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This came to me tonight from a
friend in Colorado. It contains excerpts from an email Rachel Corrie wrote
to her parents before she was killed by an Israeli bulldozer.
----- Original
Message -----
From: JMK-CJPE
Sent: Tuesday, March 18,
2003 12:34 AM
Subject: [JMK-CJPE] "I am
allowed to go see theocean" Rachel Corrie wrote to her
family International release, March 17, 2003 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx "I am allowed to go see the ocean" Rachel Corrie wrote to her family xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [We forward the sad but courageous statement of the parents of Rachel Corrie, followed by a moving "letter from Palestine" which she sent them on Feb. 7, 2003, two weeks after her arrival in the Gaza Strip.] March 16, 2003 "We are now in a period of grieving and still finding out the details behind the death of Rachel in the Gaza Strip. We have raised all our children to appreciate the beauty of the global community and family and are proud that Rachel was able to live her convictions. Rachel was filled with love and a sense of duty to her fellow man, wherever they lived. And, she gave her life trying to protect those that are unable to protect themselves. Rachel wrote to us from the Gaza Strip and we would like to release to the media her experience in her own words at this time. Thank you. Craig and Cindy Corrie, parents of Rachel Corrie Excerpts from an e-mail from Rachel on February 7, 2003. I have been in Palestine for two weeks and one
hour now, and I still have very few words to describe what I see. It is
most difficult for me to think about what's going on here when I sit down to
write back to the United States -- something about the virtual portal into
luxury. I don't know if many of the children here have ever existed
without tank-shell holes in their walls and the towers of an occupying army
surveying them constantly from the near horizons. I think, although I'm
not entirely sure, that even the smallest of these children understand that life
is not like Nevertheless, I think about the fact that no
amount of reading, attendance at conferences, documentary viewing and word of
mouth could have prepared me for the reality of the situation here. You
just can't imagine it unless you see it, and even then you are always well aware
that your experience is not at all the reality: what with the difficulties the
Israeli Army would face if they shot an unarmed US citizen, and with the fact
that I have money to buy water when the army destroys wells, and, of course, the
fact that I have the option of leaving. Nobody in my family has been shot,
driving in their car, by a rocket launcher from a tower at the end of a major
street in my hometown. I have a home. I am allowed to go see the
ocean. Ostensibly it is still quite difficult for me to be held for months
or years on end without a trial (this because I am a white US citizen, as
opposed to so many others). When I leave for school or work I can be
relatively certain that there will not be a heavily armed soldier waiting half
way between Mud Bay and As an afterthought to all this rambling, I am in Rafah, a city of about 140,000 people, approximately 60 percent of whom are refugees--many of whom are twice or three times refugees. Rafah existed prior to 1948, but most of the people here are themselves or are descendants of people who were relocated here from their homes in historic Palestine--now Israel. Rafah was split in half when the Sinai returned to Egypt. Currently, the Israeli army is building a fourteen-meter-high wall between Rafah in Palestine and the border, carving a no-mans land from the houses along the border. Six hundred and two homes have been completely bulldozed according to the Rafah Popular Refugee Committee. The number of homes that have been partially destroyed is greater. Today as I walked on top of the rubble where homes once stood, Egyptian soldiers called to me from the other side of the border, "Go! Go!" because a tank was coming. Followed by waving and "what's your name?". There is something disturbing about this friendly curiosity. It reminded me of how much, to some degree, we are all kids curious about other kids: Egyptian kids shouting at strange women wandering into the path of tanks. Palestinian kids shot from the tanks when they peak out from behind walls to see what's going on. International kids standing in front of tanks with banners. Israeli kids in the tanks anonymously, occasionally shouting-- and also occasionally waving-- many forced to be here, many just aggressive, shooting into the houses as we wander away. In addition to the constant presence of
tanks along the border and in the western region between Rafah and settlements
along the coast, there are more IDF towers here than I can count--along the
horizon,at the end of streets. Some just army green metal.
Others these strange spiral staircases draped in some kind of netting to make
the activity within anonymous. Some hidden, just beneath the horizon of
buildings. A new one went up the other day in the time it took us to do
laundry and to cross town twice to hang banners. Despite the fact that
some of the I've been having trouble accessing news about
the outside world here, but I hear an escalation of war on Iraq is
inevitable. There is a great deal of concern here about the "reoccupation
of Gaza." Gaza is reoccupied every day to various extents, but I think the
fear is that the tanks will enter all the streets and remain here, instead of
entering some of the streets and then withdrawing after some hours or days to
observe and shoot from the edges of the communities. If people aren't
already thinking about the consequences of this war for the people of the entire
I also hope you'll come here. We've been wavering between five and six internationals. The neighborhoods that have asked us for some form of presence are Yibna, Tel El Sultan, Hi Salam, Brazil, Block J, Zorob, and Block O. There is also need for constant night-time presence at a well on the outskirts of Rafah since the Israeli army destroyed the two largest wells. According to the municipal water office the wells destroyed last week provided half of Rafah�s water supply. Many of the communities have requested internationals to be present at night to attempt to shield houses from further demolition. After about ten p.m. it is very difficult to move at night because the Israeli army treats anyone in the streets as resistance and shoots at them. So clearly we are too few. I continue to believe that my home, Olympia,
could gain a lot and offer a lot by deciding to make a commitment to Rafah in
the form of a sister- community relationship. Some teachers and children's
groups have expressed interest in e-mail exchanges, but this is only the tip of
the iceberg of solidarity work that might be done. Many people want their
voices to be heard, and I think we need to use some of our privilege as
internationals to get those voices heard directly in the US, rather than through
the filter of well-meaning internationals such as myself. I am just
beginning to learn, from what I expect to be a very intense tutelage, about the
ability of people to organize against all odds, and to resist against all odds.
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