Nature Theatre of Hebron

[cd thacker]

You doubtless know more about her sponsor than I, but from what I've read, calling her death "probably avoidable" sounds like understatement bordering on the disingenuous. Let's see, it could have been avoided had she kept herself in Washington. But for some reason she didn't do that. It could have been avoided had the bulldozer not run over her. And then backed up, running over her again. It could have been avoided had she been less brave. Or less foolish. Or less idealistic. Or had she chosen some other cause than that of Palestinian civilians. <p>

 

But she was brave and young and idealistic, and she did champion their cause as her own. And the bulldozer did run over her twice and now she's dead. <p>

 

So what's the lesson? Stay at home? Choose sides more carefully? Don't stand in front of bulldozers, even if you are garbed in optic orange and carrying a bullhorn? Don't meddle in "someone else's" business? That it's now open season on anyone who stands in the way, no matter where they're from?<p>

 

No doubt those are all lessons that her murderers hoped to get across by her death. But perhaps none of the lessons is as powerful as what Rachel Corrie put across by the example of her young life - though I'm sure she'd have preferred not to have it end so soon.

[nesrani]

I meant it could have been avoided if the bulldozer driver had behaved more responsibly. I doubt he really wanted to kill someone, especially an "international". As to running her over twice, I don't know enough about the circumstances and doubt, again, that this was intentional. It seems more likely to me that he was just backing up. I have nothing but admiration for Corrie's convictions and evident courage.

 

Like the Jenin massacre, many things get exaggerated in the media - including the radical/alternative media, to which I contribute myself. But unlike the Jenin massacre, we'll probably never really know conclusively what happened in the Corrie case. I've heard so many exaggerated and irresponsible accounts of atrocities from internationals, Palestinians and Israelis that I'm sceptical about these things.

[asher]

X- you missed the truth about Jenin, as reported by the <U>PA</U>. There was no massacre of hundreds of Palestinians. There was a battle in which 56 Palestinian fighters and a 47 Israeli soldiers were killed. Sounds more like a battle than a massacre, but of course the truth received no attention, and the European reporters who jumped all over the mis-information about a "massacre", were suddenly silent when the truth came out <U>from the PA</U>. One-sided. Much like you.<P>

And yes- I'm Jewish. Thanks for noticing based on my name. And yes, I am biased in favor of Israel, the only Jewish sliver of a homeland in the world, that has come repeatedly under attack since the day it was created. But I am not a photojournalist with the responsibilities that come with that profession- balanced and unbiased reporting of all the facts.<P>

Like I've said before, I look forward to your promised story on the Israeli families of <U>victims</U> of EU-sponsored, UN-sanctioned murder at the hands of the PA. However, I suspect you will find some pathetic excuses as to why it can't be done.<P>

Goodbye.

[nesrani]

I think that was my point, Yoni - the massacre at Jenin simply didn't take place. You are obviously so worked up that you can't understand what I wrote just four lines above your rant. On the other hand, HRW _did_ report credibly on violations such as Israeli soldiers using Palestinians as human shields, inappropriate demolitions of houses and so on.

 

As to the reporting on Israeli civilian victims of suicide bombings, I have already said I'm interested in doing something about that. In fact I'm working on a proposal right now, and already have a book deal and exhibition commitments for it. However, pictures of people in Tel Aviv would not have been in any way relevant to this particular story. That'll be another story, I hope. For your interest, I did contact the central settlements in Hebron, but they were not interested in co-operating with me.

 

I hope you read this reply - but I have little hope you'll take it on board.

[asher]

Uh huh... So when I state my bias it's "ranting", and when you present your bias it's..

what?<P>

I did read your message- you repeatedly refer to what happened in Jenin as a

"massacre", thus perpetuating the illusory lies.<P>

Arafat uses the Palestinians as human shields. Perhaps you're a bit confused on who is

running the PA?<P>

I look forward to your story on Israel. I really hope you complete it with an unbiased

eye. It seems you're entering this story with a pre-determined idea of what you'll find.

