FW: [MO-NP] Fwd: Rachel Corrie

["mc.foto" <mc.foto at libero.it>]

----------
Da: David Grant <BlueFoxNL at yahoo.com>
Data: Tue, 18 Mar 2003 08:18:05 -0800 (PST)
A: "MO-NP at yahoogroups.com" <mo-np at yahoogroups.com>, NP Discussion
<NPDiscussion at yahoogroups.com>
Oggetto: [MO-NP] Fwd: Rachel Corrie

from Nonviolent Peaceforce member organization, Israeli
Committee Against House Demolitions...

--- Jeff Halper <icahd at zahav.net.il> wrote:
> Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2003 01:24:17 +0200
> To: larudee at pacbell.net
> From: Jeff Halper <icahd at zahav.net.il>
> Subject: Rachel Corrie
> 
> 
> HONOR RACHEL, END HOUSE DEMOLITIONS
> 
> By Jeff Halper
> 
> 
> The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, together
> with the entire 
> Israeli peace and human rights movement, mourns the death
> in Gaza of Rachel
> Corrie and extends its condolences to her family, friends
> and comrades in 
> the International Solidarity Movement.
> 
> Rachel was not the first person killed as a result of
> Israel's cruel policy
> of house demolitions. Less than two weeks ago Nuha
> Makadma Sweidan and her
> unborn child were also killed in Gaza when Israeli army
> sappers 
> "accidentally" demolished their home when they blew up
> another home nearby.
> A few weeks before that an elderly woman and a disabled
> man died under the
> rubble of their Gazan homes when the soldiers "failed to
> notice" them. 
> These were no mere accidents. Israel routinely demolishes
> Palestinian 
> houses on top of all the families' possessions, and in
> their haste do not
> bother to follow prosaic rules of "safety."
> 
> The vast majority of demolitions, it must be understood,
> have nothing to do
> with terrorism. According to UN figures, less than 600 of
> the 10,000 houses
> demolished since the Occupation began in 1967 involved
> security suspects.
> All the rest  94% -- were simply houses of ordinary
> people that were in
> Israel's way. That was the case of the home of Dr. Samir
> Nasrallah, which 
> Rachel died protecting. Dr. Nasrallah had engaged in no
> hostile activities,
> had not been charged with anything. His house was
> demolished because, like
> dozens of others that have been bulldozed in that section
> of the dense 
> refugee camp, it laid within a wide "security strip" that
> Israel wants to 
> create along the border with Egypt. No compensation was
> given to Dr. 
> Nasrallah, no opportunity to appeal to the court, no
> alternative housing
> offered. Simply demolition that leaves families homeless,
> impoverished, 
> traumatized, ruined. An illegal policy, since
> international law forbids the
> demolition of houses by an Occupying Power.
> 
> So why does Israel pursue such a heartless policy that
> seems tailor-made to
> generating hatred against it? First, the policy of home
> demolition confines
> Palestinians to tiny overcrowded and non-viable islands
> of land, allowing
> Israel to control the entire West Bank and Gaza through
> its expansive 
> system of settlements. Second, Israel knows that homes
> are sacred to 
> Palestinians, the core of their extended family life. By
> demolishing Israel
> hopes to break the Palestinians' will to resist the
> Occupation and accept
> life in a truncated bantustan. And third, house
> demolitions are a key
> mechanism to the process of displacement, of Israel's
> exclusive claim to
> the entire  country.
> 
> Beyond the politics of the Occupation, it is this last
> reason that 
> motivates us, members of the Israeli peace camp, to
> resist demolition as
> Rachel did, to block the bulldozers with our bodies, and
> to rebuild 
> Palestinian homes when they are demolished. For by doing
> so we, as Israeli
> Jews, are saying to the Palestinians: We acknowledge your
> existence as a 
> people and your right to be in this country. We want to
> share this country
> with you, based on the rights of both our peoples. We
> seek a common future
> based on a just peace. We refuse to be enemies.
> 
> Rachel was not an Israeli. She was, as a member of the
> International 
> Solidarity Movement, a member of the international civil
> society, as we all
> are. In her actions she affirmed her responsibility for
> upholding the 
> inherent dignity and equal rights of all people,
> including their right to a
> nationality. She opposed non-violently the violence that
> occupation does 
> the Palestinians.
> 
> The threshold of what is outrageous has reached
> unimaginable heights in the
> Occupied Territories. Little moves us anymore. The
> demolition of 60 
> Palestinian homes in the Rafah section of Gaza where
> Rachel worked made
> barely a ripple when it happened a year ago. 2400
> Palestinians have died in
> the past two years, a quarter of them children and youth,
> and 22,000 have 
> been injured. Thirty percent of Palestinian children
> under the age of 5
> suffer from malnutrition. 500,000 olive and fruit trees
> have been uprooted
> or cut down. Israel is today imprisoning the Palestinians
> behind a 500 mile
> wall that is much longer, higher and more fortified than
> was the Berlin 
> Wall. Its all mind-boggling, its all happening before our
> eyes and -- who 
> cares?
> 
> Rachel cared.
> 
> 
> (Jeff Halper is the Coordinator of the Israeli Committee
> Against House 
> Demolitions (ICAHD). He can be reached at
> <icahd at zahav.net.il>.)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 


=====

David Grant / Nonviolent Peaceforce / POB 11309 / Washington DC 20008 / USA
/    (+1) 202-244-0951 / fax: -6396 / www.nonviolentpeaceforce.org
Out of office: 3-4, 9-11 and 16 April
 "A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their
mission can alter the course of history."                 - M.K. Gandhi


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