Posted on 03/24/2004 11:31:25 PM PST by PeaceCorpsGuy
Remembering Rachel A year ago, Rachel Corrie was killed while defending Palestinian homes from destruction in Gaza. The world was shocked. A resolution has been introduced in the House of Representatives commemorating her death, expressing sympathy for Rachel’s loved ones, and calling for an independent investigation, but it is stalled. On the anniversary of her death this week, newspapers around the nation featured editorials commemorating Rachel Corrie. The exception was the Wall Street Journal…
Simply Disgraceful An appalling piece in the Wall Street Journal this week written by Israeli translator, editor, and writer Ruhama Shattan. Its sole purpose is to demean the memory of late peace activist Rachel Corrie, who died a year ago this week when she was run over by a bulldozer in Gaza. Here’s a sample: “Today is the first anniversary of Rachel Corrie's death. 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 it was these explosives that in the year since her martyrdom--oops, death--have been strapped around suicide bombers…Corrie's peace, as anyone familiar with the Palestine Liberation Organization, Fatah, Hamas and Hezbollah organizations that she defended with her life knows--or as anyone familiar with the weekly rants of the Friday preachers in the Palestinian mosques is aware--means not peaceful coexistence but the elimination of the state of Israel.” Had this been written regarding a person’s death in any cause but that of the Palestinians, no self-respecting editor would have published it. If you think this is bad, you should see the Journal’s forum on this piece, where respondents are almost universal in their glee over her death, with one going as far as to say “Can we all now leave Rachel Corrie to the sweltering pig infested hell she so surely inhabits and get on with our lives…Let Rachel Corrie rot in hell where she belongs.” Please go to www.opinionjournal.com/extra/responses.html?article_id=110004796 and respond to these vile remarks. For the full article, go to http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110004796.
A House Divided… After comments by Israel’s housing minister Effi Eitam in Washington, DC recently, where he called on American Jews to come out against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to withdraw unilaterally from Gaza, it appears that Sharon’s plan faces opposition from both the left and right. It also appears to be losing the support of the United States government. Americans for Peace Now’s Middle East Peace Report, covering an article from the Israeli paper Yedioth Ahronoth, reports that “three American envoys—William Burns, Steve Hadley, and Elliott Abrams—returned to Washington after extended conversations with Israeli leaders last week. They left with the impression that an odd coalition, which is motivated by a number of competing goals, was waging an unyielding battle against the plan…Sharon is hoping that President Bush will provide him adequate political recompense that will facilitate persuading the ministers opposed. ‘What you’re actually asking us to do is to pay you for a withdrawal from Gaza with recognition of the annexation of territories in the West Bank,’ said one of the Americans. This is the place to make it clear: the Bush Administration has no intention of recognizing full Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem or the annexation of settlement blocs in the West Bank; of consenting to a route of the separation fence that swallows up Palestinian territories or providing assurances that America will oppose other political plans.”
This is Getting Syrias (ous)…Again! The Associated Press reports that the “No. 2 official at the State Department said Wednesday that Syria’s president risks isolation if he does not make a commitment to ending support for terrorist groups.” According to Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Syria is “kind of high up in my pantheon of supporters for terrorism.” Armitage also stated that Syrian president Bashir Assad “is faced with a decision now. He's at a fork in the road, and he can either go and have a fine life or he can be further isolated and be the only Baath Party left in the region.” Also, Adam Ereli, a State Department spokesman, was reported to have “sharply criticized Syria for cracking down on dissent in Lebanon and in Syria,” stating that the United States has made its “concerns known, and we reiterate our call upon the government of Syria to stop suppressing nonviolent political expression in Syria and Lebanon.” Fine, but the question is whether this is an early articulation of an “On to Damascus” drive?
Beware of Terrorists…or Arabs? Last week, the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign released a new political advertisement underlining the stability and leadership of President George W. Bush in uncertain times. If you don’t live in one of the “targeted states” of the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign, you may not have seen it. At one point in the ad, an anonymous dark-skinned man is flashed on the screen with scenes and language that clearly associate him with terrorism. While the ethnicity of the sinister looking villain of the ad is not named specifically, the implication is clearly that he is Arab. What is so frustrating about this is that the President has gone out of his way, particularly in the immediate wake of 9/11, to communicate that the war on terrorism is not a war on any one group or religion. Why, then, didn’t his campaign use a picture of an actual terrorist, like Osama bin Laden? Wouldn’t that have been both less offensive and more effective?
Couldn't have said it any better myself!
Just hum something in b-flat.
No really, go now, do it.
oh that is BAD. lol
Are you suggesting that these are somehow in questionable taste? ;)
Squish.
''Get-tin flat in the hot sun, She fought the doze, and the doze won.''
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