaza are going to remember? The memories they have will plague them until the day they depart this world.
Death, blood and violence does not make one turn to violence or even a hater of those who engage in violence. Violence is a means to an end that is chosen by some because they believe it is necessary. Many others choose nonviolence as a means to an end. It is the non-violent means that I chose. The end we all seek, however, is the same. We all seek the establishment of a Palestinian State along the 1967 borders, which encompasses Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The border recognized by the international community and in United Nations Resolutions; the same border that the United States recognizes as belonging to a Palestinian state.
It is for the creation of a Palestinian state and awareness of Palestinians due to the misconception many in the international community have that made me become a Peace Activist and later journalist. As a peace activist, I worked closely with the Israeli peace movement and Israeli peace organizations that advocate for the creation of a Palestinian state and want an end to the conflict.
Since coming to the UK, I have continued working as an activist to lobby and raise awareness for Palestine. It is through the Palestine Telegraph that I seek to bring awareness to the West about Palestinians and bringing the voice of them to a western audience....
The guy brought me to tears this morning because he so accurately describes the way I feel:
"Lately, given what I have seen, it appears as if Hell reigns on Earth. You can’t find a decent individual in any corporation or government on Earth....I haven’t written anything in awhile because I just don’t know what to say. It becomes very fatiguing to have to say what I am presently saying"
Thank you for doing it all the same, Dog Poet!
"The Ever More Pervasive Darkness of this World
Dog Poet Transmitting.......
Maybe truth is on a need to know basis which counterpoints the proliferation of the group-assumed- ‘I don’t want to know’ -movement that seems to gather force with every passing day....
I watched Ahmadinejad’s speech at the U.N. He was measured and respectful. He was less direct than I would have been but he is the leader of a nation and I am not. Well, let’s review a few things and you are welcome to accept what I have to say or disprove it. You’ll still come to the same conclusion, like it or not.
The U.S. experienced a major attack on 9/11/2001. The perpetrators were identified as Arabs who were members of Al Qaeda. Across the span of time to this moment it has been conclusively proven in the minds of those who do want to know that it was actually carried out by Israel and obliging members of various security forces. It has also been proven in the words of high level intelligence operatives that there is no Al Qaeda.
In the meantime, over the course of torturous years, Afghanistan and Iraq have been subjected to a vicious, unproductive genocide at the behest of the source which carried out 9/11 in the first place. Now this source wants to do the same to Iran since Iran was the original filling in the sandwich they were making and always the primary objective....
Now these utter scoundrels at British Petroleum have caused a disaster that could have been prevented if they hadn’t been behaving like psychopathic merchants of greed trying to squeeze every bloody knuckle out of their operations without having the class or compassion to provide proper safety methods. This really can’t be argued about because they’ve been caught out at criminal mischief on several occasions. They’re emblematic of those similar shitheels; the central banking vampires and the whores of a government that serve them around the world.
They have caused a disaster that is quite possibly greater than anything we have ever seen before. It’s possible that this massive fuckup could pollute even larger bodies of water around the world. There’s no telling how much devastation this is going to cause; how far reaching it may be. You’ve dealing with eco-systems that all interconnect and it appears that sooner or later and quite possibly right now, their religious self interest is finally going to culminate in something that changes the world forever and may wipe out more people than remain in the aftermath.
Observing Obama in operation makes my skin crawl.
(Blog editor's note: my emphasis)
He doesn’t do anything that doesn’t serve the interests of his masters and appointing Goldman Sachs lackey, Kagan to the Supreme Court pretty much says it all. Then, of course, there’s all the military adventurism around the world where people are in no position to protect themselves against American military might. Hardly a week passes when I don’t think less of this man that I had previously. He’s far more evil and narcissistic than I ever imagined. He’s an embarrassment to the human race and in the very worst position for one to be in.
(Yes, as hard as it is to believe, he's worse than George Bush -- and that is not say I want that mass-murdering war criminal back; I just expected better not worse from Mr. Obomber)
It’s patently clear now that all the warnings that have been given out about the NWO are all true. All that’s been said about the Central Banks/Federal Reserve has been proven in spades. It’s clear that certain powerful interests have made the possibility of actualized death threats against government employees and elected officials a reality. They crash the stock market to makes their points in another way. Pretty much everything bad that is happening is because of these individuals who have sold their souls to the devil and it’s all about the money and the power it confers. They don’t care about anyone but themselves and god help you if you get in their way. I can only think of them as a mutant form of crocodile-swine-sharks; out of control eating machines that simply devour whatever is in front of them.
