On the sixth anniversary of the killing of Rachel Corrie, consider this:
Kim Lamberty was volunteering for a Christian group, escorting Palestinian children to school in the West Bank four years ago, when she was attacked on September 30, 2004 by Israeli settlers and badly injured. She lived in Washington, D.C. This piece on the assault ran in the Washington Post on October 9. A 10-day delay. I am told that the Post knew about the attack days before it ran the story and sat on the information. Guess they didn't think it was news.
Joel Gulledge of Chicago was also escorting Palestinian children to school in the West Bank last July when he was set upon by colonists, and later treated at a hospital for injuries, including a gash in the face. The Chicago Tribune got around to covering the attack on October 5, 2008. Two months later.
And as I reported the other day, when Tristan Anderson was grievously wounded by Israeli soldiers during a protest in the West Bank village of Ni'lin, the Washington Post buried the story.
Imagine if the northern press had trivialized the risks and injuries to the Freedom Riders during the 60s. What effect would that have had on segregation? Americans aren't going to know what's going on in Palestine until the media begin taking it seriously.
Related posts:
- A frightful trip through the West Bank on the night of a double murder brings the Occupation into focus
- In Haaretz, a Jew defiantly announces she is moving to the West Bank. Does anyone care?
- mistaken identity on West Bank is farce when it involves Jews, not tragedy
- American activist critically injured by Israeli troops in the West Bank village of Ni’lin
- Dozens of West Bank roadblocks removed? (Read the Hebrew)
{ 34 comments }
Imagine if the risks and injuries to the Freedom Riders had been trivialized in the northern press during the 60s.
Surely, they were.
But the freedom riders were not american-hating asswipes assisting palestinian terrorists kill Jews.
Corrie is more noted for her Darwinian removal than anything she might have been brainwashed to accomplish.
Not like this, much of the Northern press was more sympathetic to the Civil Rights movement than they were to the segregationists.
@Phil
Do you have any idea how many Americans get mugged in a given year? And the U.S. press is supposed to make this front page news? There wouldn't be room for it all. Or is it only when someone gets mugged in Israel that you think it should be front page news right away?
Know what I noticed about both those attacks? Neither one of the victims said anything about how they knew their attackers were settlers. They could just as easily have been Palestinians who resented the Christians coming in. Or wanted some propaganda. Or in the case of the woman who was mugged, wanted her money.
I didn't see the Huffington Post giving this story much space either. From what I could see, the story was covered by a few news wire reports buried in the site and without a comments section.
Recently an American girl was arrested in Iran, and that story was on the frontpage for a day or so and aquired a fair few comments
When I heard of Tristan's injury I immediately called his Senator's offices and reminded them that the family of Rachel Corrie had met with them and asked them for assistance in obtaining a credible investigation into Rachel's death and that that did not occur. Now, one of their constituents has been critically injured by the IDF and we can wait for these two Senators to declare that they have asked the Israelis for an investigation. Meanwhile, they are both aware that in Rachel's case, Tom Hurndall's case and James Miller's case Israeli justice failed.
When I read that the spokesperson for the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem hoped the Israeli's would do an investigation into the Kim Lamberty attack I knew that "hope" was the operative word because recent history has proven the IDF incapable of doing anything near a credible investigation and the the U.S. government is well aware of this fact.
I believe one of the most important acts that those who care for Tristan can do is to fax and phone his two Senator's offices as well as the U.S. State Dept. and insist that a credible investigation occur into how this happened, finding out where these weapons originate from and which government finances them. I would follow up on a weekly basis with the foreign policy person in both Senator's offices. And, I would remind them that Rachel Corrie, James Miller, Shaden Abu Hijleh and the U.S.S. Liberty guys are all still waiting for a credible investigation so for them to suggest that the IDF can do such an investigation is laughable.
God bless the ISMers and God bless Tristan and his family.
How about Congress–at long last–officially investigating the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty as well, and the firing on its survivors in life boats?
If you write your representatives, your letter will wind up in the wastebasket.
If you try to organize, you'll be outmaneuvered and outgunned by the israeli lobby, which has access to unlimited amounts of cash. Their membership boasts some of the richest people on earth.
If you are courageous enough to join the ISM, you will wind up in a hospital, brain dead or else you will be killed by the IDF.
The only hope is that the Palestinians find a way—as the Vietnamese did, of killing enough of the Nazi scum invaders to eventually force them out.
@Susie Kneedler
ROFLMAO
There have already been six official investigations by the U.S. government into the Liberty incident. Including NSA, CIA, Navy, some committee or sub-committee of the House of Representatives, and some committee or sub-committee of the Senate. All of which found that it was a friendly fire incident.
There was no firing on survivors in lifeboats. Which isn't exactly stunning since there was no one in the lifeboats, which were mistakenly launched despite the fact that the ship wasn't sinking (and didn't sink).
