The martyrdom of Rachel Corrie
Risks of engaging in struggle
Preface:
On 18 March I wrote a short piece advertising a webinar to commemorate the 2003 murder of Rachel Corrie by an Israeli military bulldozer driver in the Gaza strip. It was hosted by the Jerusalem Fund, a United States (US)-based organisation that provides support through educational awareness and projects, for the Palestinian cause. I would like to share with you, my readers, my impressions of and reflections on the webinar presentation and discussion. I have provided a link at the end of this article, to a full video recording for those who would like to avail themselves of the opportunity of hearing precisely what was said.
This brief article reflects on what was presented and discussed at that webinar. Rachel Corrie and the International Solidarity Movement (ISM)[1] engaged in non-violent struggle but she was killed, like many Palestinians who have engaged in non-violent struggle and in armed resistance. And neither the US nor the Israeli governments took responsibility for bringing her killer to justice — an Israeli court ruled that as she was in a war zone she was responsible for her own death. Jeff Halper, in ‘War against the People’, explains that Israel frames[2] the non -violent practices of solidarity formations as ‘lawfare’, i.e. the continuation of war against Israel by legal means. Consequently Israel legitimises using armed power against non-violent action.
Underlying this lethal projection of power and the resistance to its imposition are resourced organisations. I conclude the article by describing the resources of the Jerusalem Fund, suggest this indicates the power of the broad Palestine solidarity movement in the US and show as an example of this a map the US organisations that came together in a declaration on Nakba Day 2021; and, thereafter I present a map of affiliates of the SA Zionist Federation (SAZF) as a reflection of its power and influence in South African Jewry.
These are two examples of how I use mapping to go about depicting the function of organisational structures, en-route to assessing their relative power and social impact. I identify the mapping project in Boston as a germaine example of the usefulness of the advanced and detailed mapping of organisational structures and linkages, to show how Zionists project social and political power and the linkages to broader US imperial power structures. Conversely, mapping can also describe a Palestine solidarity formation projecting its power. Zionists need to undermine mapping because it is a powerful tool in the arsenal of the solidarity movement. Returning to the theme of my earlier articles about the weaponisation of antisemitism, I note the reaction to the Boston mapping project of the Zionist and Jewish establishment in the US, and the fragmenting impact (in this instance) of the anti-Zionism = antisemitism strategy on the global Palestine solidarity movement.
Recalling Rachel:
The webinar presentation took place on 22 March, facilitated by Jehad Abusalim, chief executive officer of the Jerusalem Fund, who was a young boy living in Gaza at the time of Rachel’s coming. Jehad echoed my feelings when he introduced Cindy and Craig Corrie, Rachel’s parents, by saying that our memory of Rachel is inspirational, that her legacy lives and that her courage is stronger than an Israeli bulldozer. Rachel’s family have strived to commit to Rachel’s vision by educating about and advocating for Palestinian rights and freedoms, and also to find justice for Rachel. They volunteer for the Rachel Corrie Foundation which fosters grassroots democracy and human rights and also supports projects in Gaza and Bir Zeit university on the West Bank. More information about Rachel Corrie as a person is found in ‘Let me stand alone’, the title of her Journals, and there is a play, ‘My name is Rachel Corrie’.
Craig and Cindy explained that the events of September 11 2001 represented a turning point for Rachel, and the need to speak positively about who we are as a community. Why did she go to Palestine? Because her anti-war peace activism was missing a direct link to the victims of US militarism. In Israel she trained in non-violent action with the ISM. At the time 25 000 Israeli soldiers supported about 8 000 settlers who occupied 40 per cent of the surface area of Gaza. The occupation of Gaza was violent, involved attacking civilians (including children) and (as with the West Bank) consisted of a myriad of internal checkpoints.
The context was the second intifada which Israel blamed on Yasser Arafat, the Palestine Liberation Organisation leader who had returned to Palestine following what were called the Oslo Accords. From her vantage point of living in Gaza (with the Nasrallah family) Rachel wrote extensively about the experience of the children, to the international community and the media. The home of the Nasrallah family was located near the Egyptian border and had been made vulnerable by the decision of the Israeli army to widen a corridor between Egypt and Gaza — this was done through demolishing existing homes, and the Nasrallah home was due for demolition. More than 10 per cent of Gazan homes were lost in this way by 2004, and Human Rights Watch reported that homes were usually destroyed for no discernible military reason. There were typically two soldiers in each bulldozer, one elevated in order to see people, and in the case of Rachel apparently one commander requested that the bulldozer cease its operation but was over-ruled. Usually, the bulldozers were maneuvered to push the activists aside but in the case of Rachel the bulldozer drove twice over her body. Nine Palestinians were killed in Gaza on the day of Rachel’s death.
