Cindy & Craig Corrie: March 16, 2011 Statement from Johan Genberg on Vimeo.
On Wednesday, March 16th, we mark the eighth anniversary of our daughter Rachel’s stand in Rafah, Gaza, to protect the right of a Gazan family to be safe and secure in their home and the rights of all Palestinians to self-determination, freedom, equality, and security in the same measure as their Israeli neighbors.
Here in Olympia, Washington – our hometown and Rachel’s – our family, the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice, and our community will mark this anniversary with an event that emphasizes three components: community-building, education, and action. Strengthening community connections was important to Rachel when she lived and worked here in Olympia, but, also, beyond, as she embraced the world as her community. As we pursue a more just global community, we must arm ourselves with solid information and knowledge. Rachel believed this profoundly and emphasized in her writing from Gaza the importance of seeking and communicating the facts and doing so without exaggeration. And it is not enough for us to think and talk. We must, also, act. Indeed, it is because of Rachel’s action on March 16, 2003, that we pause to mark this day.
As we consider where Rachel would want us to focus now, Gaza still remains high on the list. The UN Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that the number of weekly civilian injuries in Gaza was recently higher than it has been for any week since May 2010. The number includes injuries to five children. During the week of February 20-26, imports from Israel into Gaza were only 36 percent of the average amount that entered weekly before Israel imposed its blockade of Gaza in 2007. Exports and movement of people in and out of the Strip remain severely restricted. Collective punishment of the 1.7 million residents of Gaza by the Israeli government and military continues. We must, therefore, continue to focus on improving their situation and ending the blockade and siege under which they have suffered for so many years.
Rachel Corrie
Rachel would want us to remember the courageous activists whose lives were claimed this past year in nonviolent actions against Israeli policies and those who have found themselves in prison because of their nonviolent resistance. They are American, Palestinian, Turkish, Israeli, and from elsewhere. We had the privilege recently of meeting Ahmet Dogan, the father of Furkan Dogan, the 18-year-old American citizen executed by the Israeli military aboard the Mavi Marmara in international waters. We spent an evening in Istanbul with the wives, children, and grandchildren of others struck down on the same ship. We have followed the stories of Jawaher Abu Rahma. fatally injured by teargas during protest in the Palestinian village of Bil’in and of Ahmad Suliman Salem Deeb, the 19-year-old Gazan shot and killed as he participated in a demonstration against the no-go zone east of Gaza. We have read of the fishermen and farmers injured and killed while grazing their sheep and plying the waters just off the shore of Gaza. We have followed the Israeli court actions against our friends Abdullah Abu Rahma of Bil’in and Jonathan Pollack of Tel Aviv, imprisoned in Israel because of their leadership and nonviolent actions to resist Israeli confiscation of land and the continuing presence of the wall in West Bank villages. With admiration, we have watched the courageous pursuit of freedom and democracy unfold and spread throughout the Middle East. We have celebrated the victories and mourned the losses. In keeping with our memory of Rachel, we are listening to the voices of young people as they struggle worldwide to assert their visions for a democratic, free, and peaceful future – in Gaza, the West Bank, in the Sheik Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem, in Kabul, Cairo, and beyond. We call on U.S. officials to listen, too. We ask for them to be consistent and strong in their demands that foreign governments and militaries be accountable for their actions, that they respect the right of people to assemble and protest, and that they respond only nonviolently to such protests.
The Corrie Family in Haifa
On March 10, 2010, our family’s civil lawsuit against the State of Israel and its Ministry of Defense opened in Haifa District Court. In sessions spread over the course of the past year, we have heard from four of the internationals who stood with Rachel in Gaza in 2003 and, also, from state’s witnesses who include the bulldozer driver, commander, and the lead investigator in the military police inquiry into Rachel’s case. The testimony has often been disturbing. We have recently learned that the case will resume on April 3rd. Six state’s witnesses remain to testify, including commanders who were in charge on March 16, 2003. As our family continues our quest for truth and accountability for Rachel, we demand it for all the others, as well. We know that for there ever to be peace, there must be an airing and resolution of the grievances.
Some of you – in Madison, Wisconsin, Marin County, California, in Turkey, in the U.K. and elsewhere – have told us that you, too, plan commemorative events for March 16th or during the upcoming weeks. Thank you for remembering Rachel with us. As you do, we hope you will, keep in mind the community-building, education, and action so important to her. We hope, too, that you will recall those others who have stood and been struck down, those imprisoned for their nonviolent action, and those who carry on the work – and that you will do what you can to support them all. With events this week and beyond that keep compassion, humility, and love at their core, together, we will honor Rachel’s commitment and spirit.
