Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July/August 2003, pages 62-64

Southern California Chronicle

Hundreds Salute International Solidarity Movement, Rachel Corrie's Parents

By Pat and Samir Twair

The world was shocked March 16 by photos of International Solidarity Movement volunteer Rachel Corrie standing before an Israeli bulldozer that, seconds later, crushed her to death. The international outcry didn't faze the Israeli government, however, which on April 5 shot ISM member Brian Avery in the face and on April 11 shot Tom Hurndall, who has been declared brain dead.

While global attention was focused on the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Israeli tanks and bulldozers drove roughshod over Palestinian towns, killing Associated Press journalist Nazih Darwazeh in Nablus April 20 and British photographer James Miller on May 2. In the midst of this rampage, Southern California humanitarian groups decided to raise funds for ISM and honor Rachel Corrie's parents for their dignity throughout the tragedy of losing their daughter.

The Israeli propaganda machine immediately launched its spin on the unnecessary deaths of American and British peace advocates, but Israel's pattern of threatening, beating and now murdering foreign observers refutes the occupier's explanations.

Eyewitnesses report that Rachel stood a couple of yards in front of the American-made Caterpillar D9 bulldozer about to demolish the home of a Palestinian physician. She looked the driver in the eye before he buried her in debris and drove over her, then went into reverse and crushed her a second time. Israel says the driver, who has not been reprimanded, said he did not see the American woman in a bright orange day-glo vest.

Just as invitations were issued to the May 17 event, Israeli troops raided the ISM office in Beit Sahour, confiscating computers, photographs and files and arresting three women on the premises. Adding insult to injury, Israel decreed on May 11 that all internationals entering Gaza must sign a "waiver" absolving Israeli soldiers from any deaths or injuries they inflict.

Nonetheless, a respite from these images of escalating brutality was offered May 17 with an evening of poetry, music and recollections of Rachel Corrie in the Hyatt Regency Orange County Hotel.

A violin solo by Dr. Nabil Azzam, a debke dance by children of Birzeit, and poetry by KPFK newsman Jerry Quickley and Dima Hilal opened a window onto Arab culture for the more than 600 guests on hand.

ISM spokesman Adam Shapiro vowed that the Israeli clampdown on international rights activists will not succeed.

"We all know the risks involved," he said, "and this summer, we hope to have 1,000 volunteers to stand in solidarity with the Palestinians. We're going to go to the Apartheid Wall that is forcing Palestinians off their land and we're going to take down that wall with our hands."

Acknowledging that Israel has billions of dollars, and weapons and bulldozers, Shapiro said the Palestinians have sumud, a unity and strength of knowing their cause is just, which cannot be taken away.

"Many think nonviolence is passivity," Shapiro noted, "but it means being pro-active." In August 2001, 50 people volunteered with ISM. By December of the same year, 300 internationals and Palestinians took over a checkpoint between Ramallah and Birzeit. "We laid on the ground and when they threw tear gas canisters at us, we threw them away."

He urged people to check the ISM Web site at <http://www.palsolidarity.org> and to join in ISM Freedom Summer 2003.

In presenting the Muslim Public Affairs Council Courage Award, Dr. Maher Hathout said that courage is not the opposite of cowardice, but rather the principle of standing up to injustice.

"When Rachel Corrie faced that bulldozer and with her own hand tried to stop it from demolishing a house, she transcended the pettiness of life," he declared. "Rachel became a flickering candle in thick darkness. For darkness cannot be complete if just one candle is lit."

Rachel's father, Craig Corrie, disclosed that, ironically, when he served as a combat engineer with the First Air Cavalry in Vietnam in 1970, he had been in charge of bulldozers.

"But I didn't harm anyone," commented the tall, greying insurance actuary.

He now realizes, he said, the courage it took for his daughter to put on her ISM vest every day and witness calculated cruelties and human rights abuses. In her hometown of Olympia, WA, she had encouraged her parents to talk to the street people and feel their pain.

"We don't dwell on what we didn't do or what might have been avoided," Corrie concluded, "but we do demand more accountability from our government."

Cynthia Corrie acknowledged that over the past few weeks she has found it difficult to adequately describe her daughter, because there were so many dimensions to her character. Rachel sent many e-mails home from Gaza, always stressing the need for Palestinian voices to be heard in the U.S. and marveling over the Palestinians' ability to organize against all obstacles.

Rachel grew up in a home on two acres near Puget Sound, Mrs. Corrie said. By the fifth grade, Rachel wrote that she wanted to be a lawyer, dancer, actress, mother, wife, children's author, distance runner, poet, pianist, pet store owner, astronaut, envioronmental and humanitarian activist, psychiatrist, ballet teacher and the first woman president. In the seventh grade she organized a student walkout on behalf of the teachers. When her mother told her she shouldn't go through with the strike, Rachel said she had to because she'd already called a press conference.

During her sophomore year in high school, Rachel was an exchange student and lived with a Russian family for six weeks in the Sakhalin Islands.

"Rachel witnessed the hardships the family endured, and she realized how lucky Americans are," Mrs. Corrie said. It was about this time that a teacher remarked that "Rachel is destined to make a difference."

