à Rachel Corrie

[emma-louise]

Rachel Corrie fought for world she believed in

By MOLLY MCCLAIN


Last year on the afternoon of March 16, an Israeli soldier -- intentionally, I believe -- ran over 23-year-old Rachel Corrie in the occupied territories of Palestine with an armored Caterpillar bulldozer. Rachel was trying to prevent the soldier from crashing that bulldozer into the house of a Palestinian family in Rafah. There was good reason to believe the soldier was going to demolish the house, as the Israeli army has destroyed more than 1,000 homes and misplaced nearly 15,000 people in that small town in the past two years.

There is a definite pattern to the home demolition. Occasionally in the news, we hear claims that all the homes in Rafah were hiding tunnels that allow weapons into Gaza from Egypt. This is questionable arithmetic as only four tunnels have been found -- only one of which had evidence of weapons transport. What you may not have heard about is the wall the army is building between Rafah and Egypt. In fact, it is all the homes, greenhouses, fields, mosques, schools and shops "in the way" of this wall that have been destroyed.

I have seen this wall, this security zone and the massive destruction. I spent two weeks in Rafah in December 2002 and returned for three months last summer.

Some people blamed Rachel, a student at Evergreen State College, for her own murder; they accused her of everything from being an impressionable, idealistic kid who had been brainwashed to a defender of terrorists.

It is hard to imagine what life is like for people in Palestine, and I cling to the hope that it is this lack of imagination that leads so many to believe that all Palestinians are terrorists or that Rachel was either brainless or evil.

Can you imagine trying to watch TV with your husband and kids but the sound of a helicopter above your house is so loud that it drowns out the sound? Can you imagine your kids running into your arms in fear, desperate for reassurance that you can't give?

Imagine that you have just enough time to get your kids into your bedroom, under the bed, before the ceiling explodes down around your heads because a missile has been shot from the helicopter. Picture yourself running outside without shoes, a kid holding each hand, to your neighbor's house. Can you imagine experiencing this and not being able to call anyone for help?

Rachel chose not to live in insulated, unimaginative safety. She could picture Palestinians' plight so well that she felt moved to do something about it. She imagined and fought for a world where everyone lives in freedom, peace, equality and justice.

If Rachel could return to Rafah today, she would see a different place. Entire neighborhoods where she stayed, where I stayed, are gone. Abu Jameel's street? Only five of about 30 houses were left standing after a midnight attack by the army in January. Abu Ahmed's neighborhood? Also gone since January. Almost every day, someone -- often a child -- is killed in Gaza.

While I was in Rafah it was difficult to imagine life back home, to imagine joy and lightness. But sometimes, as I spent the night with a family, listening to the army shooting into the town and homes and the sound of tanks and bulldozers, I imagined Rachel.

Sometimes I saw her as a headstrong little kid, other times dancing to Pat Benatar songs in a crazy outfit in front of Israeli tanks, just to make the soldiers laugh. Sometimes I saw her as a mom or the president of the United States.

To people all over the world, especially in Rafah, she is a hero. If you have thought that she was just an idiotic kid who deserved to die, I ask: What kind of world do you imagine, believe in or fight for?

Molly McClain lives in Seattle and works with the Palestine Solidarity Committee.