Rachel Corrie, an Amazing Light
Born, April 10, 1979
Crossed over, March 16, 2003
The Israeli Defense Forces ended her life with a CAT D-9 bulldozer, because she cared about the Palestinian people.
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When she was a ten-year-old child in Olympia Washington, Rachel
delivered a speech at her fifth grade press conference on world hunger:
delivered a speech at her fifth grade press conference on world hunger:
"I'm here for other children.
I'm here because I care.
I'm here because children everywhere are suffering and
because forty thousand people die each day from hunger.
I'm here because those people are mostly children.
We have got to understand that the poor are all around us and we are ignoring them.
I'm here because those people are mostly children.
We have got to understand that the poor are all around us and we are ignoring them.
We have got to understand that these deaths are preventable.
We have got to understand that people in the Third World
countries think and care and smile and cry just like us.
We have got to understand that they dream our dreams and we
dream theirs.
We have got to understand that they are us. We are
them.
My dream is to stop hunger by the year 2000.
My dream is to save the forty thousand people who die each
day.
My dream can and will come true if we all look into the
future and see the light that shines there.
If we all help and work together, it will grow and burn free
with the potential of tomorrow."
Rachel Corrie
Excerpted from, Her Name Was Rachel Corrie, which is primarily from Rachel's own writings and worth reading: http://www.rense.com/general73/name.htm
This speech, featuring 10 year old Rachel Corrie, is available on YouTube:
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Rachel Corrie was an American citizen. She traveled to Palestine as a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement in January 2003. She went, because she cared. Her work there was primarily to be a witness to the inhumane conditions and atrocities imposed on Palestinian people by Israel. There was also the profound hope that the presence of international citizens would help protect Palestinian people, their homes, and necessary infrastructure, just by their presence.
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Quotes from Rachel Corrie's writing while she was in Palestine.
"We are protecting civilians. We are unarmed. We are no threat to you. Please do not shoot."
"Sometimes I sit down to dinner with people and I realize there is a massive military machine surrounding us, trying to kill the people I'm having dinner with."
“We should be inspired by people... who show that human beings can be kind, brave, generous, beautiful, strong-even in the most difficult circumstances.”
"I feel like I'm witnessing the systematic destruction of a people's ability to survive. It's horrifying."
“This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop. I don’t think it’s an extremist thing to do anymore."
From: Brainy Quotes, Good Reads, and the article: 'Rachel Corrie’s Parents Journey to Palestine.'
Learn More ~
For a deeper understanding of what she thought, you may also want to read Rachel's e-mails from Palestine, available on the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice's web site: http://rachelcorriefoundation.org/rachel/emails
Rachel Corrie's very moving book, Let Me Stand Alone, W.W. Norton & Company, is available on request from libraries, book stores, and on-line. For more information please see: http://letmestandalone.com/
Follow the Rachel Corrie Foundation on facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/rcfoundation
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On March 16, 2003, Rachel was crushed to death by the IDF. Even though there were four eyewitnesses to this murder, Israel has absolved itself and all parties involved of any wrong doing.
She will not be forgotten!
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| From Wikimedia Commons |
Rachel Corrie
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Take Action!
Boycott Caterpillar for its complicity and profiteering from the illegal occupation and Rachel Corrie's murder: http://boycott4peace.blogspot.com/2014/12/caterpillar-corporate-conscientiousness.html
Check out our complete boycott list:
http://boycott4peace.blogspot.com/2014/12/boycott-list.html
And our Quick Actions:
http://boycott4peace.blogspot.com/search/label/Quick%20action
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Boycott for Peace!
http://www.pinterest.com/boycott4peace/pins/
~~~
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Activists commemorating Rachel Corrie's death attacked in West Bank - See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/activists-commemorating-death-rachel-corrie-attacked-west-bank-2144484839#sthash.zcngGbJN.dpuf
ReplyDeleteHighlight and then right click the URL to open the article.
Rachel remembered in Gaza:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=817915988246291&set=a.147435071961056.22363.100000836916183&type=1&theater
No Justice for Rachel Corrie - or Palestine:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-center-for-constitutional-rights/no-justice-for-rachel-cor_b_6878234.html
Highlight and then right click the URL to open the article.
"Twelve years ago today, friend to Palestine, Rachel Corrie, was killed by an Israeli bulldozer supplied by Caterpillar Inc., an American corporation which designs, manufactures, and distributes industrial machinery including dozers, multi-terrain loaders, articulated trucks, and backhoes.
ReplyDelete"It is no secret that Caterpillar has a multi-million dollar contract with the State of Israel, providing machinery used to demolish homes, destroy agricultural land, uprooting ancient Palestinian olive groves -- and sometimes -- taking human lives."
(The photo is worth checking out . . . )
http://www.imemc.org/article/70912