With appreciation always and in solidarity with all who pursue justice,
Cindy and Craig Corrie
These are fine people.
Whew! I’m sure the Corries will be relieved and pleased by your judgement.
In advance, if you’re reading: hello Cheryl! I hope you and the Corries are well.
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March 16, eight years. I don’t know of a event here in Melbourne (Aust.) but I’ll observe some silence today for Rachel and the other ISM activists killed, as well as the two dozen or so Palestinians also killed (the list is not current but I don’t know of another – there are at least 3 names that should be added) as they peacefully protested for their rights.
How nice of you, Samud. Thank you.
Yes, I read Mondo on a daily basis and am grateful for all of the information I receive.
I am amazed at people commenting on the U.S. government’s role in all of this shamefulness. I am amazed at the flashmobs. I am heartened by the Jewish Voices for Peace work. I am again grateful to all who contribute so the rest of us can read and absorb.
For me today is a time to reflect, reassess and think about a way to contribute to education and action.
In the next month my family will be closely watching the trial in Haifa – what a long drawn out affair.
Again, thanks Samud.
Ran HaCohen just posted an article on antiwar.com. The article is chalk full of Us vs. Them language.
It seems very few individuals belonging to the same tribe have the moral capacity or the intellectual objectivity to avoid emotionally loaded language in describing Others, or Others’ actions.
At the very least, if such emotionally-loaded language is used, apply it equally to both groups.
But, no.
HaCohen uses terms like “”slaughter”, “massacred”, “barbarian” and “atrocity” to describe the recent killings at the Israeli colony, an act which he ascribes to Palestinians when he concludes:
This is the tribalist pandemic that permeates throughout the Jewish world (If there is a “Muslim World” and an “Arab World”, you know, monoliths, why can’t there be a “Jewish World”?)
When will that tribalist pandemic be over? Who knows! I’m not a miracle worker.
But, one thing is certain, Jews who will describe the killing of Rachel Corrie as an atrocity, or a barbarity are as rare as Iridium. Why? Because it was an act committed by a Jewish bulldozer driver.
Why are you ignoring the context, Avi?
He is suggesting that it was a revenge for the murder of Muhammad and Salah Qawariq on March 20th 2010 by the IDF. From this perspective the difference may well be important.
No one jumped the fence, they merely shook it a little from the inside to trip the alarm. The several alarms were not reported to the IDF? The physical fence was not breached. The killers came from within the fence. Who benefited?
Tumta
P.S. In Moshe Dyan’s autobiography he clearly states that, “the people must be motivated” from time to time.
“they merely shook it a little from the inside to trip the alarm.”
This would be good fun. Tie a string to the fence, hide behind rocks, pull the string. Watch the settler guards rush around. Wait till they have gone back to sleep. Repeat.
Or at least fun until they find the string. Then they would wipe out the nearby villages.
is base and baseless to say come from inside the fence. you don’t know.
aloha!
yes, that would be fun. great fun. great thinking.
anymore baseless to say they come from outside the fence? anymore baseless to say they are palestinian?
Well, fusty, you don’t know either, but that didn’t stop you from sneering at the reports that the perp might not have been Palestinian, did it?
Avi, I must second LeaNder in disagreeing with your criticism of HaCohen, whose brilliant essays I have been following for years (though they have become far too infrequent.) He has been unmerciful in his criticism of Israeli barbarity but even more, he makes connections and offers insights that I see nowhere else.
This article is no exception, giving particulars on a soldier’s murder of two Palestinians a year ago that, surprise surprise, has gotten a lot less press attention. You take him to task for using words like ”slaughter”, “massacred”, “barbarian” and “atrocity” to describe this act? Hardly objectionable in my opinion. He does also say that the perpetrators were “presumably Palestinian,” which I also don’t find objectionable. I think it perfectly reasonable for you to disagree with use of that phrase, and you made some good points in disagreeing with my use of a similar phrase, but it hardly casts HaCohen in the role of racist/tribalist.
Take another look at his article and see how many things you strongly agree with. I was going to quote some of them here but they were far too numerous to single out. Just one example:
David,
I’m not casting HaCohen in the role of a “racist”. Not at all. And a tribalist is not a pejorative, it’s merely a description to explain certain loyalties.
I think I made it quite clear why I’m criticizing HaCohen. It wasn’t so much the content of the article, but the underlying use of emotionally loaded words.
