The Meaning of Rachel Corrie

Read this beautiful piece by Edward Said , "The Meaning of Rachel Corrie -Of Dignity and Solidarity"

Rachel Corrie, a 23 year-old American girl and a senior at Evergreen State College,Olympia, Washington State, was mowed down by an Israeli bulldozer on March 16, 2003, when she tried to prevent the Israelis from tearing down a Palestinian home in the Gaza Strip.

Excerpt from Dr Said's article:

"..... the Rachel Corrie story for me was the young woman's action itself, heroic and dignified at the same time.

Born and brought up in Olympia, a small city 60 miles south of Seattle, she had joined the International Solidarity Movement and gone to Gaza to stand with suffering human beings with whom she had never had any contact before.

Her letters back to her family are truly remarkable documents of her ordinary humanity that make for very difficult and moving reading, especially when she describes the kindness and concern showed her by all the Palestinians she encounters who clearly welcome her as one of their own, because she lives with them exactly as they do, sharing their lives and worries, as well as the horrors of the Israeli occupation and its terrible effects on even the smallest child.

She understands the fate of refugees, and what she calls the Israeli government's insidious attempt at a kind of genocide by making it almost impossible for this particular group of people to survive.


So moving is her solidarity that it inspires an Israeli reservist named Danny who has refused service to write her and tell her, " You are doing a good thing. I thank you for it."

Read HERE ( and HERE, HERE , HERE , and HERE ) on Rachel Corrie.

Read HERE Rachel's letters and emails she wrote home before her death.

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