Get your facts straight before posting.
"Other sources claim that the attack was premeditated. They note that various aircraft, apparently Israeli, flew over Liberty at regular intervals—some at low altitudes—before the attack; and that Liberty was about twice as large as El Quseir, designated with Latin rather than Arabic letters, displaying the US flag, and differently configured. Proponents include the surviving Liberty crewmen, [5] and some former U.S. government officials, including then-CIA director Richard Helms and then-Secretary of State Dean Rusk as well as Admiral Thomas Hinman Moorer, former Chief of Naval Operations and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Johnson administration did not publicly dispute Israel's claim that the attack had been nothing more than a disastrous mistake, but internal White House documents obtained from the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library show that the Israelis' explanation of how the mistake had occurred was not believed.[6]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident
Thom the Nazi is going to teach us some facts.
Stop it. My sides are killing me.
berel: "Corrie is more noted for her Darwinian removal than anything she might have been brainwashed to accomplish."
Are you as callow about Daniel Pearl's death too? Like Corrie, he made a brave but foolish mistake. He trusted that the people he was dealing with wouldn't be so depraved as to kill him. Like Corrie, he was wrong. Another Darwin Award finalist in your eyes?
@r
Yeah, two problems with that, first, Wikipedia can be edited by anybody. Oh, and the bulk of the article is about the known facts, none of which support a conclusion of a deliberate attack. The U.S. said that they had no ships in the area, the U.S. Navy tried to tell the Liberty to stay out of the area, but they didn't get the message. A tragic accident, just like the many times U.S. forces have attacked allied forces, or other U.S. forces, through misidentification.
Second "other sources claim" that the Earth is flat. The "other sources" are paranoid lunatics. Since the multiple investigations always come to the same clear conclusion, friendly fire, those "other sources" are pretty clearly from the tinfoil hat brigade. Then again, if you are rowen, posting as "r" then so are you (what with your ideas about the aliens and all).
I attended a presentation last night by two members of Combatants for Peace, a group of former Israeli and Paletinian soldiers/fighters that had determined that they had both been brainwashed to regard the other with hatred or ignoring ("Invisible Man"), and had had enough of it.
Both individuals had personally done harmful things to the other community during their periods as military. The Palestinian had had much much more severe tragedy. He conveyed a true story of one of his daughter's being killed by an IDF rubber bullet.
The event was held at a liberal shul in Northampton, MA. As is usually the case, the Q & A was the most compelling. In the audience a Palestinian student activist (one of the organizers of an anti-Israel counter-demonstration in Amherst, MA – where Hampshire is located), spoke about the injustice to the Palestinians going back before 1948, that the Zionists had conspired from the getgo to expropriate the land.
The Palestinian speaker said, "Yes, and still they are human beings, and we are human beings and I personally have determined NOT to respond to harm with force or even anger. The most courageous attitude I can take is to listen."
Both the Israeli and the Palestinian conveyed a truth-based valor that made reaction look paltry.
Not even to demonstrate or condemn even though the contrast between their commitment and the fearful Israeli approach and the angry Palestinian approach was stark.
"We are not academics. We think we are intelligent, but we are not intellectuals. We are simple people, for whom a cloud has been lifted."
@Duscany
Daniel Pearl was a journalist who was kidnapped and mudered. Rachel Corrie was an aide/dupe to terrorists who was accidentally killed by debris pushed by a bulldozer whose driver didn't see her until it was too late.
The two cases are not remotely comparable.
Phil: Chris Berel's post above should be the final straw. The man is a depraved idiot. Ban him forthwith. Unless you can find a Caterpillar with which to run him over, after which he can be given a Darwin award, as he seems to like them.
Thom is just a lying bastard. Rachel Corrie was not accidentally killed. The bulldozer driver was well aware that she was on the scene, trying to prevent yet another Israeli crime against humanity.
These people truly have no shame.
Jim,
Chris is often detestable here. But I find there to be no conclusive evidence that Rachel Corrie was intentionally killed. There is no conclusive evidence that she wasn't, either.
When Rachel Corrie's cause wins in the end, even these monsters will have to admit that what she did was very useful.
@ Thom, "…(what with your ideas about the aliens and all)"
I don't think r is Rowan, and I also think Rowan is a bit skeptical about aliens. I posted something about "alien" experiences on his blog the other day and he was polite but somewhat bemused.
I discern from what you said that you completely reject the possibility that other life exists beyond these earthly bounds. Statistics suggest that you are wrong. Why be so dogmatic about something that you know so little about? You need not feel threatened by the idea of their existence as there are very few reported deaths at the hands of aliens. :-)
You have a much greater chance of being killed by IDF soldiers.
In case you haven't already seen it, here is a link to my post.
http://niqnaq.wordpress.com/2009/03/13/delta-green-when-only-the-worst-will-do/#comment-4312
@ Thom
"Get your facts straight before posting."