Craig and Cindy sought justice for their slain daughter by exploring three routes: military justice, diplomacy and lawsuits. Then Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon promised an investigation and a report, but the military closed the investigation and declined to release the report — one was only permitted to read the report and take notes.
According to Lawrence Wilkerson, then chief of staff to Collen Powell (US Secretary of State), there was no credible investigation….
Craig and Cindy followed the diplomacy route too and in 2008 the US engaged Israel repeatedly and consistently but all requests for an investigation and a report were unanswered and ignored. They also attempted to get a US investigation implemented but the Department of Justice refused to open such an investigation. They have sought accountability through to 2017 but they experienced that the US government does not act to support US citizens. They also spoke about their devastation on hearing about the shooting of Shireen Abu Akleh, US citizen and Al Jazeerah correspondent in Palestine. Craig explained that like the Corries the Abu Akleh family has received no help from the State Department. Craig and Cindy wrote an article shortly after Shireen’s death that there have to be consequences in terms of US law that prevents foreign aid being provided to states where human rights are violated.
Craig and Cindy instituted a lawsuit against Caterpillar, on the basis that its bulldozer had been used to commit a crime, but this was dismissed on 17 September 2007 not with regard to whether this constituted a war crime but for lack of jurisdiction because the sale of the bulldozers to Israel was a US foreign policy decision.
In 2003 Craig and Cindy had instituted a civil lawsuit against the Israeli government, for violating Rachel’s right to dignity and life, and the case was heard between 2010 and 2011. Key witnesses were hidden behind a screen, which the family experienced as dehumanising.
Evidence was in Hebrew and Israeli refuseniks (those refusing to serve in the Israel Defence Force) did the translating. The Israeli army argued that Rachel’s death was an act of war, and as such she could be seen as responsible for her own death. The judge accepted this argument as valid and according to Craig the reasoning was that there are no civilian adults in a war — Craig referred to a Richard Silverstein article about this.
Later President Jimmy Carter rejected this rationalisation for the killing of Rachel and spoke of Israel’s impunity. International law scholar Richard Falk commented on the Israeli attitude towards civilians in a war zone as a violation of International Humanitarian Law. But the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that Israeli law supercedes international law. In the public domain Rachel was implied to have protected ‘terrorists’ yet the Nasrallah family was permitted to travel to the US via Israel.
Conclusion:
Rachel Corrie’s non-violent resistance resulted in her violent murder by the Israeli military. I reflected on the balance of (armed and non-violent) forces between Zionism and its antagonists both in the US and in South Africa, as a way of trying to tie the lessons of this murderous act to practical political action, with a non-violent strategic intent.
As I have argued in a previous article (‘Jewish right not to be invested in Israel’), social power relations rest on state and civil society organisational structures (including state police and military, as well as armed and non-violent resistance). It is important to add, and they also rest on the linkages between these structures and their functions within the resulting organisational matrix. The Boston mapping project (referred to earlier) is a good example this.
The Boston project’s website shows a network of interlinkages between Zionist/Israel supporting organisations, the US military-industrial complex companies, finance capital and hedge funds, local Boston and US police forces and philanthropic foundations. The mapping includes detailed notes on the linking practices between these organisational centres, like projecting (through educational institutions including schools and universities) the ideology of US exceptionalism and its Israeli variant, buying up third world debt (e.g. of Puerto Rico) and supporting Zionist projects in Israel and Boston from the surpluses generated from the sovereign debt repayments, militarization of local Boston and US police forces (through training visits to Israel) and channelling philanthropic funds to support Zionist projects related to, or in, Israel and simultaneously undermining the US public school system in Boston through promoting the privatisation of education.