They’re fine with it. They don’t have a second thought or lose a moments sleep over behaving like demons as if it were some exalted state in which everything has been turned upside down and backwards, where vice has become virtue and as a result of their being and acting like obvious and indefensible criminals they have corrupted some large part of the hoi polloi below them. Criminals at the top always result in a large percentage of criminals at the bottom. Also their rapacious activity steals the most from the people who have the least and makes criminal behavior unavoidable in order to survive.
Lately, given what I have seen, it appears as if Hell reigns on Earth. You can’t find a decent individual in any corporation or government on Earth. I don’t doubt there are some rare exceptions but I find it near impossible to identify any of them and they are all in some sort of rogue robot mode of relentless predation upon life in all directions.
There seems to be no possible solution besides world revolution and I am certain we need the invisible helping handas well....
I haven’t written anything in awhile because I just don’t know what to say. It becomes very fatiguing to have to say what I am presently saying. I wait through the days for some noble act, some activity I can praise… something uplifting but if it’s out there I can’t see it.....
For myself I know that a real and permanent hierarchy exists beyond and above the depravities of the temporal hierarchies. I can’t assume to know what is in the mind of that sublime and more rarefied realm. I only know we could use some direct evidence now, which would make those mentioned in this piece, tremble in their boots....
Probably the worst thing we can do it to deceive ourselves. We’ve got plenty of examples in operation at the moment. It just seems really important at the moment not to give in to despair and not to allow negative influences to set the pace of what we think and say and do. We all make mistakes in this life but sometimes we go on repeating them for longer than is sane or safe. Sooner or later one has to wake up and completely embody what they claim to believe. There probably is no better time than now, given what we are being shown with each new day.
The “emperor has no clothes” fact is that the new face of unlawful global imperialism is the old face of 20th Century imperialists. As critical mass of public recognition builds, this time, the public will reject their loveless and mass-murderous empire-building.
The two paper-thin lies the 21st Century fascists use to promote unlawful war is that Iran threatens to destroy Israel and Iran has a nuclear weapons program. Both are quickly proven as lies.
As documented in the links here (and from other viewpoints here, here, and here), Iran’s President Ahmadinejad never physically threatened Israel and all inspections of Iran’s legal nuclear energy and medicine has verified all nuclear material is accounted for.
To make these claims is to cast Orwellian lies that expose the deepest evil to propagandize for the scourge of war. Don’t believe me; read Mr. Ahmadinejad’s speech for yourself and look at the International Atomic Energy Agency documentation (despite their lies of omission in failing to smack-down propaganda). Trust your own eyes. If you have Persian friends, ask for their confirmation. You may also receive their passion for justice against US “leadership” and corporate media who lie in the same way preceding unlawful attack and mass-murder of over a million Iraqis.
At the UN Non-Proliferation Treaty Conference, Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s speech to refute war propaganda was met with the US, UK, France and Italy fascist leaders showing the world their “leadership”: they walked out (and here). This coverage has US Secretary of State Clinton’s propaganda in the second video.
I conclude with my usual resources for comprehensive understanding and suggestions for action. This has some repetition or the above information along with additional resources:
Fellow Americans: literally for the love of God, it’s time.
Over 5,000 US soldiers have been killed so far as pawns of the civilian and military brass tyrants. Multiples more have been crippled physically and emotionally. There is no end in sight to current wars; indeed, the US is expanding them into Pakistan and Yemen and threatening more war with Iran. The dead are comforted by God; their families are devastated by the loss of their loved-ones. The crippled and their families face a range of challenges; many so severe that a total of 6,000 US veterans commit suicide every year. One-third of all US homeless men are veterans.
It’s time: exercise your 1st Amendment right to freedom of speech and press, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Please provide this article to all Americans if you find it helpful to stop current and future unlawful wars.
Analogies that the rules of war are almost exactly like those for an individual’s use of force on the street.
Documentation of lies that were known to be liesas our political “leaders” told them and our war-whore corporate media mimicked to propagandize for war in Iraq.
Proof beyond doubt that the speech of Iranian President Ahmadinejad never threatened Israel.
