Rachel Corrie: Endless Martyr for Anti-Israel Hatred
It is one thing to voice criticism of Israeli policy in Israel. All one has to do is read Haaretz on a regular basis and one will see many examples of this. But when Jews in America feature what is essentially Hamas propaganda as art, and show it at a yearly Jewish film festival, it is an altogether different thing. As writer Jamie Glazov asked: “Why is a Jewish film festival giving a platform to a documentary and to an individual that serve the cause of anti-Jewish hate?”
The latest example recently took place at San Francisco’s annual Jewish Film Festival, which featured a screening of the new anti-Israeli documentary, “Rachel,” a documentary that seems to be a film version of the three year old play “My Name is Rachel Corrie,” written by Katharine Viner and Alan Rickman, and based on editing of the late activist’s diaries. The film was directed by Simone Bitton, and featured interviews with activists from The International Solidarity Movement that Corrie had joined. As with the play, The Forward correspondent wrote, “what really moved the story forward was the narration courtesy of Corrie’s idealistic and heartfelt journal entries and correspondence read by her fellow ISM activists.” To make it simple: the film reflects Corrie’s point of view, and was meant to depict her as a martyr to Israeli oppression of the Palestinians.
The festival director asked Corrie’s mother to attend the screening, and to speak afterwards. Because of protests, the festival director brought in a pro-Israel speaker, Dr. Michael Harris, who was given a brief five minutes before the screening. Press reports indicate he could not be heard, and was booed continually. This kind of ploy is often done—a face-saving maneuver that hardly speaks to the issue, and is not sufficient to answer any of the falsehoods and slanders in the film.
No wonder the festival board’s president, Shana Penn, resigned from her office in protest at the screening. In her comments after the film was over, Corrie’s mother Cindy, whose point of view is the same as that of the filmmaker, only revealed the festival’s real intent—-to provide ammunition for Hamas and the opponents of Israel. As the pro-Israeli guest speaker Michael Harris noted after watching it, “Now that I’ve seen the film, I can certainly say it was appalling for its near complete lack of context.” Spoken words, he added, were hardly sufficient to counter “the power of images on the screen.” Even a left-wing Jew who watched the film named Rachel Masters, who is a member of the Tikkun community in Berkeley and the New Israel Fund, commented: “I never expected such an anti-Semitic and anti-Israel atmosphere” from those in attendance.
The film has not as yet come to the East Coast, although most certainly it will. Since its theme is similar in content and purpose to the play that was based on Corrie’s diary entries, I am following this with an Open Letter I wrote during the summer of 2007, when the play came to Shepherdstown, West Virginia, along with a similar appearance by Corrie’s parents. The points I made in this letter are obviously as relevant to the film. Here is the letter, addressed to the producer of the production, Ed Herendeen, director of the annual Contemporary American Theater Festival:
Ron,
This was a nice article, well written. But you missed some painful points that you could have driven home with the sledge-hammer. You are not going to like them.
How sad that those putting the Jews in the dock today are some American Jews, who feature Hamas propaganda at a Jewish film festival.
This evening begins the 9th of Av – that annual day of disaster when the Children of Israel lost faith in G-d and rejected His gift of the Land. After some hundreds of years living in the Land, a Babylonian army sacked Jerusalem (beginning on the 17th of Tammuz, three weeks ago) and destroyed the Temple of Solomon. The 9th of Av is a fast day to mourn that destruction.
Apparently there is a G-d – several more disasters happened on 9 Av.
The Romans destroyed the Temple of Herod, the city of Beitar (the last outpost of the Bar Kochba Rebellion) fell six decades later, Jews were expelled from several countries, (England, France and Spain) on this day several centuries apart, and finally, and most importantly, the Great War began on Tisha b’Av 5674, 1 August 1914. This was the war that set the stage for the German extermination of European Jewry – as well as the war that set the stage for the creation of the country where I live – Israel.
