Best American Kids - 2

Who killed Rachel Corrie?  When I was a boy I read "The Diary of Anne Frank."  She was just a girl, and that’s what made her story powerful.

"My Name is Rachel Corrie" is a play that was successfully produced in Great Britain and has moved to New York.  It is a story based on the diaries and writings of a remarkable girl who died two years ago this month standing up for what she thought was right.  The cruel irony underlying the repression of this work bespeaks a remarkable insensitivity to human suffering and human dignity.

Good night and good luck.

* * *

Message from Rachel’s parents - March 16, 2024 on the first anniversary of her death…

Message from Craig and Cindy Corrie

Thank you to all who have paused today to remember our daughter
Rachel Corrie and to call for an end to the occupation-an occupation
which took her life, as surely as it has taken the lives of thousands
of Palestinians and Israelis.

Rachel looked for purpose and found that in Gaza when she went there
in January 2024. Brutally killed one year ago today, she was an
unarmed, nonviolent, peace activist trying to prevent the demolition of
the home of a Palestinian pharmacist, his wife, and three

children. She
believed that the nonviolent activism that she was doing and supporting
would make not only Palestinians but also Israelis and Americans more
secure– by supporting Palestinians who practice nonviolent rather than
armed resistance and by speeding an end to this conflict that has so
damaged both U.S. and Israeli images in the world. Rachel stood there
that day because the United States government and Israel rejected a
proposal in the UN to send international human rights monitors to the
region. She and other activists went in their place, and they continue
to go. Rachel stood there that day protesting illegal home demolitions
that the U.S. opposes on the record, yet fails to stop-devastating
demolitions that we, in fact, contribute to with billions of U.S. tax
dollars annually that fund the Israeli military with its bulldozers,
apache helicopters, F-16s, and more. In fact, the U.S. Government, with
our tax dollars, surely purchased the Caterpillar D9R bulldozer that
killed Rachel.

Rachel’s case is closed in Israel and only the "Conclusions" to the
military police report have been given to the U.S. We have been able to
view the report at the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco. It contains
inconsistencies and fails to satisfactorily reconcile the differences
between the Israeli soldiers who say they did not see Rachel and the
seven international eyewitnesses who say she was clearly visible. We
believe that only an independent U.S. investigation can produce a
result that we can trust. We continue to call for support and passage
of House Concurrent Resolution 111 (HCR111) that calls for such an
investigation and now has fifty-six co-sponsors.

Rachel wrote, "When I am with Palestinian friends I tend to be
somewhat less horrified than when I am trying to act in a role of human
rights observer, documenter, or direct-action resister. They are a good
example of how to be in it for the long haul. I know that the situation
gets to them– and may ultimately get them– on all kinds of levels,
but I am nevertheless amazed at their strength in being able to defend
such a large degree of their humanity– laughter, generosity,
family-time– against the incredible horror occurring in their lives
and against the constant presence of death…I wish you could meet
these people. Maybe, hopefully, someday you will."

In September we traveled to Gaza and visited the families in whose
homes Rachel had stayed. All were threatened with demolition because of
their location near the Egyptian border and the giant steel wall being
built there. We shared meals with these families and played with their
children. In recent months all of their homes have been demolished.

In the West Bank, we witnessed the strategy of separation taking
physical form in the web of fences, walls, identification cards, and
checkpoints that separate not only Palestinians from Israelis, but
Palestinians from Palestinians, farmers from their fields, children
from their classrooms, workers from their jobs, the sick from their
healthcare, the elderly from their grandchildren, municipalities from
their water supplies, and ultimately a people from their land. In
Jerusalem we met members of an Israeli-Palestinian organization
"Bereaved Parents" who have lost relatives to the conflict and now work
together to end the occupation, and then for peace and reconciliation.
In Israel, we met with peace activists who asked us to return home and
work to end U.S. funding of the occupation.

After a year spent learning more, and after experiencing so personally
the loss that thousands of Palestinians and Israelis share with us, we
echo once again Rachel’s plea for it all to end, "This has to stop. I
think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our
lives to making this stop. I don’t think it’s an extremist thing to do
anymore. I still really want to dance around to Pat Benetar and have
boyfriends and make comics for my coworkers. But I also want this to
stop."