But I guess I'm just "ranting".

[nesrani]

The evil Xinbad said:

 

"the massacre at Jenin simply didn't take place"

 

"exaggerated and irresponsible accounts of atrocities from internationals, Palestinians and Israelis"

 

You evidently have a reading comprehension problem, Yoni. Not unusual in any way, of course.

[asher]

Reading comprehension? My name is Asher. Not Yoni.<P>

[nesrani]

True, I apologise.

[asher]

I'm sorry too- that was just a smart-ass comment on my part.<P>

I've actually enjoyed debating with you, X, and I've learned some things as well,

widening my perspective. I hope you have too.<P>

Safe travels!<P>

Asher

[Allen Herbert]

Wow, a civilised debate, maybe, intelligent life will develop on earth in the distant future.

 

Nice change from the usual pissing contests associated with these threads.

[cd thacker]

<i>I am biased in favor of Israel</i><p>

 

For what it's worth, I've always been biased in favor of Israel, too - if by "biased" we mean not only championing it's right to exist, but also cognizant of the objective fact of its existence. And, no, I'm not Jewish, not in any usual sense, anyway - though for some reason I'm often taken as such, mostly by people who think that wearing glasses and having an IQ above, say, 80, means that you must be. I count Jews among the greatest friends and mentors of my life.<p>

 

What I'm not in favor of is framing Israel's existence in either/or terms (<i>either</i> Israel, <i>or</i> the Palestinians). I think framing it that way is unnecessary, stupid, and ultimately tragic.<p>

 

Further, for Ariel Sharon to say that, "we, the Jewish people, control their country and the Americans know it," strikes me as being both irresponsible and ignorant. It sounds like political hyperbole, meant for a naive and narrow audience (his fellow politicians). But whether he really believes it or not, I'd call it leading people down a primrose path, one that could have profoundly bad consequences. If Jews controlled the US (even if such a thing were possible), Menachem Begin would have never been at the negotiating table with Yassar Arafat. For most of those who control the US (to the extent it is controlled), Israel and the Jews are an expedient, and that's all they are. In my view, a clear-eyed Israeli leadership would recognize this, and thus conclude that making peace is among their first priorities, not their last. Maybe <a href="http://www.rabin.org/site/en/homepage.asp">Yitzhak Rabin</a> had arrived at this conclusion - in any event, he certainly made the effort to make the peace. But alas, like Rachel Corrie, he too is dead. Probably not the only thing they have, or had, in common.

[cd thacker]

<i>we'll probably never really know conclusively what happened in the Corrie case.</i><p>

 

Read the eyewitness reports. It's pretty clear.

[vic_.]

The story of Rachel Corrie is a tragedy. That we are able to put a human face on this tragedy, a person with a name, a family, and a life, makes it all the more tragic.

 

How many Rachel Corries have there been throughout history? How many more have to die?

 

One doesn�t hear of the native Rachel Corries who have died in Rwanda, Tibet, China, Chile, Argentina, El Salvador, Nicaragua, North Korea, or those Rachel Corries who languish in prisons in China, England (the imprisoned Irish), Russia, Singapore (all the opposition party members are in prison without trial), North Korea, and other repressive societies simply for the reason that they spoke up for their cause. These aforementioned countries prohibit any access to photo/journalists, so no records exist of these Rachels.

 

Photojournalists are also to blame. They tend to flock to situations that yield footage that sells in the apathetic West. Thus the interest in Israel / Hebron. Nobody cares about Africa. Rwanda is one of the most beautiful countries. Can anyone name even one of the people killed there? African lives don�t count in the current Western equation. Neither do those of the repressed Chinese, while we continue to buy billions of dollars worth of goods from China. Aren�t we contributing to the repression?