Notwithstanding Israel’s impunity there are real limits to its actions on the US terrain. The American Community Survey (of the US Census Bureau) estimated that in 2020 there 97 744 Palestinians residing in the US, concentrated mainly in California (15 379), Florida (6 7467), Illinois (13 947), New Jersey (5 159), Ohio (8 575) and Texas (8 6720). Looking at the website of the Jerusalem Fund, the sponsor of the Rachel Corrie memorial, I was struck by the profiles of its 10 trustees, all of whom are Arabs and a few of whom are Palestinians who grew up in the occupied territories. The educational qualifications of these board members resonated with the professional excellence of well-known Palestinian public intellectual, the late Edward Said: the majority are medical doctors and physicians and they include not a few medical specialists. My point is that Palestinians in the US are a resourced community, both in terms of their education and training and their income and wealth, and it’s these resources and their resourcefulness that underpins the projects like the Jerusalem Fund. This provides a context for the emergence of a network of grassroots Palestinian anti-Israeli apartheid formations, a sample of which is included in the graphic below.
To illustrate my initial thoughts I mapped Zionist social structures in South Africa in my article ‘Making sense of the World Conference against Racism battle of discourses’. (The same mapping method can be applied to organisations the purpose of which is the sanctioning of Israel).
The content of the websites of the above organisations, and the dating of this content, strongly suggests that the Friends of Israel organisations are largely front organisations for the SAZF, while each of the SAZF’s Jewish affiliate organisations is organisationally and functionally independent of the SAZF, i.e. the union of synagogues, the SA Jewish Board of Education, etc. There are specific religious, educational and other institutions which while promoting the cause of Zionism have religious and educational functions that are relatively autonomous from the SAZF, and have an independent source of funds, congregant fees, school fees, etc. The fact that all these Jewish organisations that are explicitly direct affiliates of the SAZF, support Zionism (through centering their religious faith around a Jewish ethno-state, teaching and education, encouraging Aliyah, recruitment of volunteers to the Israeli Defence Force, etc.) speaks volumes about the hegemony of Zionist ideology amongst Jewish South Africans. The hegemony of this ideology and its assumptions (the eternal Jewish ethnos, the eternal antisemitism phenomenon, the ontological right of Jews to a state in Eretz Yisrael and the Jewish and democratic nature of this state) is not a simple given but has to be struggled for each and every day against its opponents on the South African terrain. The power base of this struggle are the material institutional structures, their resources and the people who populate them. A non-violent oppositional strategy needs to be based on the facts of these resourced institutions.
My series of articles on Jewish identity and antisemitism, has demonstrated that for Zionists anti-Zionism is ipso facto antisemitism, regardless of the intent of the speaker. The Boston mapping project created a storm in the Zionist and Jewish media, some (but not all) of which depicted the project as antisemitism incarnate. There were also claims that the mapping network opened Jewish organisations in Boston to the risk of violent disruption, which implied physical damage and possible loss of life. The Boycott National Committee (BNC) also distanced itself from, and disavowed any of its affiliates from supporting, the Boston mapping project. The authors of the mapping project, reportedly anonymous, issued a rebuttal of the attack on the project as antisemitic, which included noting that the BNC had no monopoly on movement tactics. Rima Najjar, of the Masar Badil movement for the liberation of all Palestine, also criticised the BNC.
At the Palestine Solidarity Campaign Cape Town Annual General Meeting held in December 2022, I asked Saleh Hijazi, the BNC coordinator for Africa, the reason for the BNC’s disavowal of affiliate endorsement of the mapping project, as well as their request that a joint solidarity movement project that I am involved in, cut its links with the Canadian group Justice Peace Advocates (JPA). He did not reply with respect to the question regarding JPA but responded that there were security considerations for disavowing BNC affiliate endorsement of the mapping project. The threatened FBI investigation into the mapping project, in the context of the criminalisation of alleged antisemitism in the US and Canada, meant there was a need to protect activists there from being detained. The state of Israel, which wielded significant influence over policy making in the US, had by then already designated six critical human rights organisations as ‘terrorists’.[3] Hijazi said that it was not a question of the BNC trying to assert hegemony but protecting its affiliates from repression.
However, according to the the JISR Collective, on the Boston mapping project site, the BNC’s practices are about hegemony. In its position analysis the Collective claimed that the BNC collaborates with liberal Zionist organisations that provide a resourced diasporic environment for the BDS movement and its global affiliates, and that this dilutes the anti-colonialist liberation struggle to a civil rights movement that leaves the ethno-nationalist basis of the state unchanged. The Collective also claimed that the BNC eschews anti-imperialism as a strategy and delegitimises armed in favour of non-violent struggle.
