The Price of Non-Violent Resistance
The Jerusalem Post
 http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1079325338373&p=1006953079865

Mar. 15, 2004
By HUWAIDA ARRAF


Today, March 16, marks the one-year anniversary of the killing of our friend and colleague Rachel Corrie. Rachel, a 23-year-old American volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories [Rafiah], was run over by an Israeli army bulldozer in Rafah while trying to nonviolently block the demolition of yet another Palestinian home.

The home belonged to Dr. Samir Nasrallah, a physician, and his family; it was a home that Rachel had spent many nights at hoping her presence might deter the horrific violence that the family was consistently exposed to by the Israeli military.

Rachel was wearing a fluorescent orange reflector jacket and, along with seven other volunteers from the ISM, was attempting to appeal to the conscience of the bulldozer driver – getting in his way and speaking to him through a bullhorn. She kept repeating, "These actions are a violation of international law. Demolishing homes is a war crime. Please stop."

And right before she was run over Rachel asked the driver, "What would your mother think?"
Since Rachel's killing, the Israeli media has been complicit in attempts by the Israeli military and government to blame Rachel for her own death.

According to such reports, Rachel was at best a na ve young lady whose irresponsible behavior cost her her life and put the lives of others at risk; but more commonly Rachel merely got what she deserved for trying to protect terrorists.

Only two weeks ago The Jerusalem Post published a piece by Ruhama Shattan in which the author wrote: "I want to thank Corrie for the explosives that flow freely from Egypt to Gaza, via the smuggling tunnels under the Gaza homes that she died defending."

Perhaps Shattan is unaware that neither the military nor the press ever found tunnels under Samir's home. Rachel's parents went to visit Samir, accompanied by reporters in September 2003, and also did not find tunnels.

The very fact that Samir's home was not bulldozed for nine months following Rachel's death is testament to the frivolity of the charge. But this is not surprising, since the Israeli media (without a single journalist in the Gaza Strip) repeatedly reports exactly what the Israeli army says without question.

IT IS quite normal to pick up an Israeli newspaper or listen to Israeli television broadcasts about Palestinians and inevitably hear the word "terrorist" used to describe those being killed, injured or attacked.

According to these reports, the IDF is engaged with people who are terrorists, there are terrorists in the area, or suspected terrorists were there. This goes unchallenged in the Israeli media, even in left-wing newspapers. So it is not surprising, though disturbing, that Shattan would believe that Rachel must have been helping terrorists in Gaza, since that is what her media, government officials and military are telling her.

Since the beginning of this intifada thousands of international civilians have come to witness and stand for peace and freedom in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. They engage and interact with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, many of whom are actively working to end the occupation and generate freedom for all people living in this region.

ISM activists work with Palestinian activists promoting and utilizing the strategies and tactics of nonviolent resistance. In this way international and Israeli activists are an asset and a resource for nonviolence.

From reading the Israeli news one would think these foreigners must only find terrorists in the West Bank and Gaza. In the past three years over 2,800 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military, over 40,000 injured and over 3 million put under random house arrest. Are they all terrorists?

On March 16, 2003 Rachel was trying to prevent a family from being made homeless by using the only resources she had – her body and her courage.

According to an October 2003 Amnesty International report: "In the past three years the Israeli army has destroyed some 4,000 Palestinian homes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as vast areas of cultivated land, hundreds of factories and other commercial properties, roads and public buildings... The Israeli army says it has uncovered 70 smuggling tunnels in Rafah in the past three years and in the same period it has destroyed more than 1,000 homes in the area."

Rachel's was an act of humanity and decency that is dangerous, for it forces all of us to question what we are doing to end the oppression of others. It seems, however, that many Israelis hope to silence voices of humanity and prefer instead to perpetuate hatred and vileness.

I hope Shattan will consider one day going to Gaza – not as an occupier, soldier or settler, but as an equal with the Palestinians living there. I am certain she will then start to understand what Rachel was hoping to convey in her question to the bulldozer driver.

The writer is a founder and coordinator of the International Solidarity Movement.

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,916246,00.html