Seven years ago today, on March 16, 2003, a 23-year-old American peace activist named Rachel Corrie was murdered by the Israeli government because she stood in front of a Palestinian home, on Palestinian land, and the Israeli military ran a bulldozer right over her. Twice. And crushed her to death.
An outraged world demanded justice, but the Israeli government claimed no one was to blame. Israel goes onto Palestinian lands and knocks down homes of civilians just to pursue Israeli's brutal, barbaric policy of genocide and ethnic cleansing designed to force all Palestinians to leave the area. Rachel Corrie put her body between the Israeli bulldozers and the home of one Palestinian family, a pharmacist and his wife and children, people not accused of any crimes, people who had done nothing wrong, people who had taken Rachel Corrie into their home to live with them. Rachel Corrie stood in front of the home, and the government of Israel murdered her.
After her murder, Rachel's diaries, e-mails, and writings were used to create a play to inform the world of the genocidal policies of Israel, and to inform the world of the details of Rachel's murder by the government of Israel. "My Name Is Rachel Corrie" was originally performed in London, but since then has been performed in countries throughout the world.
The play was scheduled to be performed in New York. Then some unidentified groups put pressure on the theatre to demand that the play not be put on. The theatre bowed to the threats of the unidentified groups, and cancelled the performance. So in the United States, the citizens can actually be prevented from seeing a play which tells the truth about the barbaric and murderous government of Israel, because unidentified groups want to stop the truth from every being disclosed. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060403/weiss
Eventually another theatre in New York stepped up and allowed the play to be performed.
Rachel Corrie's family has sued Israel. There have been many skirmishes around this lawsuit. Originally Israel would not allow it at all. Now they are allowing it, kind of. For example, the doctor who saw Rachel after she had been crushed to death by the Israeli government will not be allowed to testify, or even to come near the courthouse. So it appears the government of Israel will allow a "trial," as long as the truth doesn't come out.
Because of the U.S. financial and political and military support of Israel, we are responsible for its murder and genocide. Every year the Congress of the U.S. votes to send billions of dollars to Israel of our working people's money. And every year Israel skims a piece off the top, launders it back into this country and to the hands of its front groups, who kick back a big chunk of the money to the individual politicians who voted to give it to Israel. It is a criminal enterprise in which our money, the taxpayer's money is stolen from us and sent to Israel, and a percentage is laundered, smuggled back into our country, and kicked-back to the politicians. The whole system is corrupt, dripping with the blood of the Palestinians.
We need to demand that our government give nothing more to Israel -- not one penny more of our money. The Europeans who stole the Palestinian land, and who now claim to be an independent nation called Israel, can either learn to live in peace with their neighbors or they can get out. Our Congress has no right to take away our money and give it to Israel. The working people of the U.S. should not be required to support the people of Israel. Let them support themselves. Israel has a terrific economy, decent employment, a lot of the people are given housing, all because of money stolen from the taxpayers of the U.S. by our politicians. They even have a national healthcare program. You know why they're doing so well? Because every year we send them billions of dollars of our money. And in the meantime, every single community in this country is on the verge of bankruptcy, but our Congress does nothing to help us. This needs to end.
U.S. Out of Israel.
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