Jews in America, particularly the idiots who support the Arabs, the so-called “Palestinians”, have not yet figured out the Sin of the Spies committed by their own ancestors ove three millennia ago. These fools who put Hamas propaganda in a Jewish film festival are just an example. So, they will suffer for own their lack of faith, pig-headedness and stupidity – just like their ancestors did three millennia ago.
As a Jew, Ron, you might want to discuss with your loved ones the idea of getting out the the way of the nasty Tide of History about to overtake American Jews. These things get sloppy and ugly and it is not always true that the righteous escape the punishment allotted to the guilty.
If you fast for Tish’a b’Av, I wish you an easy fast.
Blessings from Samaria,
Ruvy
“Cynthia Ozick. Writing in The New Republic (Dec.11, 2006)”
A little less than two years later Cynthia Ozick probably voted for Barack Obama—just like Marty Peretz and Alan Dershowitz. It was obvious to any clear thinking individual that the newest occupant of the White House was going to slam Jews good and hard. And yet, they still voted for him. Moreover, Dershowitz is still make a fool of himself over Obama. Jews are not the only secular Uncle Toms. The same is true of their left-wing Catholic and Protestant counterparts. Unfortunately, there are just not that many Jews in the world. They represent maybe two percent of the total population. That means they simply cannot afford to commit a lot of stupid mistakes.
The bottom line is that not only wasn’t Corrie an innocent activist, but she was an accomplice to murderous terrorists. This is a fact.
In any case, the propaganda film about her ‘martyrdom’ is akin to the propaganda photo which was used to electrify the world, (thus vilifying Israel) through the (staged) clips of the child ‘martyr’ Al-Dura.
The very fact that Jews are involved with crucifying their own is odious, but nothing new under the sun.
They need to de dealt with in the sammer manner as one would deal with ones enemies.
Ron Radosh is not helping the image of the Israel-first crowd. I think he recognizes the power of the documentary, and the fact that the Israeli government covered-up the circumstances of Rachel’s death. It amazes me that any progressive Jewish American can stand by and defend the ethnic cleansing of Palestine while claiming to be a victim. Shame on Ron, and the entire hasbara brigade. Your side is losing, and losing big time.
I actually considered making a short Rachel Corrie film at one point. Remember the “Mr. Bill” skits from the old SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE?
I conceptualized a little claymation Corrie in her headscarf being run over by a full-sized tractor. Oh Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Meander, what amazes me are people like you, who romanticize and apologize for a violent jihadist culture like the Palestinians (proof of which is instantly available on Youtube and sites like memri.org) and who apparently think that if Israel ceased to exist, the Muslims and Jews would all get along splendiferously and that Hamas and Hezbollah wouldn’t make good on their promise to annihilate every Jew they could get their hands on. Also, the claim that Palestinians are being “ethnically cleansed” is, as any sane person would have to admit after reviewing the historical facts, an outrageous lie. If Israel wanted to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian population they could do so quite handily. The fact of the matter is that under “Zionazi” administration the West Bank and Gaza have seen sizable drops in infant mortality rates and an INCREASE of the total population.
What is happening to the Palestinians is the direct fault of their leadership and their culture, which prizes martyrdom and jihad more than peace. Whatever transgressions the Israeli government might commit, they can be excused by the fact that they are constantly under attack by Islamic terrorists and their nihilistic leftist and rightist enablers.
Meander:
You’re agitprop bullsh*t doesn’t work anymore. Al-Dura and fauxtography, among other things, have shown it to be the lie it is. Rachel Corrie was a naive, foolish girl who placed herself in harm’s way and paid the price.
If the Israelis were actually intent on genocide, they would take a leaf from your hero’s book (Stalin) and remove all the (surviving) Palestinians to Jordan.
“Your side is losing, and losing big time.”
No, zionology is losing. No appeal to the younger generation who can access information for themselves.
Though in its death throes it is over-acting out loudly, because the denial stage is not the last death stage of an ideology.
“If the Israelis were actually intent on genocide, they would take a leaf from your hero’s book (Stalin) and remove all the (surviving) Palestinians to Jordan.”