Thom should follow his own advice. Anyone actually interested in the USS Liberty incident can start here:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/printedition/tuesday/chi-liberty_tuesoct02,0,3737033,full.story
Then go to the web site set up in behalf the USS Liberty survivors. Too Youtube has a number videos
on the subject. For starters, the original Navy investigation was very hasty, and cut shorter than any
Navy investigation of even the most mundane matters in Navy history. All the sailor eye witnesses
directly contradict the official Israel-US Congress people's version of the event. They were all muzzled for many years. You will certainly discover its not a case of whether the earth is flat or not.
P.S. You might retort that it's only Palestinians who have to fear them, but remember, they have a lot of "accidents". :-)
Pearl was a journalist investigating the shoe-bomber case, Corrie was an activist in the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) a Palestinian-led movement committed to resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land using nonviolent, direct-action methods and principles. Whether or not she was intentionally murdered by the IDF with a tractor is an open question, same as whether or not the IAF
intentionally did its best to sink the USS Liberty with clear knowledge before the strike it was a US ship. Thom's comments on this thread today are consistent in that they state conclusions as facts. Even a cursory look at both events on the internet will show you he clearly has a bias in both cases, not even suggesting the facts are very reasonably disputed. In great contrast, nobody disputes the facts in the case of Pearl.
In the first place, I have never used pseudonyms, and in the second place, the story you posted struck me as false, that's all, moonkoon.
Yes, well I must admit that the picture looked a bit unbelievable. :-)
But I was quite taken with the story.
I say, let the apologists like Thom and Berel stay. They only illustrate depraved indifference to the suffering of anyone not jewish. I think they must have dead hearts. We probably couldn't have invented better examples of the shallowest zionist thinking,
@moonkoon
The idea that there might be life somewhere else is plausible, though the anthropic principle prevents us from saying that the Earth is necessarily typical. The idea of little green men coming to visit and keeping it a secret is ridiculous. The distances between stars are too great for casual visits. If aliens do show up it would be for the same reason we might go to the stars, to colonize.
@Citizen
The sailor "eyewitnesses" tell different stories now than anyone, including them, told at the time. They have filled in their fading memories with damning fantasies that contradict the contemporaneous accounts. Oh, and you keep talking about them as though the survivors of the friendly fire incident were unanimous in saying that it was deliberate. They aren't. Get hundreds of people in a combat situation and you are sure to find a few whose stories contradict both the stories of the other people involved and the forensic evidence.
We probably couldn't have invented better examples of the shallowest zionist thinking,
Posted by: jim byers | March 16, 2009 at 11:08 AM
Yet we still post circles around you. I wonder what that makes you?
I guess it's natural to want to colonize things, but I think that the drive to colonize is one of those traits that we need to rein in for the sake of civilisation, which I'm sure you also value.
I think that the ability to modify natural predatory drives is a cornerstone of said civilisation.
Allow me to leave you with this old Irish blessing. :-)
"May the blessing of light be upon you, light without and light within. May the blessed sunshine shine upon you and warm your heart until it glows like a great peat fire, so that the stranger may come and warm himself at it, as well as the friend."
@Thom
Quite repeating lies.
There has never been a Congressional investigation. We are unaware that any American president has accepted the position that the attack was a tragic accident. The only American government investigation of any kind was the U.S.Navy Court of Inquiry in 1967. That inquiry examined only the performance of the crew and the adequacy of communications and avoided entirely the question of whether the attack was deliberate, accepting "at face value" the Israeli claim that the attack was an accident. That inquiry has been dismissed by its own legal counsel, legal counsel to the convening authority and numerous other key figures as fraudulent.
From: http://www.ussliberty.org/thebiglie.htm
Thom dismisses wikipedia in favor of?????
C A M E R A!!!
http://www.sixdaywar.org/uss-liberty.asp
A Nazi filth site run by the IDF!!!
That's his idea of a credible source.
Comical!
What we do definitely know is the the U.S. government has said that the Israeli government did not do an investigation that was thorough, credible or transparent as was promised by Prime Minister Sharon to President Bush. What we do know is that there was a change in orders five minutes before Rachel was killed. What we do know is that seven eyewitnesses have stated that the bulldozer ran over her. What we do know is there were two soldiers in that bulldozer, the driver and the commander, and it was the job of the commander to observe the surroundings. That was his job. In addition, an APC on site with three soldiers in it had as its job to watch the terrain. Each of these soldiers was well aware or should have been aware that there were people on the ground as they had all been together in this area for several hours. There were a minimum of ten eyes whose responsibility was to watch the area they were working in. What we do know is that the Israeli investigator could not investigate the site because it was too dangerous, but the bulldozers could return shortly after Rachel's death and bulldoze the entire site.