Take for example, Glenn Greenwald’s excellent article on ‘abuse’ of the term “Terrorism”.
link to salon.com
Avi, this is the second time in a week. Slow down, and read carefully.
I might say that I can be prone to the same types of misreadings, but I have no desire to insult you.
Mooser,
I didn’t misread the article. I read it in its entirety and read it very carefully, fully aware of HaCohen’s descriptions of Israeli soldiers aiding and abetting colonists, for example. What I did object to is the repeated attribution of such extreme language to an act that is — by implication — a Palestinian act.
As for your claiming that it is a “second time in a week” that I’ve “misread” something, I think you’re severely mistaken. Perhaps it was a mistake on my part to admit to have overlooked one detail in Phil’s article. Next time, I won’t be quick admit a mistake, lest that mistake haunt me and become a stigma. How’s that?
Still, even though I find your comment to be rather presumptive, I hold no grudge or hard feelings. You’re a good egg.
The Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice
The Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace & Justice is a grassroots, 501(c)3 non-profit organization that conducts and supports programs that foster connections between people, that build understanding, respect, and appreciation for differences, and that promote cooperation within and between local and global communities. The foundation encourages and supports grassroots efforts in pursuit of human rights and social, economic, and environmental justice, which we view as pre-requisites for world peace. Continuing the work begun and envisioned by our daughter, Rachel Corrie, our initial emphasis has been on Israel/Palestine…
LINK – link to rachelcorriefoundation.org
Saba Khan, a teenager, has an event on Facebook asking people to wear a black arm band in honor of Rachel Corrie. Even if you cannot wear the arm band attend the event anyway with a click at Wear an Arm Band
A petition to stop demolitions is available on ICAHD site at Stop the Demolitions
Also if anyone has an update on Caterpillar’s weaponized bulldozer sales to Israel please let us know. Thanks. zafar at sajepress dot com
As of last December it was still being reported that Caterpillar was witholding sale & shipment of more armored bulldozers from the Israeli military during the Corrie Trial–is this suspension still going on? Can anybody find an update? Anybody here watch Israeli TV?
Meanwhile,
Here’s a very long impressive listing of hotlinked companies involved in the Israeli settlement industry: link to whoprofits.org
Bravo to the wonderful Corrie family. They have worked tirelessly to honor the memory of their beautiful daughter.
“it is not enough for us to think and talk, we must also do”
i pause and honor Rachel’s life and legacy. creativity, courage and dedication from her heart to heal the world is an inspiration to us all. i pledge to do more in this coming year to take action and to walk in strength, peace and solidarity.
This is the inhumanity against which Rachel Corrie bravely fought :
link to mfa.gov.il
imagine what sort of regime would herd 1.5 million unarmed Jews into a camp served by 50 trucks of wheat per week. Or keep 1.2 million Jews dependent on emergency aid.
At least you supplied the link, people can see how full of crap you are.
Unarmed? are you stoned? the fact that they are armed is the reason there is a naval blockade. This idea that there is some sort of shortage of food or a ‘humanitarian crisis’ in Gaza is stale news.
You can try to spin the data as much as you want, but in reality, Gaza is getting more for Israel than they’d ever receive from Egypt or any other Arab community.
No Arab country is the occupying power over Gaza. Israel bought it, Israel broke it, Israel has to pay for it.
It’s hard to believe that much time has passed as it is still fresh in my mind. It hurts to see her good name tarnished by people who would resort to any smear to try and defend the actions of Chosanistan.
Peace and warm wishes to all of Rachel’s family, friends, and loved ones.
I think Israel picked the wrong family to f*@% with.
seafoid,
Which family? They have their own soap operas we’re unaware of. Somebody is always at the bottom of the pecking list? No?
It’s really important to hear Cindy and Craig’s voices. Israel has dehumanised the people of Gaza for so long that it is often easy to think Israel will succeed .
The Caterpillar boycott is really working.
In the last 8 years, CAT stock has gone from $25 to $100, plus don’t forget the dividends.
Yes, Rachel, we all know there are wonderful profits to be made from human misery. Feel free to chime in with a moral argument.
Who’s to say it wouldn’t have gone higher if they didn’t have that particular noteriety?
As far as that giving them any sort of leg up on integrity, Halliburton stock does quite well, and their shady practices get US service personnel electrocuted in the shower.
So how did this turn out? Were the culprits found and delivered appropriate Justice?
Or not?