Clearly, the impact of the Zionist-inspired attack on the mapping project was reflected in and has heightened differences within the broader Palestine solidarity movement.
[1] A non-violent organisation supporting the struggle against the violation of Palestinian rights.
[2] Quoting Rita Taureck 2006. Securitisation Theory and Securitisation Studies, Journal of International Relations and Development, 9 page 54, Halper explained (on page 81) that framing refers to a ‘securitizing actor’ creating an object defined as a threat to its (the agent’s) existence, and thereby socially constructing the ‘threat’. The agent can justify moving the ‘threat’ out of the sphere of normal politics. The agent can then identify an ‘enemy’, linked to the ‘threat’, and declare an ‘emergency’ — often a permanent emergency — to deal with the enemy and the threat.
[3] According to Rima Najja (referred to above) the BNC disavowed the Canadian BDS Coalition, to which JPA is affiliated, because it refused to exclude Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, whose services include support for prisoners jailed in Israel for engaging in armed resistance.
[4] In an earlier article, ‘Assessing the antisemitism experts‘ I noted that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the American Jewish Congress (AJC) implemented surveys purporting to show a rising context of antisemitism in the US over the last eight years, which could reinforce the narrative of the likely antisemitic impact of the mapping project. Upon closer examination of the ADL and AJC surveys I concluded that they raise more questions than they answer, one of which is whether they were designed tendentiously to show a rise in the incidence of antisemitic acts when in fact there was no such trend.
[5] This mapping project is an impressive demonstration of the focus of research and awareness-raising with a definite political mobilisation/protest goal.
Reference list — US Palestine solidarity network
Palestinian Youth Movement, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://palestinianyouthmovement.com/
Al-Awda: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://al-awda.org/
Free Democratic Palestine Movement, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://freedemocraticpalestine.org/
United States Palestinian Community Network, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://uspcn.org/
Al-Masar Al-Badil — Alternative Palestinian Path Conference, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://masarbadil.org/en/%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b1%d8%a6%d9%8a%d8%b3%d8%a9-english/
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://samidoun.net/about-samidoun/
Palestinian American Women’s Association, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/pawasca/
Arab Resource and Organizing Center, Accessed in 2023. Available at: http://www.araborganizing.org/
Canada Palestine Association, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://cpavancouver.org/
Within Our Lifetime — United for Palestine, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://wolpalestine.com/
National Students for Justice in Palestine, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.nationalsjp.org/2023-nsjp-conference
Labour for Palestine — Canada, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.labourforpalestine.com/
Labor for Palestine — United States, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://laborforpalestine.net/
Karama — San Diego, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/karamanow.org
US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://usacbi.org/
New Generation for Palestine, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.ngpalestine.org/
Just Peace Advocates/Mouvement Pour Une Paix Juste, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.justpeaceadvocates.ca/
The Canadian Palestinian Foundation of Quebec, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.cpfq.org/
Oakville Palestinian Rights Association (OPRA), Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/oakvillepalestinianrightsassociation/
Niagara Movement for Justice in Palestine-Israel (NMJPI), Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://nmjpi.org/
Socialist Action / Ligue pour l’Action socialiste, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://socialistaction.ca/
Jews for Palestinian Right of Return, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/185735815611722/?_rdc=1&_rdr
Fire This Time Movement for Social Justice — Canada, Accessed in 2023. Available at: http://firethistime.net/index.html
Canadian BDS Coalition, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://bdscoalition.ca/
Yemeni Liberation Movement, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/people/Yemeni-Liberation-Movement/100064691355248/
Mobilization Against War & Occupation (MAWO) Vancouver, Canada, Accessed in 2023. Available at: http://mawovancouver.org/
Yemeni Canadian Community Association of Canada. Website not found.
Palestine Solidarity Committee — Austin, TX, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/pscatx/
Arizona Palestine Solidarity Alliance, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.arizonapalestine.org/
University of Maryland — Students for Justice in Palestine, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/umdsjp/
University of Massachusetts — Students for Justice in Palestine, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/SJPUMASS/
University of California, Davis — Students for Justice in Palestine, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://aggielife.ucdavis.edu/sjp/home/
Tufts University — Students for Justice in Palestine, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/TuftsSJP/
Carleton University — Students for Justice in Palestine, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/SJPCarletonuniversity/
Rhode Island School of Design — Students for Justice in Palestine, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/risdsjp/
San Diego State University — Students for Justice in Palestine, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/sdsusjp/
University of Delaware — Students for Justice in Palestine. Website not found.
