[KevinTheOmnivore]

Originally Posted by ziggytrix

I'm glad so many people inherently know the TRUTH without knowing all the FACTS. God sure was nice to give you some of his omniscience.

I'm glad to see such clear contributions to this thread!

Originally Posted by Abcdxxxx

Rachel Corrie in her own words. .....
"I would also like to ask you, and those to whom you pass this on, to think about the relative positions of the fighters and occupiers in this monumentally unequal struggle. While the huge force of Israelis have every technical aid invented by the US war machine, the few young fighters have NOTHING BUT THEIR WEAPON (and this not the most modern) - no helmet, bullet proof vest, radio contact or other protection. No back-up, no plane, helicopter, tank, APC, searchlight, dogs, flares, ambulance or refuge - put all the Israeli/American propaganda aside for a few minutes and try to imagine, please, the courage it requires to do what these youngfighters do, knowing that the odds are against escape and that, every time they do succeed in evading death, the odds against a further survival are shortened. Even if the operation is a success the price is always high." - from her February 10th diary entry.

and......

To her Mother she wrote....
"I thought a lot about what you said on the phone about Palestinian violence not helping the situation. "......"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." http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0...916246,00.html

She lavishes praise on suicide bombers. She advocated the violence and mass murder of terrorist and criminal actions...

Eh, eh, eh! Hold on. Now is this what she advocated...? Here's another quote from her:

"do you think we might try to use somewhat violent means to protect . . . whatever fragments remained?"
(Washington Post, 4/19/03)

Is she coming off as an apologist? Yes. But, you are taking her VERY MUCH out of context when you say that her applause for "young fighters" is a justification of suicide bombing. She IS defending, I have no doubt, the meager assualts on IDF troops and out posts by armed Palestinians.

What you, and others who wish to smear her name, call justification is at its worst her creating some kind of moral equivalence between desperate actions and desperate people. Watching these people, living with these people, she sees them suffer, she sees them become desparate.

The question she is attempting to raise is one many already have. If someone bombed your house, how willing to die would you become? If somebody bulldozed your home, how desparate would you become? However, neither her, nor the ISM for that matter, justify the suicide bombings.

Here she talks about a demonstration for Childrens rights where she refers to fatah, hamas, and PLFP as "community groups".......

Now see, this is where it gets tricky (wait, oh wait, your head won't be able to take this one). The continuous problem I've learned with groups like Hamas, which advocate terrible things and evil acts, is that they DO do charity work within the Palestinian community, and they in fact are LOVED by many Palestinians!

To my understanding, Hamas operates much like an umbrella group. Much of it is shit that deserves to be noted as such, but there is a faction of Hamas apparently that serves as a non-violent, civil disobedience sect. I believe they are even denounced by the other wings of Hamas for being too "passive" even.

That aside, that only, if even, explains Hamas. But she throws Fateh in there, among other rotten groups. But don't doubt that when she says "community groups," she is truly being earnest about their work in the community. Does this justify the terrible actions that they condone? No. But this again raises the problem: folks like you call for the removal of swine like Arafat, but if that were so, who do you think these people would turn to in his place? The new PM??? HA!

It has much to do with anti-semitism. It also has much to do with desperation.

She's political but she is NOT a peace activist. She's also supporting the indoctrinization of young children with hatred and the will to commit violent acts. She supported terrorism or um..."militants" ...and she was not ashamed of it. Call a spade a spade.

By burning flags? By, in her PERSONAL e-mails to her mother, questioning the actions of those on both sides? Do you think that's what she did, taught 5 year olds to hate Jews....?

It's in her own words... NOT propaganda published by the IDF.

Her own words, even by you, have been distorted.

The ISM support the Intifada. http://www.palsolidarity.org//whoarewe.htm
They support resistance, not peace.

Lets complete the sentence, shall we???

Originally Posted by "www.palsolidarity.org

We utilize NONVIOLENT, direct-action methods of RESISTANCE to confront and challenge illegal Israeli occupation forces and policies.

Ask Susan Barclay, another ISM worker who was recently deported from the West Bank. Yes she says they were there to take part in mundane activities like walking children to schools, etc. She also admitted in several interviews (I know of one with the Seattle Post-Intellifencer) that she knowingly worked with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, terrorist groups with charters calling for the complete demolishen of the Jewish state.

Yes, and this is wrong. But when you're serving as a group aimed to aid the Palestinian people, and many of the only established groups there that not only GRANT help to the Palestinians, but are also TRUSTED by the Palestinians, you can either stay outside that web and accomplish little to nothing, or make strange bed-fellows with those groups, and try to accomplish something. Supporting terrorism is wrong, but this is NOTwhat the ISM has set out to do.

In fact, looking at the ISM website, they specifically denounce the support of such activities, because they feel it only gives Ariel Sharon fuel to press down on them harder (and they're right). Any supporting, or "trafficing" done for these groups through the ISM is the exception, not the norm, and is certainly NOT the policy and the goal.

With that aside, lets note something else: It would be unfortunate if Rachel Corrie was a rotten anti-semite, and that she willingly supported the intifada (haven't found anything other than IDF trestimony substantiating the claim that the house was used for gun trafficing, though), does this justify her death/murder?? If Rachel was a criminal, that is if she was aiding in the support of illegal, terrorist activities, then tragic as it may be, she was in the wrong place, very wrong time.

But what I see here isn't a correlation between Corrie and her actual activities, rather, a kind of justification for her death based on her character. "Rachel was sympathetic to gunmen in personal e-mails to her mother, so she OBVIOUSLY deserved to have her skull crushed."

The IDF internal investigation seemed rather fast to me, and read more like a condemnation of Rachel rather than an honest inquiry into the actions of the IDF that day. I hope a serious U.S. investigation is conducted, and if the soldier operating the bulldozer, as well as the IDF, are innocent, let them be cleared. Lets prove it.