Saying it’s cowardly to lay down in front of a bulldozer is pretty funny.
You talkin’ to me, McCullough? I never said it was cowardly. Though, technically, her prone position was the result of tripping and then falling behind a pile of rubble in the path of the bulldozer.
Whoever the first poster was, actually.
Not that it was a particuarly smart form of political protest…
Not that it was a particuarly smart form of political protest…[/quote]
They do, actually. There are lots of “human shields” in Israel.
Maybe another protester pushed her down. I can see how the death of an American at the hands of the Israelis might seem as good for the cause… I have trouble believing this woman, no matter how strong her convictions, would just stand there and wait to die.
Wow.
Wow.[/quote]
Echo that.
Thirded.
Fourthed (?).
That sort of comment reminds me of way back in 1988 when the US military shot down an Iranian civilian passenger jet, killing everyone onboard, and the media was speculating about whether or not Iran had “done it on purpose,” because those Iranians don’t mind dying, and they probably just wanted to make the US look bad.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
http://www.fair.org/extra/best-of-extra/kal007-iranair655.html
Or when Arab groups theorize that 9/11 might have been a CIA or Israeli plot.
This is the weblog of a peace activist I’ve known for a couple of years.
http://www.devo.com/mideastlog/
The pictures he has posted, which incidentally are the same ones as I saw in my morning newspaper today, are pretty damning.
She wore a bright red shirt and was talking in a bloody megaphone when she was run over. Accident? I doubt it.
The Guardian published some emails she’d written to her family today.
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 labour 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 wilful 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 realise 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
I don’t know what to say.
God dammit. You know what? Call me an insensitive bastard or a shitty human being if you want but common fucking sense dictates that you don’t stand in front of a murderer in a bulldozer. Was she under some delusion that the guy in the bulldozer somehow thought he was doing a good thing, that they were all told they were flattening the land for a kitty petting zoo? Jesus Christ, she stood in front of a bulldozer and people are surprised that she got hit!
It’s called survival instincts, she wasn’t about to change the mind of the guy driving the bulldozer, just like she failed to do dozens of times before that, so get the hell out of the way, this time isn’t gonna be any different. She got frustrated by her lack of progress and tried to stare down 10 tons of steel, if it had been a drunken college kid we’d all be laughing at how stupid he was. She learned nothing from that guy that got flattened by the tank in China.
That would require taking you seriously.
You finally convinced me, Cookiepants. King, Gandhi and the lot (bit embarrassed that I can’t recall any more names at the moment) weren’t heroes or very brave human beings, they were just really, really stupid.
Is it only acceptable to give your life for a cause if you kill a bunch of people in the process (ie being a soldier) nowadays?
Guys - there are 2 messages in there. Where did the thousands of jobs go that kept these people in their greenhouses, making flowers and such? Shipping trade, open borders all the things that made life there good in 1999? They went up in the blaze of death that was the infatada <sp?> I know the innocent families are hurt in the process but jesus she acts like its because of the bulldozing they are doing these acts…the reality was more the other way around. Things were stabilizing, they were gaining independence, jobs, money, trade and security and bunch of stupid rebels killed it for both sides. On the other hand I agree that just sounds like a crushing environment today. And no I am not a follower of Cookiepants.
Oh you did NOT just compare this woman with Martin Luther King Jr. or Ghandi! You did NOT!
Those men talked, rallied, gave speeches and inspired millions. They gathered people together and took their message to the ones in charge, they made their God damn voices HEARD. This moron sat in a ditch and shared peas with strangers in between anti-American rallies.
And oh yeah, they never stood in front of a bulldozer.
Christ, cookie.
Idiot. They didn’t have to walk in front of bulldozers. Simply appearing in public was enough to get them shot.
See - this is why The Janitor (aka cookie) was forced out of the old OOM boards. Non-sensical stupidity.
Idiot. They didn’t have to walk in front of bulldozers. Simply appearing in public was enough to get them shot.[/quote]
They didn’t stand in front of a gun did they? The comparison between those men and this woman was absurd to the Nth power, your comparison of assasination and manslaughter is just plain absurd.
Guido go fuck yourself, you wanna point out where and why my arguments are stupid then go hog wild, you wanna say ‘look what he posted!!!1’ then keep your God damn fingers OFF the keyboard.