University of British Columbia — Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://amscampusbase.ubc.ca/sphr/home/
Columbia University — Students for Justice in Palestine, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://columbiasjp.org/
Columbia Apartheid Divest, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://apartheiddivest.org/
Mount Holyoke College — Palestinian Solidarity Group, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.mountholyokenews.com/new-blog-1/2021/7/21/letter-to-the-editor-open-letter-to-mount-holyoke-community-calls-for-solidarity-with-palestine
Ryerson University — Students for Justice in Palestine, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/234586529922009/
University of California, Santa Barbara — Students for Justice in Palestine, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/UCSBSJP/
University of Houston — Students for Justice in Palestine, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/SJPHTX/
Rutgers-New Brunswick — Students for Justice in Palestine, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/StudentsForJusticeInPalestineNB/
Macalester College — Students United for Palestinian Equal Rights, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/macforpalestine/
University of Southern California — Students for Justice in Palestine, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://en-gb.facebook.com/USCSJP/
University of Texas at Dallas — Students for Justice in Palestine, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/sjputd/
University of Michigan — Ann Arbor — Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE), Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/SAFEUmich/
Wayne State University — Students for Justice in Palestine, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://getinvolved.wayne.edu/organization/students-for-justice-in-palestine/events
Palestine Solidarity Alliance of Hunter College CUNY, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/619782654829496/
University of California, Irvine — Students for Justice in Palestine, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/sjpuci/
University of Chicago — Students for Justice in Palestine, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://blueprint.uchicago.edu/organization/sjpalestine
Justice For Palestinians — Calgary, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/JFPCalgary/
University of Michigan Dearborn — Students for Justice in Palestine, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://umdearborn.campuslabs.com/engage/organization/SJP
Reference list — SA Christian Zionist network
Africa Israel Initiative, Accessed in 2021 Website. Available at: www.africa-israel.org
Bridges for Peace, Accessed in 2021 Website. Available at: www.bridgesforpeace.com
Impact for Christ Ministeries, Accessed in 2021. Website. Available at: www.impactforchristsa.com
ICCC, Accessed in 2021 Global Network of Believers in the Workplace. Available at: www. http//.iccc.net
Institute for Christian Leadership and Development, Accessed in 2021 Website. Available at: www.icld.co.za
International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, Accessed in 2021 Website. Available at: www.icej.org.za
SAFISA, Accessed in 2021 South Africa Friends of Israel Network. Available at: www.safisa.co.za
Vuka Africa, Accessed in 2021 Website. Available at: www.vukaafricafoundation.co.za
Reference list — SAZF affiliates network
Bnei Akiva (Zionist youth), accessed in 2023. Available at: https://bnei.co.za
Betar (Zionist Youth), Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/BetarSA
Diller Teen Fellowship, accessed in 2023. Available at: http://dillerteenfellows.org/en
Embassy of Israel in South Africa, accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.embassypages.com
Habonim Dror Southern Africa (Zionist Youth), accessed in 2023. Available at https://habonim.org.za
Israel Centre, accessed in 2023. Available at: https://israelcentre.co.za/aliyah
Israel United Appeal, accessed in 2023. Available at: https://iuaucf.org.za/wp/index.php/iua
Jewish Agency for Israel, accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.jewishagency.org
Jewish National Fund South Africa, accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.jnfsa.co.za
Maccabi South Africa, accessed in 2023. Available at: https://maccabi.co.za/site
Magen Dovid Adom in South Africa, accessed in 2023. Available at: https://magendavidadomsa.wordpress.com/about
Netzer, accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.netzer.org.za/our-ideology
SA Jewish Board of Deputies, accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.sajbd.org
SA Jewish Board of Education, accessed in 2023.Available at: https://kingdavid.org.za/sabje
SA Union of Jewish Students (Zionist Youth), accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.saujs.co.za
SA Union of Progressive Judaism, accessed in 2023. Available at: https://saupj.org.za
Telfed, Accessed in 2023. Available at: https://www.telfed.org.il
Union of Orthodox Synagogues, accessed in 2023. Available at: http://www.uos.co.za
WIZO South Africa, Accessed in 2021 Who’s Who. Available at: http://www.wizo.co.za
