Posted on 04/24/2005 10:08:03 PM PDT by SmithL
My Name Is Rachel Thaler is not the title of a play likely to be produced anytime soon in London. Thaler, aged 16, was blown up at a pizzeria in an Israeli shopping mall. She died after an 11-day struggle for life following the February 16, 2002 attack when a suicide bomber approached a crowd of teenagers and blew himself up.
She was a British citizen, born in London, where her grandparents still live. Yet I doubt that anyone at London's Royal Court Theatre, or most people in the British media, have heard of her. "Not a single British journalist has ever interviewed me or mentioned her death," her mother, Ginette, told me last week.
Thaler's parents donated her organs for transplant (helping to save the life of a young Russian man), and grieved quietly. After the accidental killing of Rachel Corrie, by contrast, her parents embarked on a major publicity campaign. They traveled to Ramallah to accept a plaque from Yasser Arafat on behalf of their daughter. They circulated her emails and diary entries to a world media eager to publicize them.
Among those who published extracts from them in 2003 was the influential British leftist daily The Guardian. This in turn inspired a new play, My Name Is Rachel Corrie, which opened this month at the Royal Court Theatre, one of London most prestigious venues. (The New York Times recently described it as "the most important theatre in Europe.")
The play is co-edited and directed by Katharine Viner, editor of The Guardian's weekend magazine, and by film star Alan Rickman (of Die Hard and Harry Potter fame). Their script weaves together extracts from Corrie's journals and e-mails.
For those who don't recall the story, Rachel Corrie was a young American radical who burned mock-American flags at pro-Hamas rallies in Gaza in February 2003. A short while later she died after jumping in front of an Israeli army bulldozer that was attempting to demolish a structure suspected of concealing tunnels used for smuggling weapons.
Partly because of the efforts of Corrie and her fellow activists in the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), the IDF was unable to stop the flow of weapons through these tunnels. Those weapons were later used to kill Israeli children in the town of Sderot in southern Israel, and elsewhere.
However, in many hundreds of articles written on Corrie and published worldwide in the last two years, most papers have been careful to omit such details. So have Rickman and Viner, leaving almost all the critics who have reviewed the play completely clueless about the background of the events with which it deals.
"Corrie was always a progressive with a conscience she went to work with the International Solidarity Movement in Gaza," wrote Michael Billington in The Guardian last week, without a shred of explanation as to what the ISM actually is.
ISM is routinely described as a "peace group" in the Western media. Few make any mention of ISM's meeting with British suicide bombers Omar Khan Sharif and Assif Muhammad Hanif, who a few days later blew up Mike's Place, a Tel Aviv pub, killing three and injuring dozens – including British citizens. Or of the ISM's sheltering in its office Shadi Sukia, a leading member of Islamic Jihad. Or of the fact that in its mission statement the ISM says "armed struggle" is a Palestinian "right."
"'Israel' is an illegal entity that should not exist," wrote ISM media coordinator Flo Rosovski, clarifying the ISM's idea of peace.
Unfortunately for those who have sought to portray Corrie as a peaceful protester, photos of her burning a mock American flag and stirring up crowds in Gaza were published by the Associated Press and on Yahoo News on February 15, 2003, before she died. But the play doesn't mention this.
So British reviewers are left to tell the British public that the play is a "true-life tragedy" in which Corrie's "unselfish goodness shines through" (Evening Standard).
"Corrie was murdered after joining a non-violent Palestinian resistance organization," writes Emma Gosnell in the Sunday Telegraph ("murdered" is a term even Corrie's staunchest defenders have hesitated to use up to now).
Charles Spencer in The Daily Telegraph talks of "Corrie's concern for suffering humanity one leaves the theatre mourning not only Rachel Corrie but also one's own loss of the idealism and reckless courage of youth."
In one of the most astonishing comments, Michael Billington, the Guardian's critic, writes of the play: "The danger of right-on propaganda is avoided."