Rachel took one year off from her studies at Evergreen State University to serve in the Washington State Conservation Corps. Her volunteerism included weekly drop-ins over three years to mental patients in a hospital diversion house.

"Some of these patients talked publicly after Rachel's death and mentioned the positive impact she had on their lives," Mrs. Corrie continued.

"Rachel went to Gaza to do more than stand in front of bulldozers. She was doing the paper work to make Rafah a sister city of Olympia and was negotiating with a local storekeeper to sell hand crafts from Gaza. Rachel was concerned about the water shortage in Gaza and slept beside wells to protect them."

The young idealist confided in e-mails that being in Gaza was the most important work of her life. "Rachel admitted she was often afraid," her mother said, "but she wanted to see an end to the injustice perpetrated there."

The emotional finale was the presentation of a hand-embroidered Palestinian jacket from Sameera Sood of the Palestinian-American Women's Association to Mrs. Corrie. Other organizers of the ISM fund-raiser were American Friends Service Committee, Los Angeles-Palestine Solidarity Committee and MPAC.

And, as her teacher once predicted, Rachel has made a difference. Olympians are carrying out Rachel's endeavors to establish a sister city relationship with Rafah and, according to Phan Nguyen, Olympia's ISM coordinator, many people are signing up to serve with ISM this summer.

The Corries have established the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice, which can be visited at <www.rachelsfoundation.org>.

PROTEST ON ISRAELI CRACKDOWN

It may be difficult to stop Israeli atrocities, but much can be done to expose Israel's new push to expel foreigners bearing witness to its assault on the Palestinian population. A noisy, attention-getting May 16 demonstration was arranged within four days at the Los Angeles Israeli Consulate, where passing motorists honked their horns and gave the V sign to protesters on both sides of Wilshire Boulevard.

Many protesters wore hastily sewn orange and yellow day-glo vests, the uniform of International Solidarity Movement workers in Gaza and the West Bank.

At the rally, Michael Shaik of Canberra, Australia, recalled his experiences with the ISM from Jan. 16 to April 16. "The U.S. wants all these abuses covered up, they don't want Israel to be embarrassed," he told the crowd of 150 people. "This year the U.S. is giving $15 billion to Israel to keep up its occupation of the Palestinians. Israeli soldiers bear no responsibility, they can deliberately kill anyone with impunity."

One month before Rachel Corrie was murdered, Shaik said, he had called the U.S. Consulate to say that American citizens were being threatened by Israeli soldiers and settlers. The response was that the Americans shouldn't be there.

"What if Americans are killed?" he asked.

The consular officer responded that that was no excuse.

"I won't let Rachel's death be in vain," the young volunteer told the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. "Brian [Avery] is my friend as well. So much must be told to the world. It is stupefying to see how the truth is muffled."

Avery was shot in the face April 5 in Jenin by soldiers in an armored personnel carrier who opened fire on unarmed ISM members.

Protesters sent a letter to the Israeli Consulate demanding Israel rescind requirements that foreigners entering Gaza sign waivers absolving the Israeli army if they shoot them.

Across the street from the consulate, a dozen demonstrators held a 32-foot-long banner that read "No Occupation in Palestine or Iraq." A husky, bearded protester wearing a red beret and plaid shirt carried a sign reading: "Sharon's Orgy of Hatred, Bush's Orgy of Greed." As he approached the demonstration, he remarked, people asked, "Who's Sharon, your old girlfriend? Are you advertising a porno flick?"

MUSLIM ACHIEVERS HONORED

Each year the Islamic Center of Southern California honors Muslims who have made remarkable contributions in their fields of endeavor and to their community. With the onset of the war on Iraq, Dr. Maher Hathout confessed that the center initially questioned the propriety of staging the annual ceremony.

"Unsettling things have been going on in the U.S.," he acknowledged, "but we decided our response should be a healthy defiance by honoring our achievers."

Receiving awards for 2003 were Talat Hasan, CEO of Sensys Instruments of Santa Clara, CA, and Dr. Sulayman S. Nyang, a Gambian-born professor of African Studies at Howard University in Washington, DC.

More than 500 Muslim leaders turned out for the elegant dinner program in the Crystal Ballroom of the Biltmore Hotel.

A native of West Bengal, India, Hasan received her master's degree in solid state physics from Oxford University and, after moving to the U.S. with her husband, started her own Silicon Valley company, Prometrix, in 1983. She subsequently founded Sensys Instruments with two Stanford University professors.

During her initial years in Silicon Valley, she recalled, she identified herself as an immigrant and as a woman in an almost exclusively male field. But 9/11 changed her priorities, and she now sees herself as a Muslim first.

The diminutive scientist enumerated three lessons she has learned as a Muslim in 26 years of life in the U.S.

The first, she said, was her realization that the empowerment of a community is associated with financial power. Hence, she has tried to use the wealth she has generated to empower her community. A case in point is the endowment for classical Indian music she and her husband established at UC Santa Cruz.