 

Rob Appleby�s pictures are dramatic and have all the deserved outstanding technical merit, but do they move people to do something, or is it just entertainment, like looking at the butt pictures in another thread and perhaps discussing things for a few minutes. Then it�s back to the sports pages. Meanwhile Rachel Corries still die in China everyday.

[nesrani]

Re: Corrie. Again, I admire her courage, but standing on a heap of rubble with a bulldozer driving at you in such an emotionally tense situation is a fatal accident waiting to happen. If she had been Palestinian, then I would have no trouble with the idea that her death was intentional, but in her case, I'm unconvinced. Eyewitness reports are often and even usually exaggerated; these people had lost a friend in the middle of a situation in which they were definitely on one side and saw the other side as aggessors. Again, I share their perception to a large extent, but I don't think it makes for an objective assessment of what actually happened.

 

Vic - some time ago I realised that my personal kind of activism was going to be doing this kind of work. It has a limited effect, but it's what I do, because it's what I do best. I could stand in front of bulldozers or march in Tel Aviv, but that would undermine my ability to do this kind of work. Not many people take good pictures, I do, so that's my contribution. I don't get paid for it. I've contributed two photostories to ZNet, and this means they have two eloquent visual statements about conditions in the West Bank. They have other presentations with pictures in them, but the pictures are crap. So I feel that I make a valuable contribution in this limited way. Good pictures speak better than bad pictures.

 

I try to get this stuff published in the mainstream media, but the fact is that it is too "controversial", as they say. No-one is going to ever publish proof of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank outside the radical press, even though critics of Israeli actions in the territories have been using this term for a long time now. And I refuse to tone down my stuff (to make it more "unbiased" - in other words, less true to the situation) for a few dollars. This means I'll never be a famous photographer, but screw that. That's not what I do it for.

 

I should add that while I see myself as an activist in this sense, I have no affiliations to any organisations or political parties. My point of view is always mine alone.

[edward_zimmermann]

Its somewhat ironic that an organization whose guidling method of agitation is based upon the assumption that Americans and Europeans are immune to actions of the IDF would want to claim that the Corrie accident was murder (see the writings of George Rishmawi)..

<P>

Leaving the accident/incident aside.. The ISM is just one of the many kinds of wacko groups running around these days that have hijacked the left. The ISM are NOT a peace movement but an organization with significant ties and open support to the like of the PLFP and other organizations that oppose any and all negotiations for peace as well as the fundamental existance of any state of Israel. Their spirtual grandparents are oddly--- and counter to their own self-image-- groups of the ilk of the British Legaue of Faschists in the 1930s--- Hitler's vision in "<cite>Mein Kampf</cite>" being of world peace. This is, unfortunately, indicative of much of the "peace movement" in Europe and the US (see Clark's tie-ins). Spooky stuff!

[cd thacker]

I agree that it's spooky stuff. It's <i>all</i> spooky stuff. Poltics, as a rule, don't interest me. What interests me is people and their passions. <p>

 

I find myself agreeing with the point Vic makes so elequently: history is replete with Rachel Corries, on all sides, most of them unheard of and largely unsung. Of course, that doesn't make her death, or theirs, any less sad or tragic. But it does put it into a certain perspective.<p>

 

I think it's important try to see things from all points of view, now one, now another, all the time. To some that's a copout. To me it's freedom. I confess that I do enjoy, now and again, playing gadfly. But the only cause I can honestly lay claim to is my own. Perhaps if more people felt that way - ultimately concerned with their own development, instead of with this cause or that - we'd have less conflict - and tragedy - in the world, good intentions notwithstanding.<p>

 

If your own development means making pictures in Hebron, more power to you.

[nesrani]

I don't agree with Zimmermann's characterisation of ISM as a wacko organisation. This is just more mudflinging, of the type so wearyingly familiar from supporters of Israel. I do however take some exception to their tactics.

 

However, that apart, I don't think it is right to compare Rachel Corrie to the mass of victims of Israeli state terror in the Territories. They have no choice about being involved and targeted; Corrie did. She chose to be there, which is admirable, but to say that there are millions of Rachel Corries is to belittle the real problem.