Which is exactly what Øbama and his FatHamas want to do with the Jews. First remove of the Jews from Judea and Samaria and half of Yerushalyaim, and then eventually (see “phased plan”) take the rest of Israel.
Meander: On the contrary, kind Stalinist sir, YOUR side is losing. Big time! There is a global populist awakening to the toxic reality of islamofascism. Nobody’s fooled any longer by the “Palestinians” except those who chose to be hoodwinked. However, similar to the Thirties, our Western liberal overlords still dance their impotent jig and prostate toward Mecca. But the tide has massively turned.
Comment #4 is another example why the world frowns at Israel as they continue to feed and water the so-called Palestinians while Egypt and the rest continue to supply the weapons.
Unlike the so-called Palestinians, who glory in suppling their little ones to the killing machine of Islam, Israel mourns one of their own, lost to the propaganda machine of the Islamic World, who relish playing the victim seething and stewing at the idea that one grain of sand in the Middle East does not belong to Allah.
How they long for the day when the rocks and the trees call out to them; Here is a Jew! Here is a Jew! Come and kill the Jew!
Bleck! I can taste the lukewarm porridge of mediation, always looking toward Israel to capitulate to the longing of their neighbors to wipe the Jewish People and the memory of Israel from the face of the earth.
I saw the original London production of “My Name is Rachel Corrie” at The Royal Court Theater in Sloane Square in April, 2005. Interestingly, Bloomberg News sponsored the plays at The Royal Court Theater at that time including that one and gave away tickets to “My Name……” to its London office employees. How ironic that a Jewish American billionaire and current mayor of New York has sponsored an orignal play about a pro-terrorist, anti-Israel Marxist radical.
Ron.. What is it about Rachel Corrie that so disturbs you? Is it less offensive to you that a nonviolent protestor was mashed into the rubble while holding a sign of protest than it is that someone might want to keep her memory alive?
Most of us believe in free speech. If your response to Rachel’s death is to want to forcibly muzzle any memory of her, rather than to devise some alternative interpretation of the shameful incident that made her famous, I would submit that you’re going down the wrong path.
I write from Rachel Corrie’s hometown. “Nonviolent protestor”? What a laugh. She was a useful idiot for a viciously terrorist front group. She represented a group and teachers who hate Israel and hate Jews.
Not many people can say this on this topic, but I knew her. This was a depressive twentysomething woman from an upscale WASP family whose slumming went terribly wrong. Despite having all the privileges, she couldn’t hold down a job. Couldn’t maintain relationships. Couldn’t graduate from an ungraded college after six years. She complained of maternal domination and when it got too uncomfortable she’d blow town. She’d sit in internet cafes smoking and fancied herself a journalist. She knew nothing about what she was writing about. She enthused and emoted and that was about it. You can get a degree for doing that at Evergreen. Just find professors who agree. Or just agree with the ones who stroke you when you comply with their views.
She found an organization happy to give her narcissistic strokes like her professors offered in smaller measure. She felt important and involved. She wrote emails back home to a bunch of us, full of what I saw as propaganda but it didn’t seem all that bad. Another idealistic kid of boomers on a mission to save people from their own and others complicated nuanced history. What arrogance, but that’s how it is.
And then she got a working class Jew to achieve her suicide for her by acting clearly suicidally. She gave her parents a post-retirement career by letting them convert her suicide into a scapegoat/salvation myth. In her family’s, college’s and community’s secular culture anybody’s assertion of emotion or narcissism is equal to the lived experience and reason of entire nations or peoples.
This is the real danger of the Rachel Corrie myth. It is a front for anti Semitism and indeed for the lived experience of anyone. It substitutes jet set slumming and calls terror tourist superior to those who live in an area. It lets us know that Craig and Cindy Corrie are our global masters who are superior to us b ecause they can come in at any time and tell us our own history and experience even when they know nothing more than propaganda.
So Michael that’s what disturbs me. She wasnt a nonviolent protestor. Her form of violence is refined and well heeled. It says “we know better than you do.”