Rachel's War

[grobelaar]

Originally posted by enigmatic


Im sorry to say this but this is just not about the Israeli government and blaming them.

Yes in this case, it was an Israeli bullzoder that committed tuis murder.

But BOTH governments are to blame for this incident. We may not be able to blame the Palestine government directly, but indirectly they too are to blame for the murder of an innocent woman.

Until BOTH governments STOP taking revenge, until both governments STOP committing such atrocities (yes BOTH) then incidents like this will carry on.

IMO, this is not the time to start saying Israel is evil etc etc this is the time to start thinking seriosuly what can be done to HELP BOTH Palestine and Israel to resolve their differences.

So many innocent people are losing their lives because of something as trivial as LAND!

May Rachel's sould rest in pease. At least she died for something she believed in.

OK, I had a big rant on this, but its not really fair to shout about that - although I would suggest reading about the history of the creation of the state of Israel - IMO the peace process has to start with Israel they have committed more crimes and atrocities than I care to even think about... and they do so on a daily basis.

Bulldozing people's homes is the most insidious form of terrorism...

[Daddys Girl]

My heart sank when I read the emails and then went to the picture links.

Is this really the world that we live in, and is this really how man treats one another?

No matter how many tanks, guns and bombs the world may be harbouring, the most destructive weapon on Earth is Man.

It's a crying shame.

D_G.

[dirtyho]

Yeah, sorry enigmatic but you're talking bollocks.

Originally posted by invisibleplanet
fuck yaweh and the tank he rode into town on...

they ARE evil...

i hate the israelies - they are not jews - they are godless murderers with capitalist agenda of the usa behind them


those fucking israeli-americans...

ok, the situation is completely tragic and horrific, but listen to yourself. the type of language you use is equal in dimeanor to the oppressive concepts you so readily loathe. there is a better way than to allow hatred to consume you to the point of resembling the blackheartedness you so deeply resent.

do not forget your own inner balance, or you will be no better than those you condemn.



luv

@ invisibleplanet but all the others too
well allthough i am not in Israel right now i am ususally living in Tel aviv.
i really hate my fuckin government and what i hate really about it is that there i snothing u can really do.
our whole country is filled with hatred and fear towards the palastinian people. they are being treated even worse than u can imagine than seeing in the news.
our police and army are fucking (excuse me) nasis and if u try to demonstrate (and we are trying) they will just beat the hell out of you...
BUT!!!
and this goes mostly to invisibleplanet
i am sorry but ALL fucking governments including ur goverment and including arafat and the palestinian authority are to blame. and most of the public anywhere in the world is only getting partly aware of whats is really happening.
what is really happening is that whole groups of people on each side (and im not talking ajust about israel palestain) is being fed with one radical opinion. either this side is right or the other. and i am sorry but the picture is more than one sided.
as palestinian people are leaving in fear and killed and beaten up and have their houses blown apart its not so nice in Israel also.
Invisibleplanet - u r speaking from ur sfae home in england. i wanna see u live in Telaviv for example, where u cant go safe on the street cuz someone just might pull out a gun and shoot u just because u live in Israel. or going on the bus never being relaxed cuy it might blowup all the people inside no matter where they came from(israelies and arabic people)
or being afarid now that chemichal missileheads are gonna drop on my city and kill all my friend and parents(yes they have been carrordered to make shelters and soon carry gas masks on them) as i sit and watch it on the news here in germany.
this war has two sides and none of tham is right. and I am kinda fed up with people sitting in theire nice european countries telling me if im right or niot.
u know fucking nothing cuz u are not living there!!! u never have seen someone blow up in the street or being shot. u have never been in the occupied territories or in east jerusalem.
u are just watching fucking CNN!
when people start neglecting their hatred towrad any side whatever and start carring about the actuall people living the nightmare no matter what side maybe thing are going to change.
i am in a way glad this war is happening and maybe after this war gets bigger people will start to understand that war is about dead people no matter who they are and goverments are dictators in disguise no matter what regim it is.

how do you think we can get truth to everyone? it's a serious question. i'm not trying to be hypocrytical or cynical, i'm being serious. the answer does lie within truth. but no one gets the truth. how can everyone know what's really going on, or has the world gotten in so deep that we'll never really know the truth?

Originally Posted by grobelaar

Bulldozing people's homes is the most insidious form of terrorism...

Yup it definitely is and I know that.

Originally Posted by grobelaar

IMO the peace process has to start with Israel they have committed more crimes and atrocities than I care to even think about... and they do so on a daily basis.

I beleive that is not an informed judgement. I believe BOTH have committed as much crime as each other.

Originally Posted by dirtyho

Yeah, sorry enigmatic but you're talking bollocks

thats quite allright if you think so my opinion is my opinion.