Finally,we do know that the Israelis had the right to be on the Philadelphi Route. Per Oslo. They did not have the right to be on Palestinian land working very close to the Nasrallah home. They did not have the jurisdiction under Oslo to be over a football field away from the Philidelphi Corridor. They had the power, but not the right.
These are a few of the things we know. Again, as the U.S and Britain were invading Iraq, four westerners were killed or injured in a six week period, three of them in the same area of Gaza. Each of those were documenting – writing, photographing, making a movie…
And in none, were the Israelis able to perform a credible investigation. These are a few of the things we do know.
What we do not know is if the U.S had been forceful in demanding an investigation, whether Tom and James would still be alive and Brian Avery spared his pain and surgeries. Furthermore, what we do not know is if the U.S. had followed through on its demand that the Israelis do a thorough, credible investigation into the death of Shaden Abu Hijleh whether Rachel would still be alive, James and Tom alive, and Brian unharmed. To insist on an investigation but to fail to evaluate the results (which is what occurred with the Bush Administration in Shaden's case) gave the green light to the Israelis to carry forward with their intimidating activity. Which leads us to six years later and last week Tristan being injured.
Finally, what we do know is that it is the responsibility of the American Embassy in Israel as well as the American Consulate in Jerusalem to report human rights violations accomplished by foreign militarys that receive U.S. funding, i.e., Israel We know that it is the responsibility of the Defense Attache to be one of the leads in such reporting. We know that information is to come from many different sources. We know that these reports are referred to the Near East Division of the State Dept. We know that Israel has never been found guilty of committing a human rights violation in this form.
It is so easy for Cheryl to lie.
On March 16, 2003, ISM 'activist' Rachel Corrie was killed by an Israeli D9 bulldozer[1] in Rafah in the Gaza Strip. Rafah is in the Philadelphi Corridor in the map at left, along the border between Gaza and Egypt.[2] You may recall that it's where the border between Gaza and Egypt was breached just a few weeks ago. At the time, the ISM claimed that Corrie was protecting a 'Palestinian' house.
This is from [1]
"Witnesses said Rachel Corrie, 23, from Olympia, Washington, was trying to stop the bulldozer from tearing down a building in the Rafah refugee camp when she was run over. She was taken to Najar hospital in Rafah, where she died, said Dr. Ali Moussa, a hospital administrator.
"Corrie was a member of the International Solidarity Movement. Joseph Smith, 21, of Kansas City Missouri, who was with Corrie at the site, said the driver of the bulldozer, an IDF soldier, could clearly see Corrie as she sat in front of the machine.
"Contrary to Smith's report, IDF Capt. Jacob Dallal of the IDF Spokeswoman's Office said Corrie's death was an accident. The US State Department had no immediate comment.
In a series of three videos, each running approximately nine minutes, Becky Johnson and Lee Kaplan debunk the myth that Corrie was protecting a house. In fact, as Smooth Stone[3] points out and as you will see in the video below, Corrie was standing in a trench where she could not be seen, protecting an entrance to a weapons tunnel.
Actual video footage from the Israeli Defense Forces show the real circumstances under which the terrorist-loving anarchist died: knee-deep in a trench in the middle of dirt in an open dirt field. The left arrow on the photo below points to the tractor, the right arrow shows the kneeling Rachel Corrie. To see the live action footage moments before Rachel Corrie's accidental death, go to the Part 2 video 49 seconds into the video:
http://www.think-israel.org/israelmatzav.howcorriedied.html
@Toothpickthruster
Go read the reports yourself. Links to them are here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident#American_Government_Investigations
@Cherylb
I guess that shows that the seven "eyewitnesses" are liars. Since neither the video footage of the accident, nor the results of it are consistent with her getting run over by the bulldozer. She would have been a lot deader and more squished afterward if the bulldozer itself had run over her. Those things are heavy.
To those falsely categorizing all Palestinians as "terrorists," let it be known that the first terrorists in Israel were Zionists. One need only google "Stern Gang" or "Irgun" to see what kinds of atrocious crimes these first Israeli terrorists committed. Israeli terrorisism existed as early as the 1930s, long before any Palestinian learned it from them. Just as Native American Indians were once called "Savages," they had learned how to scalp from the Dutch. The Palestinians are the American Indians of the Middle East. I was there and never witnessed such racism by white people (Israelis)before. The Palestinians treated me with great kindest, warmth, and respect; it was the IDF I feared. Anyone who doesn't believe it, I suggest that you be brave as Rachel Corrie or Tristan Anderson and go to the occupied territories to see for yourself.
"Yeah, two problems with that, first, Wikipedia can be edited by anybody. "–Thom (see above)
"Go read the reports yourself. Links to them are here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident#American_Government_Investigations"–Thom (see above)
LOL
Obviously, Thom suffers from short term memory loss.
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