Secondly, she urged fellow Muslims to step out of the comfort zone and volunteer to serve the mainstream community and, lastly, to band together to create institutions for the next generation of Muslims.

Dr. Nyang emphasized that other minorities have gone through crises in American history.

"Citizenship wasn't an automatic right," he said, in the case of African Americans and Asians. Even Catholics and Jews were excluded for decades.

"American Muslims must learn to negotiate their way into the mainstream," he explained. "We represent 80 different nationalities in the U.S. from Bangladesh to Zambia. In Washington, DC, we're like Noah's Ark."

As co-director of Muslims in the American Public Square (MAPS), Dr. Nyang led a ground-breaking research project that examined the Muslim community's engagement in American life. It included a national survey, regional seminars and focus groups which will be followed up by a two-volume compilation of articles by participating researchers.

The scholar urged Muslims to engage in dialogue. "Don't be despondent," he advised. "Listen to the American accents of your children. They're not going back to the land of their parents, they are staying here."

He encouraged each member of the audience to get to know five Americans who sincerely care about them. "Become involved in your community and, when we are gone, our children can say —they came, they saw, and they contributed.'"

RABBI PAINTS GRIM PICTURE

Rabbi Arik Ascherman often is seen on TV lying prostrate before Israeli army bulldozers about to destroy Palestinian houses or olive trees. In his capacity as executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights, he discussed the efforts of his organization to protect disenfranchised Jews and Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories in a tour of the U.S.

When he visited the U.S. two years ago, the Harvard-educated rabbi was more optimistic for the region than he was May 7, when he spoke at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, CA.

Explaining that he has avoided using "explosive" language and that he rarely uttered the word "occupation," Rabbi Ascherman said two experiences in the past year have profoundly changed him.

The first was in April 2003 when he visited Jenin the day after the Israeli army pulled out.

"All I could think was, 'My God, what have we wrought?' as I looked at an entire city block reduced to powder, not rubble." he said.

A few months later, he received a frantic phone call that a Palestinian couple's infant born that night with life-threatening defects had to be hospitalized or he would die. But Palestinian ambulances could not pass Israeli army roadblocks. So the rabbi had to phone Physicians for Human Rights, who in turn called the Defense Ministry, and a permit finally was issued to allow the ambulance to cross Israeli checkpoints. That infant did live. The same night, however, a sick one-and-a-half-year-old Palestinian girl died because of the roadblocks.

"The bottom line is that when our self-defense requires us to endanger the lives of Palestinian babies," the rabbi said, "something is very, very wrong."

Rabbi Ascherman has been with RHR since it was founded during the first intifada. When the official order came to break people's bones, he explained, "a red line was crossed, a rabbinic response was needed."

RHR works with the courts, the Knesset and the media and practices civil disobedience in the name of human rights of Jews and non-Jews. Its three pillars are to introduce human rights issues in education, work in the courts for economic justice, and prevent demolition of Palestinian homes.

"We've had successes," he said, "and I know some Palestinians are sleeping in their homes and that low-income Jews have health care because of our efforts."

Stressing that Jews regard the land of Israel as holy, Rabbi Ascherman argued that human rights should be regarded as being holier. The only solution, he said, is territorial compromise.

"The situation is worse than ever before," the Pennsylvania native commented. "Earlier, we could remove a roadblock. I've never before seen security zones around settlements. It's a great land grab with the Separation Wall eating up 25 percent of the West Bank.

"Israelis and Palestinians are living without hope, in which the majority on both sides think there is no opponent to talk to," he concluded.

"JENIN, JENIN" PROGRAM A HIT

In the first of a series of talks, Dr. Riad Abdelkarim showed the documentary, "Jenin, Jenin," and discussed being at the camp shortly after it was invaded by Israel in April 2002. A year later, on April 25, he spoke to a standing-room-only audience in Workmen's Circle of Los Angeles.

Explaining that the Jenin district is one of the most impoverished parts of the West Bank, the Orange County physician said the Jenin Camp was established more than 50 years ago.

"These were not tents," he explained, "but cinderblock homes with tin roofs and narrow paths between dwellings. Two to three generations of 13,000 to 15,000 people lived here," he noted. "The Israelis totally destroyed 600 to 800 dwellings and rendered hundreds more unlivable."

The American-born internist traveled to the West Bank on behalf of the International Medical Corps and entered Jenin one and a half weeks after the Israelis pulled out. After he sent an e-mail relating the death and destruction of Jenin, Dr. Abdelkarim was arrested by the Israelis on May 5 and held in detention for two weeks.

"There is no question that life was extinguished beneath the mound of rubble," he told the audience. "The stories of terror, of bulldozers bringing down homes, of a mosque used as a toilet by Israeli soldiers were told by too many different witnesses not to be true.

"It is depressing, but it doesn't mean it's hopeless," he concluded. "When we hear about the deaths and shooting of Rachel Corrie, Brian Avery and Tom Hurndall, it's clear the Israeli government is sending a message: don't help these people. The only response is that we will continue to promote humanitarian missions."

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Pat and Samir Twair are free-lance journalists based in Los Angeles.