It is ironic to reflect that there have been several real victims of the intifada called Rachel – and hard to believe that these critics have ever heard of them. All these other Rachels died within a few months of Corrie but – unlike her – in circumstances that weren't disputed. They were deliberately murdered: Rachel Levy (17, blown up in a grocery store); Rachel Levi (19, shot while waiting for the bus); Rachel Gavish (killed with her husband, son and father while at home celebrating a Pessah meal); Rachel Charhi (blown up while sitting in a Tel Aviv cafe, leaving three young children); Rachel Shabo (murdered with her three sons aged 16, 13 and five, while at home).
Only one critic (Clive Davis in London's The Times) dismisses parts of the play as "unvarnished propaganda." At one point Corrie declares: "The vast majority of Palestinians right now, as far as I can tell, are engaging in Gandhian non-violent resistance." As Davis notes, "Even the late Yasser Arafat might have blushed at that one."
Rachel Corrie's death was undoubtedly tragic. But ultimately, this play isn't really about Corrie, but about fomenting hatred of Israel. The production is now sold out and there is talk of it being staged in America. The Royal Court is also rushing out a printed edition of the play to give to schools.
Really good article.
And the Darwin award goes to....
How about the Diary of Anne Frank? Anne Frank didn't jump in front of any bulldozer. This woman did, but somehow they're both cases of murder. How about, one is a case of stupidity and the other is an innocent who was murdered.
< /extreme bitter sarcasm >
Give 'em another 20-30 years.... This stupid "progressive" twit will be a major martyr.
This guy basically said that her death was a case of suicide by stubborness.
Corrie got exactly what she deserved IMO. Anyone who supports homicide bombings as a legitimate tactic deserves to be run over by one of Caterpillars finest.
L
There's another Rachel Corrie type rotting in a Peruvian prison. She was a whore for Tupac Amaru, scouting terrorism sites, using her white face and Yanqui pasaporte to gain access to govt. buildings. She was found with notebooks containing sketches, guard posts etc. Another "martyr" to Holy Lenin. Only the one in Peru is rotting alive, for which I am grateful. Lori Beronson? I think is her name.
It used to be those acting a spies were treated like soldiers out of uniform and were summarily shot. I miss the good old days.
Well, enough for tonite. Now, get back to work you slug. I want some more chapters to proof for morphing Buicks and magical Glocks that change calibers...LOL
L
Lori Berenson... Daughter for a couple NYC uber liberals.
She had an appeal recently, didn't go her way. aww too bad.
There is a website set up for her with her mailing address in prison, with the caveat to write to her in spanish because the guards monitor her mail.
I always thought if I was really bored one day I'd send her some mail...
"Dear Lori,
All of your comrades here in the US support you in you in your fight as a proud communist against the evil regime which has unjustly imprisoned you...."
Yep, another night not writing what I should be writing. Sigh.
Yeah, send her "coded messages" like pin pricks under letters, or lemon juice disappearing ink, announcing escape plans, etc. Really screw her over, get her sent back to the interrogation cells with the bright lights and the hard stool for a chair. LOL!
L
"On Nov. 30, 1995, police raided the La Molina house. There was a fierce firefight with MRTA members inside. When it was over, authorities said they discovered a huge cache of weapons. Berenson claimed she knew nothing about any terrorist activities at the house.
Some might find it hard to believe that she was unaware of these weapons. "If I live in the house 24 hours a day and spent my life spying on other people in the house, sure," she said. "I really never saw anything unusual. I went to my room. And that's the only thing I did."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/10/18/48hours/main242175.shtml
I don't get it.
What a farce. I always liked Alan Rickman, he was great in Sense and Sensibility and hilarious in Galaxy Quest. It is always disappointing to discover yet another fine actor to be a blithering leftist moron.
(Cheer for the Israeli's of course)
(Cheer for the Israeli's of course)
We will be treated to a secular beatification of that dingbat like none we've ever seen before. The leftist media will treat her like returning royalty, so much more noble than the rest of us on account of her tribulations.
They'll thoroughly gloss over the fact that she was basically to Peru what Mohammed Atta was to the US, except for the fact that he succeeded in killing thousands of innocents and she came up a bit short.
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