 

Hannah Arendt, in her Lessing Prize acceptance speech, commented on Nathan the Wise's appeal to humanity that he was first and foremost a human being, that in the context of the holocaust, a Jew was first and foremost a Jew. I think this is right, and the same thing can be said of the Palestinians. Their identity is stamped by their oppression - they are first and foremost Palestinians, or I would even say, in the colonial context, Arabs. Rachel Corrie cannot claim that identity, although she died to support it.

[cd thacker]

I didn't interpret Vic's comments as meaning that all victims of terror are equivalent to Rachel Corrie (and he can correct me if I'm wrong); I interpreted them to mean that everywhere and in every age there are individuals who identify with a cause and take it as their own, for whatever reason, good or bad - because it appeals to their sense of justice, or because it involves a community they are part of, or because it takes place on land they consider theirs, or for a host of other possible reasons; individuals who stand up for a cause and die in the result. This gives them an identity, and adds drama and meaning to their lives and to their deaths. But mostly it is an identity and drama and meaning that they have <i>chosen</i>. <p>

 

When someone like Rachel Corrie dies in the way she did, we admire her fortitude precisely because it was her choice. When someone else dies in similar circumstances but without seeming choice, we only pity them. <p>

 

But, excepting children, don't we, most of the time (not all) choose to be where we are? Don't Israelis choose to identify as Israelis, and Palestinians as Palestinians? Granted, there were Jews in Europe who had their identities foisted on them, or who didn't get away in time. But at least some of even that might have been attributable to their not wanting to face the reality of their situation, one which must have been increasingly apparent for some time.<p>

 

Personally, I think it's stupid to identify so closely with some piece of land, or even a community, that you're willing to give your life and the lives of your family for it (unless of course there really is no option - but I think that's more rare than we imagine). But of course most of the world is heartily in favor of causes and group identity - and especially in favor of nationalism (their own). And that's really what this is all about, on both sides.

[cd thacker]

So I guess that means that it can be admirable - and <i>stupid</i> - at the same time. :)

[vic_.]

Random thoughts on a Sunday morning while listening to church bells.

 

<P>In the US there is so much selective bullshit floating around, that to try and put forth any kind of argument for objectivity is to risk being called a fringe element or a terrorist sympathizer.

 

<P>Example 1. Saddam is being called an oppressive and evil person. While true, most of his atrocities were committed during the 1980�s, when he was trying to consolidate power for himself. During this period he was a friend of Ronald Reagan and was being armed by the US government. Dick Cheney even went so see him. The knowledge of his atrocities existed back then, but was never made an issue as it was against US interests.

 

<P>2. The greatest media genius was Dr. Josef Goebbels. One of his mantras was that if you lie, make it a huge lie and barrage the public with it, and magically it will be believed. Bush used this tactic in linking Saddam with Al Queda. Polls show that a significant portion of the US public think there is a solid link, when there is in fact none. The whole WMD argument is another example of this technique. Thank you Dr. Goebbels, you are my saint.

 

<P>3. The US right wing leadership is stacked with �Chicken Hawks,� draft dodgers who love to exercise military power, to have no hesitation in sending other people�s sons into harms way. Draft dodgers include George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Pat Buchanan and Rush Limbaugh. Clinton was villified for dodging the draft, but not these men.

 

<P>4. In the US, there are very few unbiased sources of news. On television, the network news channels (ABC, CBS, NBC) have all been scared into becoming mouthpieces of government propoganda. They are incapable of objective comment. It�s all about ratings. Fox News is off the scale, no objectivity there. PBS and C-Span are the only channels that keep out bias, but very few people watch them. Therefore, anyone outside the US should not be surprised by the bizarre logic in the arguments propogated by Americans.

