Remembering
Rachel Corrie
The Wall Street Journal Way
By Joseph Kay
21 March 2004
World Socialist Website
March 16 marked
the one-year anniversary of the killing of 23-year-old Rachel Corrie
by Israeli troops outside the Palestinian city of Rafah. Corrie was
run over by a bulldozer while attempting to protect a Palestinian home
from demolition by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). According to several
eyewitness accounts, she was in full view of the driver of the bulldozer,
who deliberately ran over her body twice before leaving.
The Wall Street
Journal, on its online opinion page, chose to mark the anniversary with
two vicious attacks consisting entirely of lies and slander. The pieces
are indicative of the semi-hysterical hatred of the Journal editors
for democratic rights, their long-standing encouragement for the violent
repression of all opponents of American and Israeli policy, and their
contempt for basic standards of journalistic integrity.
One commententitled
A Tribute to Rachel Corrie: Thanks for showing us what peace
really meanswas written by Ruhama Shattan and was originally
published by the Jerusalem Post, Israels main English-language
paper. It was reposted by OpinionJournal.com editor James Taranto, who
contributed his own thoughts in Rachel Corrie and the Boy Bomb.
Both pieces are
cut from the same cloth, attempting to connect Corrie to terrorist attacks
on Israeli citizens. In this way they seek to legitimize her murder
and, by extension, the murder of any opponent of Israeli policy. As
both authors are well aware, Corrie was an activist in the International
Solidarity Movement (ISM), an organization that espouses nonviolent
resistance to Israeli repression of the Palestinians. The ISM has nothing
to do with terrorist attacks.
Shattans piece
begins by thanking Corrie for the explosives that flow freely
from Egypt to Gaza, via the smuggling tunnels under the Gaza homes that
she died defending. Perhaps it was these explosives that...have been
strapped around suicide bombers to blow up city buses and restaurants
in Israeli cities. Tarantos column begins in the same way,
labeling Corrie as a terror advocate who does not
deserve to be lionized as a martyr for peace.
The claim that Corrie
was a terror advocate constitutes libel in the legal sense
of the term. It is a false statement, made with disregard for the truth
and designed to harm the reputation not only of Corrie, but of all opponents
of Israeli policy. As both authors are aware, Corrie was not killed
defending arms smuggling tunnels, but was seeking to prevent the demolition
of the home of a Palestinian pharmacist and his family.
Israel is engaged
in the construction of a giant wall that will partition the Palestinian
territories and usurp a large part of the occupied land into Israel
proper. At the time of Corries death, the wall around Rafah was
under construction, and Israeli bulldozers were leveling all homes within
a 70-100-meter security strip around the walls intended
path.
Part of the activity
of the ISM is to attempt to prevent home demolitionblatantly illegal
under the Fourth Geneva Conventionby standing or sitting in the
way of bulldozers. This is what Corrie was doing when she was killed.
Both authors state
that a photo that appears to show Corrie burning a drawing of an American
flag demonstrates that Corrie contributed to a culture of hate.
They suggest that she is therefore responsible for Palestinian suicide
attacks. Taranto extends the charge to cover Rachels parents as
well, suggesting that because they met with Palestinian Liberation Organization
leader Yasser Arafat last September, they are also allied with terrorists.
Shattan goes on
to make the extraordinary statement that Corries peace...means
not peaceful coexistence but the elimination of the state of Israel,
and the death to those they [the PLO, Fatah, Hamas and Hezbollah] call
the usurping Jews, the sons of apes and pigs. That
is, according to Shattan, Corrie defended with her life
a perspective that sought the mass extermination of all Jewish people
living in Israel.
Shattans piece
was so slanderous that it even produced a protest from the US Embassy
in Tel Aviv, which stated, The authors disgusting abuse
of the anniversary of the death of this American citizen is inexcusable.
The hysteria and
frenzy of the charges leveled by Shattan and Taranto would not even
be worth comment if it were not indicative of the frame of mind of a
powerful section of the Israeli ruling elite and its allies in the United
States. The Jerusalem Post and Wall Street Journal have been two of
the most consistent advocates of the repression of the Palestinian population.
The Journal editorial page in particular has been calling for an all-out
war against the Palestinians since before the Ariel Sharon regime came
to office in Israel.
The papers speak
for the most right-wing sections of the Zionist establishment in Israel
and their close allies in the Republican Party. They both have close
ties with the administrations of Sharon and George W. Bush in the US.
By perpetuating and intensifying the economic and military repression
of the Palestinian population, these governments have created the conditions
conducive to the growth of terrorist organizations that have carried
out suicide attacks on Israeli citizens.
The killing of Rachel
Corrie was bound up with a deliberate strategy on the part of the Sharon
government to attack international activists seeking to defend Palestinian
rights. While thousands of Palestinians have been killed over the past
several years, until Corries murder the IDF had refrained from
directing their fire on American and other foreign nationals. However,
within a month of Corries death, three other young unarmed activists
(British and American citizens) were shot at, two of them killed.
The attacks on foreign
nationals were a signal by Israel that it was determined to carry out
the type of violence necessary for its goal of annexation of Palestinian
territories. These plans received and continue to receive the full backing
of the Bush administration. The US government has refused to demand
or carry out a serious investigation into the killing of one of its
own citizens. One year after Corries death, the only examination
has been one carried out by the Israeli military, which predictably
led to the exoneration of those involved.
Comments such as
those by Shattan and Taranto serve the purpose of paving the way for
violent repression of political opposition in Israel and the United
States. If Corrie can be connected to Palestinian terrorists, then it
is short step to declaring, for example, that any opponents of the war
in Iraq are supporters of Al Qaeda.
One year after the
murder of the Rachel Corrie, these pieces should serve as a warning
of the types of methods the American and Israeli ruling classes are
preparing against not only the Palestinian people, but domestically
as well.