Rachel Corrie's detractors seek to silence message of Hope and Peace

author : Steve Niva topic : Israel Lobby | Palestine | Rachel Corrie

by Steve Niva

A year after Rachel Corrie was crushed to death while defending a Palestinian home from demolition by an Israeli army bulldozer in the Gaza Strip, I visited the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel's army and illegal Israeli settlements to see the massive Israeli wall that will enclose Palestinians within small enclaves of land.

I met a Palestinian man and his young child sitting near a poster of Rachel Corrie, which were all over the area, as they watched their family's olive tree orchard razed by Israeli bulldozers to build this wall. I told him that she had been a student at my college in the US and that I knew her family. He told me his village had just held a one-year memorial service in her honor because she had given them hope for peace; she showed them that the Palestinian people were not forgotten by the world.

By contrast, the shrill agitation by some against the very staging of the play My Name is Rachel Corrie at the Seattle Repertory Theater, and factually false articles about Rachel Corrie castigating Corrie as a stooge of terrorists can only be explained as an attempt to silence the hope and message of peace that is Rachel Corrie's true legacy.

Hope is the antidote to despair and violence. And it is hopelessness and despair that Palestinians have felt in the past few decades as their land has been relentlessly stolen from beneath their feet to build spacious Israeli settlements and their future whittled down to caged enclosures surrounded by an Israeli wall.

One can certainly blame the ineffectual Palestinian leadership for many mistakes and one can blame Palestinian extremists for damaging the moral justness of the Palestinian cause through murderous and strategically worthless suicide attacks.

But none of this justifies Israel continuing to illegally steal Palestinian land to build new settlements or building a wall deep within Palestinian land to annex these settlements, nor does it prevent Israel from taking unilateral steps to vacate completely the land that it has illegally occupied since 1967. Moreover, none of this should cause one to blindly support Israeli policies that crush the hope that Rachel Corrie helped nurture.

But instead of joining with Jimmy Carter, Rachel Corrie and countless others, many Israeli and Jewish, who recognize that Israel's occupation and settlements are unjustified and prevent peace, these critics peddle defamation and falsehoods about Corrie masquerading as reasonable criticism.

They are showing they will slander and discredit anyone who dares to understand Palestinian's legitimate grievances with Israel or acknowledge that Israel itself has committed grave and well documented abuses of Palestinian human rights. And they are providing cover for the very extremist Israeli policies of land theft, colonization and abuse that have created a fertile ground for extremism and violence, not hope.

For how else can one explain the constant repetition of false claims about Rachel Corrie that are no longer taken seriously, in many cases by Israel itself?

First, claiming that Corrie was defending terrorists is contradicted by the fact that the Israeli army has never claimed nor provided any evidence that Dr. Samir Nasrallah, whose house Corrie was defending, or anyone else in that neighborhood of Gaza, were concealing any tunnels or were engaged in any attacks on Israelis.

Second, claiming that Corrie was providing cover for suicide bombers is easily proven false by the fact that no Palestinian suicide bombers inside Israel had come from Gaza three years before nor during the time Corrie was there.

Third, claiming that Corrie was working for a pro-terrorist and anti-Israel organization is contradicted by the fact that the International Solidarity Movement to End the Occupation is composed of leading Palestinian voices of non-violence and supported by numerous Israeli peace groups.

Fourth, claiming that by resisting Israel's home demolitions in Gaza Corrie threatened Israel's security is contradicted by the fact that these home demolitions were meant for one reason: to take more land for the 7,000 Israeli settlers who illegally occupied 30 per cent of Gaza's land.

Israel's more fervent defenders justify Israel's occupation and settlements with the continually recycled myth that Israel has always extended its hand of peace while Palestinians have always rejected it. This myth conveniently ignores the fact that Israel's "generous offer" at Camp David in 2000 was based on Israel annexing the bulk of its settlements thereby cutting any Palestinian state into five tiny enclaves surrounded by Israel. And many tout Israel's recent withdrawal from Gaza, but they ignore Israel's withering siege upon its imprisoned population.

Some also justify the status quo by emphasizing the immutable extremism of Hamas. But the fact is that Hamas has not conducted a single suicide bombing in nearly two years and has endorsed a reciprocal truce with Israel if it were to withdraw completely to its 1967 borders. But Israel completely rejects these terms, thereby missing an historic opportunity to undercut Hamas and create a new dynamic towards diplomacy.

Those who truly support a balanced and just peace in the Middle East should honestly debate the life and legacy of Rachel Corrie. Her very act of acknowledging legitimate Palestinians' grievances and her promotion of alternatives to violence was a message of hope and peace that is sorely lacking today.

By attacking the messenger, Rachel Corrie's detractors are sending a clear message opposed to hope and peace.

Steve Niva teaches International Politics and Middle East Studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA.