Letters from Rachel Corrie
to her family 2003
February 7, 2003
Hi friends and family, and others,..
I have been in Palestine for two weeks and one hour now, and I still
have very few words to
describe what I see. It is most difficult for me to think about what's
going on here when I sit
down to write back to the United States. Something about the virtual
portal into luxury. I don't
know if many of the children here have ever existed without tank-shell
holes in their walls and
the towers of an occupying army surveying them constantly from the near
horizons. I think,
although I'm not entirely sure, that even the smallest of these
children understand that life is not
like this everywhere. An eight-year-old was shot and killed by an
Israeli tank two days before I
got here, and many of the children murmur his name to me--Ali--or point
at the posters of him
on the walls. The children also love to get me to practice my limited
Arabic by asking me, "Kaif
Sharon?" "Kaif Bush?" and they laugh when I say, "Bush majnoon,"
"Sharon majnoon" back in
my limited Arabic. (How is Sharon? How is Bush? Bush is crazy. Sharon
is crazy.) Of course
this isn't quite what I believe, and some of the adults who have the
English correct me: "Bush
mish majnoon"--Bush is a businessman. Today I tried to learn to say,
"Bush is a tool," but I
don't think it translated quite right. But anyway, there are
eight-year-olds here much more aware
of the workings of the global power structure than I was just a few
years ago.
Nevertheless, no amount of reading, attendance at conferences,
documentary viewing and word
of mouth could have prepared me for the reality of the situation here.
You just can't imagine it
unless you see it--and even then you are always well aware that your
experience of it is not at
all the reality: what with the difficulties the Israeli army would face
if they shot an unarmed U.S.
citizen, and with the fact that I have money to buy water when the army
destroys wells, and the
fact, of course, that I have the option of leaving. Nobody in my family
has been shot, driving in
their car, by a rocket launcher from a tower at the end of a major
street in my hometown. I have
a home. I am allowed to go see the ocean. When I leave for school or
work I can be relatively
certain that there will not be a heavily armed soldier waiting halfway
between Mud Bay and
downtown Olympia at a checkpoint with the power to decide whether I can
go about my
business, and whether I can get home again when I'm done. As an
afterthought to all this
rambling, I am in Rafah: a city of about 140,000 people, approximately
60% of whom are
refugees--many of whom are twice or three times refugees. Today, as I
walked on top of the
rubble where homes once stood, Egyptian soldiers called to me from the
other side of the border,
"Go! Go!" because a tank was coming. And then waving and "What's your
name?" Something
disturbing about this friendly curiosity. It reminded me of how much,
to some degree, we are all
kids curious about other kids. Egyptian kids shouting at strange women
wandering into the path
of tanks. Palestinian kids shot from the tanks when they peek out from
behind walls to see
what's going on. International kids standing in front of tanks with
banners. Israeli kids in the
tanks anonymously--occasionally shouting and also occasionally
waving--many forced to be
here, many just aggressive--shooting into the houses as we wander away.
I've been having trouble accessing news about the outside world
here, but I hear an escalation of
war on Iraq is inevitable. There is a great deal of concern here about
the "reoccupation of Gaza."
Gaza is reoccupied every day to various extents but I think the fear is
that the tanks will enter all
the streets and remain here instead of entering some of the streets and
then withdrawing after
some hours or days to observe and shoot from the edges of the
communities. If people aren't
already thinking about the consequences of this war for the people of
the entire region then I
hope you will start.
My love to everyone. My love to my mom. My love to smooch. My love to
fg and barnhair and
sesamees and Lincoln School. My love to Olympia.
Rachel
February 20, 2003
Mama,
Now the Israeli army has actually dug up the road to Gaza, and both of
the major checkpoints are
closed. This means that Palestinians who want to go and register for
their next quarter at
university can't. People can't get to their jobs and those who are
trapped on the other side can't
get home; and internationals, who have a meeting tomorrow in the West
Bank, won't make it.
We could probably make it through if we made serious use of our
international white person
privilege, but that would also mean some risk of arrest and
deportation, even though none of us
has done anything illegal.
The Gaza Strip is divided in thirds now. There is some talk about the
"reoccupation of Gaza,"
but I seriously doubt this will happen, because I think it would be a
geopolitically stupid move
for Israel right now. I think the more likely thing is an increase in
smaller
below-the-international-outcry-radar incursions and possibly the
oft-hinted "population
transfer."
I am staying put in Rafah for now, no plans to head north. I still feel
like I'm relatively safe and
think that my most likely risk in case of a larger-scale incursion is
arrest. A move to reoccupy
Gaza would generate a much larger outcry than Sharon's
assassination-during-peace-negotiations/land grab strategy, which is
working very well now to
create settlements all over, slowly but surely eliminating any
meaningful possibility for
Palestinian self-determination. Know that I have a lot of very nice
Palestinians looking after me.
I have a small flu bug, and got some very nice lemony drinks to cure
me. Also, the woman who
keeps the key for the well where we still sleep keeps asking me about
you. She doesn't speak a
bit of English, but she asks about my mom pretty frequently--wants to
make sure I'm calling
you.
Love to you and Dad and Sarah and Chris and everybody.
Rachel
February 27, 2003
(To her mother)
Love you. Really miss you. I have bad nightmares about tanks and
bulldozers outside our house
and you and me inside. Sometimes the adrenaline acts as an anesthetic
for weeks and then in the
evening or at night it just hits me again--a little bit of the reality
of the situation. I am really
scared for the people here. Yesterday, I watched a father lead his two
tiny children, holding his
hands, out into the sight of tanks and a sniper tower and bulldozers
and Jeeps because he thought
his house was going to be exploded. Jenny and I stayed in the house
with several women and two
small babies. It was our mistake in translation that caused him to
think it was his house that was
being exploded. In fact, the Israeli army was in the process of
detonating an explosive in the
ground nearby--one that appears to have been planted by Palestinian
resistance.
This is in the area where Sunday about 150 men were rounded up and
contained outside the
settlement with gunfire over their heads and around them, while tanks
and bulldozers destroyed
25 greenhouses--the livelihoods for 300 people. The explosive was right
in front of the
greenhouses--right in the point of entry for tanks that might come back
again. I was terrified to
think that this man felt it was less of a risk to walk out in view of
the tanks with his kids than to
stay in his house. I was really scared that they were all going to be
shot and I tried to stand
between them and the tank. This happens every day, but just this father
walking out with his two
little kids just looking very sad, just happened to get my attention
more at this particular
moment, probably because I felt it was our translation problems that
made him leave.
I thought a lot about what you said on the phone about Palestinian
violence not helping the
situation. Sixty thousand workers from Rafah worked in Israel two years
ago. Now only 600 can
go to Israel for jobs. Of these 600, many have moved, because the three
checkpoints between
here and Ashkelon (the closest city in Israel) make what used to be a
40-minute drive, now a
12-hour or impassible journey. In addition, what Rafah identified in
1999 as sources of
economic growth are all completely destroyed--the Gaza international
airport (runways
demolished, totally closed); the border for trade with Egypt (now with
a giant Israeli sniper
tower in the middle of the crossing); access to the ocean (completely
cut off in the last two years
by a checkpoint and the Gush Katif settlement). The count of homes
destroyed in Rafah since
the beginning of this intifada is up around 600, by and large people
with no connection to the
resistance but who happen to live along the border. I think it is maybe
official now that Rafah is
the poorest place in the world. There used to be a middle class
here--recently. We also get
reports that in the past, Gazan flower shipments to Europe were delayed
for two weeks at the
Erez crossing for security inspections. You can imagine the value of
two-week-old cut flowers in
the European market, so that market dried up. And then the bulldozers
come and take out
people's vegetable farms and gardens. What is left for people? Tell me
if you can think of
anything. I can't.
If any of us had our lives and welfare completely strangled, lived with
children in a shrinking
place where we knew, because of previous experience, that soldiers and
tanks and bulldozers
could come for us at any moment and destroy all the greenhouses that we
had been cultivating
for however long, and did this while some of us were beaten and held
captive with 149 other
people for several hours--do you think we might try to use somewhat
violent means to protect
whatever fragments remained? I think about this especially when I see
orchards and greenhouses
and fruit trees destroyed--just years of care and cultivation. I think
about you and how long it
takes to make things grow and what a labor of love it is. I really
think, in a similar situation,
most people would defend themselves as best they could. I think Uncle
Craig would. I think
probably Grandma would. I think I would.
You asked me about non-violent resistance.
When that explosive detonated yesterday it broke all the windows in the
family's house. I was in
the process of being served tea and playing with the two small babies.
I'm having a hard time
right now. Just feel sick to my stomach a lot from being doted on all
the time, very sweetly, by
people who are facing doom. I know that from the United States, it all
sounds like hyperbole.
Honestly, a lot of the time the sheer kindness of the people here,
coupled with the overwhelming
evidence of the willful destruction of their lives, makes it seem
unreal to me. I really can't
believe that something like this can happen in the world without a
bigger outcry about it. It really
hurts me, again, like it has hurt me in the past, to witness how awful
we can allow the world to
be. I felt after talking to you that maybe you didn't completely
believe me. I think it's actually
good if you don't, because I do believe pretty much above all else in
the importance of
independent critical thinking. And I also realize that with you I'm
much less careful than usual
about trying to source every assertion that I make. A lot of the reason
for that is I know that you
actually do go and do your own research. But it makes me worry about
the job I'm doing. All of
the situation that I tried to enumerate above--and a lot of other
things--constitutes a somewhat
gradual--often hidden, but nevertheless massive--removal and
destruction of the ability of a
particular group of people to survive. This is what I am seeing here.
The assassinations, rocket
attacks and shooting of children are atrocities--but in focusing on
them I'm terrified of missing
their context. The vast majority of people here--even if they had the
economic means to escape,
even if they actually wanted to give up resisting on their land and
just leave (which appears to be
maybe the less nefarious of Sharon's possible goals), can't leave.
Because they can't even get
into Israel to apply for visas, and because their destination countries
won't let them in (both our
country and Arab countries). So I think when all means of survival is
cut off in a pen (Gaza)
which people can't get out of, I think that qualifies as genocide. Even
if they could get out, I
think it would still qualify as genocide. Maybe you could look up the
definition of genocide
according to international law. I don't remember it right now. I'm
going to get better at
illustrating this, hopefully. I don't like to use those charged words.
I think you know this about
me. I really value words. I really try to illustrate and let people
draw their own conclusions.
Anyway, I'm rambling. Just want to write to my Mom and tell her that
I'm witnessing this
chronic, insidious genocide and I'm really scared, and questioning my
fundamental belief in the
goodness of human nature. 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. I
still really want to dance around to Pat Benatar and have boyfriends
and make comics for my
coworkers. But I also want this to stop. Disbelief and horror is what I
feel. Disappointment. I am
disappointed that this is the base reality of our world and that we, in
fact, participate in it. This is
not at all what I asked for when I came into this world. This is not at
all what the people here
asked for when they came into this world. This is not the world you and
Dad wanted me to come
into when you decided to have me. This is not what I meant when I
looked at Capital Lake and
said: "This is the wide world and I'm coming to it." I did not mean
that I was coming into a
world where I could live a comfortable life and possibly, with no
effort at all, exist in complete
unawareness of my participation in genocide. More big explosions
somewhere in the distance
outside.
When I come back from Palestine, I probably will have nightmares and
constantly feel guilty for
not being here, but I can channel that into more work. Coming here is
one of the better things
I've ever done. So when I sound crazy, or if the Israeli military
should break with their racist
tendency not to injure white people, please pin the reason squarely on
the fact that I am in the
midst of a genocide which I am also indirectly supporting, and for
which my government is
largely responsible.
I love you and Dad. Sorry for the diatribe. OK, some strange men
next to me just gave me some
peas, so I need to eat and thank them.
Rachel
February 28 2003
(To her mother)
Thanks, Mom, for your response to my e-mail. It really helps me to get
word from you, and from
other people who care about me.
After I wrote to you I went incommunicado from the affinity group for
about 10 hours which I
spent with a family on the front line in Hi Salam--who fixed me
dinner--and have cable TV.
The two front rooms of their house are unusable because gunshots have
been fired through the
walls, so the whole family--three kids and two parents--sleep in the
parent's bedroom. I sleep
on the floor next to the youngest daughter, Iman, and we all shared
blankets. I helped the son
with his English homework a little, and we all watched Pet Semetery,
which is a horrifying
movie. I think they all thought it was pretty funny how much trouble I
had watching it. Friday is
the holiday, and when I woke up they were watching Gummy Bears dubbed
into Arabic. So I ate
breakfast with them and sat there for a while and just enjoyed being in
this big puddle of
blankets with this family watching what for me seemed like Saturday
morning cartoons. Then I
walked some way to B'razil, which is where Nidal and Mansur and
Grandmother and Rafat and
all the rest of the big family that has really wholeheartedly adopted
me live. (The other day, by
the way, Grandmother gave me a pantomimed lecture in Arabic that
involved a lot of blowing
and pointing to her black shawl. I got Nidal to tell her that my mother
would appreciate knowing
that someone here was giving me a lecture about smoking turning my
lungs black.) I met their
sister-in-law, who is visiting from Nusserat camp, and played with her
small baby.
Nidal's English gets better every day. He's the one who calls me, "My
sister." He started
teaching Grandmother how to say, "Hello. How are you?" in English. You
can always hear the
tanks and bulldozers passing by, but all of these people are genuinely
cheerful with each other,
and with me. When I am with Palestinian friends I tend to be somewhat
less horrified than when
I am trying to act in a role of human rights observer, documenter, or
direct-action resister. They
are a good example of how to be in it for the long haul. I know that
the situation gets to
them--and may ultimately get them--on all kinds of levels, but I am
nevertheless amazed at
their strength in being able to defend such a large degree of their
humanity--laughter,
generosity, family-time--against the incredible horror occurring in
their lives and against the
constant presence of death. I felt much better after this morning. I
spent a lot of time writing
about the disappointment of discovering, somewhat first-hand, the
degree of evil of which we
are still capable. I should at least mention that I am also discovering
a degree of strength and of
basic ability for humans to remain human in the direst of
circumstances--which I also haven't
seen before. I think the word is dignity. I wish you could meet these
people. Maybe, hopefully,
someday you will.
Rachel
Rachel,
I find writing to you hard, but not thinking about you impossible. So I
don't write, but I do bore
my friends at lunch giving vent to my fear. I am afraid for you, and I
think I have reason to be.
But I'm also proud of you--very proud. But as Don Remfert says: I'd
just as soon be proud of
somebody else's daughter. That's how fathers are: we're hard wired not
to want our children, no
matter how old they are, no matter how brave they are, and no matter
how much good they are
doing, to be subject to so much threat or even witness to so much
suffering. You may say (have
said) that it is wrong for me to stick my head in the sand; but I say I
am only trying to (or just
wishing I could) stick your head in the sand--and that's different.
Hard wired. Can't be changed
on that aspect of the issue.
I love you, and please take care!
Dad
March 12, 2003
Hi papa, thank you for your e-mail. I feel like sometimes I spend all
my time propagandizing
mom, and assuming she'll pass stuff on to you, so you get neglected.
Don't worry about me too
much, right now I am most concerned that we are not being effective. I
still don't feel
particularly at risk. Rafah has seemed calmer lately, maybe because the
military is preoccupied
with incursions in the north--still shooting and house demolitions--one
death this week that I
know of, but not any larger incursions. Still can't say how this will
change if and when war with
Iraq comes.
Thanks also for stepping up your antiwar work. I know it is not easy to
do, and probably much
more difficult where you are than where I am. I am really interested in
talking to the journalist in
Charlotte--let me know what I can do to speed the process along.
I am trying to figure out what I'm going to do when I leave here, and
when I'm going to leave.
Right now I think I could stay until June, financially. I really don't
want to move back to
Olympia, but do need to go back there to clean my stuff out of the
garage and talk about my
experiences here. On the other hand, now that I've crossed the ocean
I'm feeling a strong desire
to try to stay across the ocean for some time. Considering trying to
get English teaching
jobs--would like to really buckle down and learn Arabic. Also got an
invitation to visit Sweden
on my way back, which I think I could do very cheaply. I would like to
leave Rafah with a viable
plan to return, too.
One of the core members of our group has to leave tomorrow, and
watching her say goodbye to
people is making me realize how difficult it will be. People here can't
leave, so that complicates
things. They also are pretty matter-of-fact about the fact that they
don't know if they will be
alive when we come back here. I really don't want to live with a lot of
guilt about this
place--being able to come and go so easily--and not going back. I think
it is valuable to make
commitments to places so I would like to be able to plan on coming back
here within a year or
so. Of all of these possibilities I think it's most likely that I will
at least go to Sweden for a few
weeks on my way back--I can change tickets and get a plane from Paris
to Sweden and back for
a total of around 150 bucks or so. I know I should really try to link
up with the family in France
but I really think that I'm not going to do that. I think I would just
be angry the whole time and
not much fun to be around. It also seems like a transition into too
much opulence right now--I
would feel a lot of class guilt the whole time as well.
Let me know if you have any ideas about what I should do with the rest
of my life. I love you
very much. If you want you can write to me as if I was on vacation at a
camp on the big island of
Hawaii learning to weave. One thing I do to make things easier here is
to utterly retreat into
fantasies that I am in a Hollywood movie or a sitcom starring Michael
J. Fox. So feel free to
make something up and I'll be happy to play along.
Much love Poppy.
Rachel