Yes what happened to Rachel was terrible but you really think that the Palestines have not done the same to others?

You think because Rachel's incident was so publicised others have not suffered the same faith?

You believe that by pointing a finger at JUST ISRAEL the problem will be solved.

And yes I do KNOW the history of Israel and Palestine. i have studied it in GREAT DEPTH in mY A2 level history class.

@piscaries:
thats is a good question. i really dont know but i think if people stop being radical and teach listening and tolerance to their friends maybe it will spread up. i think the war cannot be prevented iand its not a war between states anymore its a war beetween old opinions and cultures that are all wrong in my opnion.
and i dont want to sound too mystical or something but i do believe that when u stop hating - the truth comes too you.
anyway just dont take everything u hear as the whole truth cuz there is more to it!

I'm 100% with Planet on this one. You go girl!
The Israeli Government is evil, and commiting genocide.

[invisibleplanet]

i simply will not apologise for my obvious anger towards the israeli/usa/uk governments for what is happening in palestine.

i would not choose to live in Tel Aviv, or any other part of illegally occupied Palestine.
if i lived there by birth, i would leave, and lobby all governments, so strongly do i disagree with the process of territory capture, and genocide.

i would not buy israeli produce
i would not work on a kibbutz which pushes the front line into palestine
i would scream my hatred for the policies of the idf and the israeli government from every street
i would write everywhere that the holocaust had come back
that the jews in power were no better than the SS in their systematic genocide of the arabs
i would write on every forum that the jewish people of illegally occupied palestine have learned nothing from the holocaust.

this war has only one side - planned since the 50's by mcCarthy's America. the israeli people are being used as a tool by the usa
their religious beliefs are being exploited by warlords
palestinians are being murdered for this agenda



quite simply - the holocaust is now in palestine.

and whilst i have a british passport,
i am a malaysian buddhist

[invisibleplanet]

and igniop
i am glad u are in germany
because there u are safe from the gunfire which is the fault of your government, and not of the palestinian making
at any time, the israeli government could have formed a jewish council, and lived peacefully and farmed peacefully alongside the arabs
at any point in time, the israeli government could have chosen to buy houses and land like any other people who wish to live in any other land, instead of stealing and murdering to acquire it

[aleks]

but what does arafat contribute to get a peace process going? nothing...he´s the one to stop them suicide attacks, which always are the cause for throwing back the whole thing. it´s quite easy just to blame the israeli gov. if i were an israeli and my brother or friend got killed by a suicide bombing my whole perspective (that the israeli gov is wrong) that i have got would change entirely. ..

i reckon there is a peace movement within the israeli people and i also reckon that most of the people are sick of living in fear and don´t agree with the gov, but is there a palastine peace movement? i seriously doubt that...despite that kids get indoctrinated with hate for the israeli people. they ain´t doing nothing to get peace...

the situation is fucked up and i don´t think it will change someday.

[marcel]

Originally posted by aleks
but is there a palastine peace movement?

and is there a palastine nation?

[Ubik]

I' ve been in palestina, during the occupation of ramallah and i have seen with my eyes soldiers blocking the redcross helping a men injured and leaving him there while he was dead.
Terrorism is horrible but always remeber that:
There are 73 ONU resolutions that israel didn' t respect
More than half of the palestinian country is actually in the israel borders
Israel has nuclear weapons (like north corea) and sharon said that he' s ready to use them against irak in case of attack (just like north korea with south korea)
I' m sure that if somebody give to the palestinians tanks and F16 (like usa do with israel) they will prefere fighting for their contry with them instead of doing kamikaze attack (there are many more possibilities to go back home)





Sorry for my bad english.....

[Ubik]

Statement March 16, 2003

Craig and Cindy Corrie, parents of Rachel Corrie


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.

Excerpts from an e-mail from Rachel Corrie to her family on February 7, 2003

from the Gaza Strip.

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 this everywhere.

An eight-year-old was shot and killed by an Israeli tank two days before I

got here, and many of the children murmur his name to me, "Ali" --or point at

the posters of him on the walls. The children also love to get me to practice

my limited Arabic by asking me "Kaif Sharon?" "Kaif Bush?" and they laugh

when I say "Bush Majnoon" "Sharon Majnoon" back in my limited Arabic. (How is

Sharon? How is Bush? Bush is crazy. Sharon is crazy.) Of course this isn't

quite what I believe, and some of the adults who have the English correct me:

Bush mish Majnoon... Bush is a businessman. Today I tried to learn to say

"Bush is a tool", but I don't think it translated quite right. But anyway,

there are eight-year- olds here much more aware of the workings of the global

power structure than I was just a few years ago--at least regarding Israel.

