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?
The left wants to make a martyr out of her, but to me she will always be an idiot who didn't get out of the way of a bulldozer. Even animals have more sense than that.
LOL, well it is worth repeating so go ahead and post it too :-)
nm you did LOL
Just another speed bump on the road to "WTH was I thinking" infamy.
See Dick and Rachel.
See the oncoming bulldozer.
See Dick run away from the bulldozer. Run Dick run!
See Rachel sit in front of the bulldozer. Sit Rachel sit!
See Dick live.
See Rachel die.
MORAL: Sometimes a Rachel is the bigger Dick.
[Maybe the young student from The Evergreen State College was a tad naive,]
Maybe she was but she's more than a tad dead.
Terrible when pictures of reality get in the way of fantasy.
No, that's a powerful testament to the evil of the subhuman scum that their daughter wasted her life trying to defend. Decent people don't attempt random kidnappings to make political points. Even Rachel Corrie's incredibly stupid stand in front of a bulldozer had more moral value than anything the Palis do on a daily basis. Including trying to kidnap her incredibly stupid parents just because they were Americans.
Tragic when such a beautiful innocent dies.
What this story is actually protesting is the fact that the Israeli soldier did not allow "her white skin and U.S. passport" to protect terrorists from reprisal.Which, in fact, also took courage in its own way.
"In both instances, the message was clear: Don't mess with us."
When "THE JOOS" express an opinion, it's an aggression. LOL
This is all you have to read to know where the writer stands.
I'm honestly not trying to be flippant, but....can you imagine what it was like for her to know (for those few seconds when she could still think) that she had made a horribly stupid decision? It must have been horrible for her to have not only realized she was going to die, but that she had chosen poorly in what she had done. How pathetic. How sad. What a waste.
A posthumous Darwin Award..
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