Posted on 03/17/2006 4:41:34 PM PST by bondjamesbond
If there were poetic justice, if Hollywood or the publishing industry had true courage, the story of Rachel Corrie would be coming to a big screen or bookstore near you.
For now, the streets of Seattle will have to do. Tonight marks the third anniversary of the day Rachel died. A public reading of her mature writings will be held at 5 p.m. at Westlake Plaza.
Rachel was in the Middle East, trying to protect the home of a Palestinian from immoral demolition, when an Israeli soldier driving a Caterpillar bulldozer killed her. He ran her over.
Maybe the young student from The Evergreen State College was a tad naive, a puppet of left-leaning loonies with the International Solidarity Movement. Some people think this. Maybe she was prescient beyond her 23 years, recognizing that her white skin and U.S. passport could bring vital attention to ignored people in subhuman and desperate conditions. Some think that.
Whichever the case, too many people are reflexively afraid of Rachel's message, of what her short life and brutal death means.
The issue has gotten to the point that what passes for dialogue is either polemical shouting -- or, worse, a campaign to silence the legacy of the young woman who addressed human suffering with fiery grace. Rachel cared about ordinary people outside of her comfort zone -- enough to get off the couch and do something.
The New York Theater Workshop recently canceled a scheduled production of a play about Rachel amid rumors that gurus in the theater world and pro-Israel audiences would not like a script challenging their view of the world.
In Seattle, the Bread and Puppet Theater production of "Daughter Courage," a different play about Rachel, met with warm embrace. Still, my colleague, Regina Hackett, who wrote about it, received a rash of rebuke. On the Seattle P-I's online blog, "Dr. Evil" wrote: "Only in this wonderful, liberal city would a pathetic naïve girl who tried to protect terrorists be celebrated."
If fear of offending Israel -- a country in blind lockstep with the United States on foreign policy -- drives this second silencing of Rachel, then her story is needed now more than ever.
Friends of Israel and Jews tend to react fast when they feel they're getting a raw deal.
Seattle official Cindi Laws learned this the hard way. She made remarks that were considered anti-Semitic during a re-election bid for the monorail board, and people howled. Laws lost.
And remember what happened in 2004? The local Middle Eastern community tried to get pro-Palestinian language in the plank of the King County Democratic Party platform. Again, people howled. The language got nixed.
In both instances, the message was clear: Don't mess with us.
The unease surrounding Rachel makes me wonder if she hits too close to home.
Her life follows the Aristotelian prescription of a good story. It features a protagonist with a desire for peace that takes her on a vision quest far away. She's smart, young, idealistic -- a female character that would draw A-list actresses.
The story overflows with potential villains, starting with the Israeli government, which illegally uses bulldozers as weapons of terror; Palestinians who resort to suicide bombs as an insane tool of revenge; and, even, U.S.-based Caterpillar, which counts the money as its bulldozers are used to spill blood.
There's room for cameos by the State Department, which could ramp up pressure to get answers, and by concerned Israeli citizens who also want to know if the bulldozer operator, as he claims, didn't see Rachel in her bright orange vest. There's the bigger question of why no "Palestinian evil" was unearthed at the home Rachel died trying to protect.
The story presents another surprise -- the unlikely transformation of Rachel's parents, who have gone from being middle-class suburbanites to advocates for Palestinian justice.
When I spoke with Craig and Cindy Corrie a few weeks ago, they'd just come back home to the Seattle area after a rattling episode. In the Middle East, Palestinian activists had tried to kidnap them. The activists had a change of heart when they were told the couple's last name. If that is not a powerful testament to Rachel's legacy, I don't know what is.
Rachel's story has the incendiary aspects of "Crash," the political and corporate machinations of "Syriana," the death-on-foreign-soil intrigue of "The Constant Gardener," and the socially conscious punch of "Brokeback Mountain."
People would get to see the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in all of its convoluted craziness -- and see courage in action. To paraphrase the Oscar speech of George Clooney, they'd get to talk more loudly about an issue that remains, relatively speaking, a whisper.
Rachel Corrie is ready for her close-up. Are we?
SOUND OFF: ADD YOUR OPINION
Can Seattle liberals be proud about hosting a play on the remarkable Rachel Corrie without being smug?
do you know anything about the pic, or what was really going on?
the various pics of the girl suggest a possible psychiatric disorder (e.g., bipolar disorder; borderline personality disorder). she looks depressed in the college photo, and she looks fanatical/crazy in the pics where she is burning the flag. (however, i am not making a diagnosis here--i am just speculating, based on published photos.)
i suspect, but have no evidence, that a lot of "activists" have undiagnosed psych disorders.
This is one such dissection that I took from a website at the time:
Also, many people noted immediately after her....let's call it "richly deserved suicide by stupidity"...that the website of the terror supporters she belonged to posted a series of pictures purporting to chronicle her last day which were clearly -at the very least - not on the same day. Those pictures were rearranged and some removed once it became common knowledge that they were lies.
thanks!
that was pretty amazing!
do you know of any real pics taking just prior to her death?
The moonbats will never admit this, but if what happened to Rachel Corrie had occurred more often, then there would be a lot less Rachel Corries, and Lori Berensons, and other cloistered ignoramuses who have no concept of how the world actually works in reality, other than the fantastical, unrealistic garbarge they've ingested from their brain-dead liberal parents, and cloistered, Marxist teachers, who haven't taught them a damn thing.
Who knows?
Maybe Evergreen State College wouldn't even exist.
I don't know why it exists now.
Activists! That puts the kidnapping criminal terrorists on the same level as Rachel Corrie --- how poetic. They are equals in spirit. Full of hate and malevolent intentions. Rachel is dead, but the evil that infected her lives on.
ping
Thin crust only
Dear Mr. Seattle nut: If you think it's worth your time to do a puppet show about Rachel Corrie for all your leftist friends GO AHEAD. Nobody is stopping you, no matter what you claim. I lost a 22 year old friend to a vehicle. Only, my friend was driving home from a job interview when she got hit by a drunk driver. Rachel Corrie had plenty of time to get out of the way of the bulldozer and she didn't. The young IDF soldier who accidently ran over her because he couldn't see her probably still feels crappy about it, and you should be ASHAMED for trying to make him feel worse. It may be hard for you to believe, but Israelis are human beings.
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