 

<P>5. Rachel Corrie is indeed a tragedy, and one can only feel anguish about it. I don�t mean to dimish what happened to her, but if you examine a bit deeper, some questions arise. Being a White American made her death seem more tragic, as people tend to put a higher value on White American lives when compared to people from the third world, many more of whom have died unsung and forgotten. It�s a good thing that she has raised the consciousness of people. Michael Moore has dedicated his bestseller book to her.

 

<P>6. The whole fiction of Private Lynch that has become a cottage industry here is truly laughable. Nobody in the media has the balls to point out that it is a total fabrication. Being a white woman makes it a made for TV story with high ratings, and people are trampling over each other to get the media rights. Meanwhile, the black and the dead soldiers are ignored and have no movie rights.

 

<P>7. One of the examples put forth by Bush is that he wants the Iraq occupation to be as successful as the US occupation of the Phillipines a century ago. What most people forget is that over 30,000 White Americans (that was the army back then) came back in body bags and the US killed a lot of the intellectuals of the country (the writers, poets, artists). In the end the oligarchs took over. A similar formula seems to be happening in Iraq today.

 

<P>8. After the Balfour declaration, which made Israel possible, most Jewish intellectuals specifically did not want the creation of the Jewish state, but wanted a cultural presence in the region, ie., to live there without carving out a state. They were afraid that if they became colonial occupiers, it would turn them into oppressors. The political people won and the rest is history. Before then, Jews and Muslims lived in harmony for centuries. When the Crusaders came and threw Jews and Arabs into burning oil, destroying synagogues and mosques, it was Salaudin who gave loans to reconstruct the synagogues.

 

<P>9. At the end of the day, what have we learned from all the religion that we keep spouting? To love your neighbor seems to have been forgotten. Everyone�s on some kind of Jihad. The operation �Infinite Justice� that was referred to as a crusade. The use of the word Satan, etc., by that crazy general. It seems to be a �My God is better than your God� kind of situation.

 

<P>10. More importantly than God, the US has the might to solve all these problems, but chooses not to. This is the big question.

 

<P>Now back to discussing Lux vs. Cron.

 

[edward_zimmermann]

"<cite>The political people won and the rest is history. Before then, Jews and Muslims lived in harmony for centuries.</cite>"

<P>

Compared perhaps to early 20th Century Europe but.. To understand the "harmony" (as well the the demographics) one need, however, to examine Ottoman policy and power models in the region. But if you want to suggest that the roots of much of the current popular genocidal anti-semitism is of European origin I would agree-- however much of it more than well predates the establishment of the State of Israel or even the publication of Herzl's "<cite> Der Judenstaat</cite>"

<P>

"<cite>9. At the end of the day, what have we learned from all the religion that we keep spouting? To love your neighbor</cite>"

<P>

That's what Christianity of the crusaders claim-- where love also means the obligation to salvage souls even if it means by the sword.

<P>

"<cite>after the Balfour declaration, which made Israel possible, most Jewish intellectuals specifically did not want the creation of the Jewish state,</cite>"

<P>

This is incorrect. Most oppositions were born either of Halacha concerns--- even from the liberal element ( See some of the writings on the mater from Cohen or Rosenzweig)--- or a question of the need (a question that was clearly answered in the holocaust).

<P>

"<cite>My God is better than your God?</cite>"

<P>

This is NOT a position of jewish writing, law or belief. The Talmud explicitly writes to the contrary. The only difference between Jews and others is that the Jewish people have been chosen by G-d to recieve the Torah and enter into a bonding committment to observe its laws. And among the laws are the protection of others beliefs.

[beatrice_flowers]

Yeah... not only is it a theater, it's a darn good show too. I'll tell you that!

[Allen Herbert]

Moth man, he can see the light, but he just can�t get there. Why, there�s a barrier, made of prejudice,greed, nationalism, self love, religious intolerance, and of course, he knows, but he likes playing the fool.. but he keeps trying, but he just can�t see the barrier.

 

Moth Man..<div></div>