Thursday, March 18, 2010

Rachel Corrie





Seven years ago today, an American civil rights worker, Rachel Corrie, was killed in Gaza, run over by a Caterpillar tractor driven by a soldier of the Israel Defense Forces. A civil suit against the Israeli defense ministry, by the parents of Rachel Corrie, was starting in a courtroom in Haifa during the recent visit of Vice President Biden. The event was barely noticed in the American press -- it got more attention in Israel -- but an AP video caught the statements made by Craig and Cindy Corrie on entering the court, statements remarkable for their dignity and candor.


Rachel Corrie wrote in an early letter from Gaza, addressed to "friends and family, and others" on February 7, 2003:

I have been in Palestine for two weeks and one hour now, and I still have very few words to describe what I see. . . . 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.


She wrote in her last letter, to her father, on March 12:

I really don't want to move back to Olympia, but do need to go back there to clean my stuff out of the garage and talk about my experiences here. On the other hand, now that I've crossed the ocean I'm feeling a strong desire to try to stay across the ocean for some time. . . .I would like to leave Rafah with a viable plan to return, too. One of the core members of our group has to leave tomorrow--and watching her say goodbye to people is making me realize how difficult it will be. People here can't leave, so that complicates things. They also are pretty matter-of-fact about the fact that they don't know if they will be alive when we come back here.


She would have returned if she could. And the cause that prompted her courage is a matter that the rest of us have barely begun to arrive at.


(David Bromwich, Professor of Literature at Yale, The Huffington Post, MARCH 18, 2010)