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 downtown

Olympia at a checkpoint"a soldier with the power to decide whether I can go

about my business, and whether I can get home again when I'm done. So, if I

feel outrage at arriving and entering briefly and incompletely into the world

in which these children exist, I wonder conversely about how it would be for

them to arrive in my world. They know that children in the United States

don't usually have their parents shot and they know they sometimes get to see

the ocean. But once you have seen the ocean and lived in a silent place,

where water is taken for granted and not stolen in the night by bulldozers,

and once you have spent an evening when you haven,t wondered if the walls of

your home might suddenly fall inward waking you from your sleep, and once

you,ve met people who have never lost anyone-- once you have experienced the

reality of a world that isn't surrounded by murderous towers, tanks, armed

"settlements" and now a giant metal wall, I wonder if you can forgive the

world for all the years of your childhood spent existing--just existing--in

resistance to the constant stranglehold of the world,s fourth largest

military--backed by the world,s only superpower--in it,s attempt to erase you

from your home. That is something I wonder about these children. I wonder

what would happen if they really knew.

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 areas nearest the border are the original Rafah with

families who have lived on this land for at least a century, only the 1948

camps in the center of the city are Palestinian controlled areas under Oslo.

But as far as I can tell, there are few if any places that are not within the

sights of some tower or another. Certainly there is no place invulnerable to

apache helicopters or to the cameras of invisible drones we hear buzzing over

the city for hours at a time.

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 region then I hope they will start. I

also hope you'll come here. We've been wavering between five and six intern

ationals. 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. Thanks for the news I've

been getting from friends in the US. I just read a report back from a friend

who organized a peace group in Shelton, Washington, and was able to be part

of a delegation to the large January 18th protest in Washington DC. People

here watch the media, and they told me again today that there have been large

protests in the United States and "problems for the government" in the UK. So

thanks for allowing me to not feel like a complete polyanna when I

tentatively tell people here that many people in the United States do not

support the policies of our government, and that we are learning from global

examples how to resist.

[invisibleplanet]

igniop
i'm sorry my opinions have upset you
it's just all i see is harsher strike backs at the palestinians, and more of them lose their lives, businesses and homes, than the illegal occupiers of what was once their land.
The Jews began emigrating to Palestine since the 1880's, and since the genocide of Hitler's germany during the 30's, ithe numbers increased, and the Palestinians wanted to limit these numbers. With the assistance of USA and U in the 1940's, a Jewsih state was declared. Surrounding arab countries of Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon invaded the captured territory, but were beaten back with the assistance of the Jewish Allies. The Jews secured the area which had been proposed for them, and then began to extend it. Then with the aid of France and the UK in the 50's, they invaded the Sinai Peninsul of Egypt. International pressure caused them to give up this captured land, and UK and France drew back. In the 60's, the PLO was formed with Arafat as it's leader, The land was taken forcibly in the 60's, vowing to reclaim their land which was forcibly taken from them. In 1967, Israel and Palestine fought furiously, and Israel took back the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria, and the West Bank and Old Jerusalem from Jordan.
Constant calls to return to pre-1967 borders were called for, but in 1973, Egypt launched an attack on the Israelis. The Israelis captured back the land from Egypt. The USA bartered on behalf of the Israelis for recognition, in exchange for returning the Sinai Peninsula to the Egyptians.

In the early 80s, Israel invaded Lebanon as far as Beirut, withdrawing three years later, with a hostile border to maintain.
Syria stationed troops in Lebanon.

Throughout the 80's, Jewish settlements in Palestinian Land continued sytematically with the Kibbutzim enclosure method, right at the 'front line'. The Palestinians responed with the Intifada, the 'Popular Uprising - comprising of ordinary folk whose land and livelihood was being destroyed by Israel Defence Force.
In the 90', Israel and the PLO signed mutual recognition forms, Jordon signed a peace deal with Israel, and Israel withdrew finally from Lebanon. Allegedly, the Palestinian HIzbullah guerillas harried the withdrawal of the Israelis, and the Lebanese Army also had to flee with their families into Israel.
In 2000, violence increased suddenly after Ariel Sharon made a provocative visit to the Haram al-Sharif mosque compound. Palestinian Authority police traded fire with Israeli soldiers, most of the casualties were Arabs. A 12 year old boy was shot, apparently by Israeli troops, and the whole world heard of this. Sharon became Prime Minister at the end of 2000, and 300 people were dead.
After September 11, Israel began to pursue it's own 'WAR AGAINST TERRORISM. Tensions rose, and many were killed on both sides as a result of increased suicide bombings from the Palestinian side.
Israel occupied a huge part of the West Bank.

(paraphrased from the link below - click on it to see how Israeli territory grows....)
History of he war:how the Palestinians and Israelis came to conflict

[invisibleplanet]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/weblog/spe...533512,00.html

an excellent world weblog, providing the viewpoints of all involved in the israeli/palestinian conflict