THE OLYMPIAN
For three weeks, she ate dinner with their family and slept on the floor with the children in a pile of blankets at the back of the house, away from the gunfire.
She watched the American cartoon "Gummi Bears," dubbed in Arabic, with their kids.
Then one March afternoon, they watched through cracks in their concrete garden wall as Rachel Corrie was fatally crushed by a bulldozer.
Now, two years later, Khaled and Samah Nasrallah are staying with Corrie's parents at the Olympia home where she grew up.
The Nasrallahs and the Corries are touring the country together to raise money for rebuilding the Nasrallahs' Gaza Strip home, and to raise awareness about other Palestinian families whose homes have been demolished.
This is the first time the two families have seen each other since Corrie's parents went to the Nasrallah home in Rafah shortly after Corrie died in March 2003. She was acting as a human shield to keep an Israeli bulldozer from razing the home. It is the Nasrallahs' first trip to the United States.
They spoke Saturday at St. John's Episcopal Church in Olympia and will give similar presentations in Tacoma and Seattle before moving on to other cities on their five-state tour.
At St. John's, they collected more than $3,000 from the 100 people who came to hear them.
They showed photos: the Nasrallahs' two-story concrete house, riddled with bullet holes and bearing the words "We are here: stop shooting," written in green paint by members of the Palestinian-led peace group Corrie worked with.
Another picture shows the Nasrallahs standing on the ground where their house was, post-demolition, with the Israeli security wall in the background.
The Corries keep a different photograph framed in their home: It shows Palestinian boys standing on the mound of dirt that marks the spot where Corrie died. The boys had placed flowers there to memorialize the 23-year-old Evergreen State College student.
The Corries and Nasrallahs talk about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, about daily shootings and the destruction of homes.
It's a cause that has ignited Olympia since Corrie died. Her parents picked it up almost immediately after her death and have committed themselves to it with ardor as they continue to mourn their daughter's loss.
Both have left their jobs -- Corrie's father, Craig, as a life insurance executive, and her mother, Cindy, as a musician -- to continue the activism their daughter started.
It's "a full-time passion -- more than full time," says Cindy Corrie, wearing a Christmas-themed apron over a pink shirt and black slacks Friday at her home near Evergreen, where she had organized a party to welcome the Nasrallahs.
"We want people to understand what's happening, and that we have a responsibility in that," Corrie said.
In March, the Corries filed lawsuits against the Israeli military, the Israeli government, and the U.S.-based Caterpillar Company, which manufactured the bulldozer that killed Corrie.
The Israeli government has called Corrie's death accidental. The Nasrallahs and other witnesses working with Corrie say it looked intentional.
Corrie has become legendary, both in Olympia and across the Arab world: Cindy Corrie hears about Arab mothers who name their daughters Rachel, about Palestinians who keep pictures of her daughter in their homes and offices, and about a street in Beirut named after her.
"When I talk to Palestinians, they tell me what Rachel means to them. What I hear is Rachel is the person who came from this community -- who didn't have to but did -- to stand with them to save their houses," Craig Corrie said.
His wife winces at the suggestion Rachel is being considered a martyr.
"It was explained to me there that everyone who dies in the intifada (the Palestinian fight against Israeli military forces) is a martyr. Culturally it translates a little differently," she says. "I just think of her as Rachel."
Corrie, who keeps a packet of tissues with her, cried Friday as Samah Nasrallah described her last memories of Rachel, wearing an orange construction jacket, shouting into a megaphone and backing toward the Nasrallah home as the bulldozer advanced, then plowed over her.
Khaled Nasrallah stayed inside and called an ambulance while his brother, a pharmacist with whom Corrie was staying on the ground floor of their shared house, ran to dig Corrie out of the pile of sand the bulldozer had pushed on top of her.
The bulldozer then withdrew, and the Nasrallahs stayed in the home for seven more months -- the only home left standing in a rubble-strewn neighborhood where more than 2,000 homes once stood, they said.
Community response
Corrie's death drew sympathy and cynicism from the public: letters to the editor poured in on both sides, some calling her a hero, others calling her a fool who put herself in harm's way.
Her death rekindled the political debate about the Palestinian-Israeli question, and left some people nervous with the new zeal for the topic.
"I know people who angrily state that she had no business being there and she was protecting terrorists. Other people say she's a bright young woman trying to do the right thing," said Alan Corwin, a member of Olympia's conservative Jewish congregation, B'Nai Torah. "Each side has its own agenda."
Corwin, who lost his own daughter in a climbing accident when she was nearly 20, sympathizes with the family. The community should grieve for Corrie and support her parents, he said.
He thinks Corrie's death instead has become a political hot button.
"This is the way a family tragedy has been exploited in our own community," Corwin said. "Some people want to equate her to Joan of Arc, and the people who do don't really know the story of Joan of Arc."
The fervor over Rachel Corrie has heated tempers and made people who support Israel uncomfortable, said Corwin, who supports the Jewish state.
"There were a couple professors at Evergreen who are Jewish who have been harassed, and some unkind things said," said Corwin, a Public Utilities District commissioner.
Anne Fischel is a Jewish Evergreen professor who once taught Rachel Corrie. She belongs to Olympia's larger Jewish congregation, Temple Beth Hatfiloh.
She came to Saturday's speaking event to support the family's rebuilding efforts.
"It's amazing, the work her parents are doing. They've really taken this up," Fischel said. "A lot of us in the community want to be connected to them and support them taking Rachel's work forward. It's personally important to me, to know the family."
Olympia resident Ruth Lipow knew Corrie from a local organization working for peace in the Middle East.
"As a Jew who is opposed to the occupation, I felt I had to be supportive of this project, and it will help the Israelis to face that this occupation is doing so much harm, not just to the Palestinians but to the Israelis," Lipow said.
Corwin said he is in favor of rebuilding demolished Palestinian homes, but fears the tour the Corries and Nasrallahs are taking with the California-based Rebuilding Alliance will further inflame the politics surrounding Israel and the Palestinians.
"If I thought that all the money that was going to be raised would be used to put up housing in what is a very poor area, I would contribute some of my own," Corwin said. "My concern is they're trying to raise money so they can dramatize the situation further for political purposes."
During Saturday's fund-raiser, two Evergreen students stood to say they think Evergreen should take a stand against Israeli occupation in Palestine.
Anna-Marie Murano wants the school to tell students what stocks their teachers' pensions include, and to boycott stock in Caterpillar or any other company that's "profiting from the occupation," she said.
Afsheen Fatemi wants the school to publicly come out in opposition to Israeli settlement in the disputed territory.
"There's a great deal of support from the community on a private level, but in a public sense (there isn't)," Fatemi said. "It's very personal, because everyone loved Rachel. It's a touchy subject."
Cindy Corrie takes comfort from the people who say her daughter has motivated them to be activists.
"Rachel has inspired a lot of people, and that's a good thing," she said.
Cindy Corrie, who used to read stories about the Holocaust to her children, said Rachel changed the way she thought about Middle East politics.
"Our sympathies were with Israel throughout all the years," Corrie said. "We didn't pay close attention to what was happening; we just knew it wasn't getting resolved.
"I didn't know the Palestinian narrative," Corrie went on. "Rachel brought me to that."
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Rachel Corrie Memorial Web site |
Original source The Olympian 6/19/05