Saints, Sinners and Boycott: Rachel Corrie and the State of Israel

by Diane V. McLoughlin, Mar. 30, 2010
main website: http://www.mcloughlinpost.com

Rachel Corrie was a 24 year-old American member of the International Solidarity Movement.  She was killed March 16, 2003, trying to protect Samir Nasrallah's home by acting as a human shield.

Whether or not Rachel Corrie was deliberately murdered or not is almost beside the point.  It wasn't an accident that Israeli Defense Force Caterpillar bulldozers were in a Palestinian neighborhood illegally destroying homes, causing protesters such as Rachel Corrie to peacefully object.

What happened to Rachel Corrie that day in 2003 as she stood on a pile of dirt in front of  a Palestinian pharmacist's home, and Israel's vitriolic attacks against anyone who questions what's going on, is a microcosmic example of Israel's criminal behavior.

Gaza is the macrocosmic one:  Hamas abided by the 2008 ceasefire with Israel; the deal was that this should have led to the lifting of the illegal military blockade of Gaza - a military siege that is strangling the life out of 1.5 million Palestinians - half of whom are children.

Instead of easing the blockade, behind their backs Israel girded to attack - destroying tens of thousands of homes, many factories, schools, mosques, farms and 17% of Gaza's farmland.   1,400 people were killed. Hundreds of them were children.

Israel lies about who broke the ceasefire.  Israel lies about the war crimes they committed.  Israel calls anyone who criticizes Israel anti-Semites.  But Palestinians are Semites, not to mention people, too.

Sieges on Gaza have been on and off for ten years now.   Most of the people are shattered.  The children suffer PTSD.  Most children have seen a loved one perish.

The rockets?  The area of Sderot sits on lands that were ethnically cleansed of Palestinians. The Jewish village of Sderot is situated on stolen Palestinian lands.  Gaza is largely populated by Palestinian refugees who were rounded up like cattle by the IDF and herded out on trucks.  Now, in their open-air prison called Gaza Israel starves them.

Just as with Rachel Corrie, Israel is prepared to crush anybody that is in the way of Israel's scheme of Lebensraum - a political belief system which dictates that war is justified because of the 'biological necessity' for more living space - an argument used to great effect by the Nazis in their ruthless and limitless ambitions to overtake Eastern Europe for the expansion of the German population.


March 30th is Boycott Israel Day.

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