Documentation that US-Iran relations should be viewed from the history that the US unlawfully overthrew Iran's democracy from 1953 to 1979, and then supported an unlawful War of Aggression against them from 1980 to 1988 when they rejected further rule by vicious US-friendly dictatorship. Those two US-caused acts killed up to a million Iranians
Explanation of the law of treason: the liars who duped US soldiers to unlawfully invade other countries are the ones who levied war against US soldiers.
Documentation and explanation of official US policy to use nuclear weapons if our “leaders” say (dictate) a nation might someday in the future harm the US or an ally. This policy is obviously Orwellian unlawful.
Explanation of strategy to end the massive criminal acts of US “leaders” for obvious violation of the letter and spirit of US war laws: because these crimes are so broad and so deep, I recommend Truth and Reconciliation (T&R) to exchange full truth and return of stolen US assets for non-prosecution. This is the most expeditious way to understand and end all unlawful and harmful acts. Those who reject T&R are subject to prosecution.
A reminder that you love virtue, American values, and love of your fellow human beings. These war liars “leading” our government who say they want peace while engaging in endless wars won’t create a Department of Peace for professional analysis of peace. These psychopaths (look that word up) spend trillions in long-term costs to lie and kill while reneging on their promise to spend just 0.7% of GNI to end poverty, save a million children's lives every month, and do so while reducing population growth rates.
Choose well; our collective future, and your future, depend upon it. I appreciate your attention to these facts and encourage your further study and action consistent with your own self-expression:
"One thing we have endeavoured to observe most scrupulously, namely, never to depart from the strictest facts and, in dealing with the difficult questions that have arisen during the year, we hope that we have used the utmost moderation possible under the circumstances...We have an abiding faith in the mercy of the Almighty God, and we have firm faith in the British Constitution. That being so, we should fail in our duty if we wrote anything with a view to hurt. Facts we would always place before our readers, whether they are palatable or not, and it is by placing them constantly before the public in their nakedness that the misunderstanding between the two communities in South Africa can be removed."- Mohandas K. Gandhi, Indian Opinion (1 October 1903)
For Gandhi’s evolved view of British evil in 1922, read this passage from Freedom’s Battle.
Gandhi concluded the effective response from the public was non-violent, non-cooperation with unjust British rule until the British themselves realized their engagement in immoral acts with an educated and non-cooperative public was inconsistent with their own values.
To consider:
"If we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective. No individual can live alone, no nation can live alone and as long as we try, the more we are going to have war in the world. Now the judgment of God is upon us and we must either learn to live together as brothers or we are all going to perish together as fools." --Inscription on Dr. Martin Luther King’s statue, Moorehouse College, Atlanta
"The day that hunger is eradicated from the earth, there will be the greatest spiritual explosion the world has ever known. Humanity cannot imagine the joy that will burst into the world on the day of that great revolution." -- poet Federico GarcÃa Lorca
******** For those involved in support of US government-sponsored disinformation in whatever versions of Operation Mockingbird that are active, I invite you to consider the quality of human relationships you wish to create. National security and a brighter future is not a function of fear, manipulation, and control. Our best security follows cooperation, justice under the law, dignity, and freedom. Working for your best imagined self-expression of virtue may include a unique contribution from the inside of your agency. Public attraction to the stories of Star Wars and the Harry Potter books/movies recognize that our society’s jump to civilized relations for all of us might require support from people within the “dark side” acting as covert agents for building a brighter future. Another option is becoming a whistle-blower; Project Camelot is a popular venue for people in sensitive positions. Ultimately, I recommend a Truth and Reconciliation process to exchange full truth for no prosecution, explained in detail at the link. Please consider the wisdom of your own “Scrooge conversion” to act for the benefit of building a brighter future for all humanity rather than propagandizing for your controlling, manipulating, and loveless “masters’” psychopathic policies of violence and suffering.
“Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.”
Los Angeles market: This is the media capital of the world. If we are to build a brighter future, the broadest picture must be communicated. Los Angelinos will play leading roles in communicating these issues’ importance to all humanity and in context to the economic and security concerns of local communities and families, as I explain above. These issues are ongoing “current events” of literally trillions of our collective dollars that directly effect billions of human beings, around the world who we touch in L.A.’s media market and where so many of us have family and friends, and locally with the per household tax burden for trillions of our collective dollars. Current US wars cost every L.A. County household ~$30,000 to $50,000 in long-term costs; over $100 billion total. To put this in perspective, California’s state budget deficit is $20 billion; the source of unemployment cutbacks and shortages of services. The most important impact on our local communities are often the broadest topics.
Carl Herman