Rachel Corrie's Memory, Israel's Image

Seven years ago yesterday, Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by a
Caterpillar D9R Israeli bulldozer while nonviolently protesting the
demolition of Palestinian homes in Rafah, Gaza Strip, along with other
members of the International
Solidarity Movement (ISM). Now her parents, sister and brother are
suing the State of Israel and the defense minister, claiming wrongful
death.

The suit's objective, according to Rachel's mother, Cindy, "is to
illustrate the need for
accountability for thousands of lives lost, or indelibly injured, by
[Israel's] occupation.... We hope the trial will bring attention to
the assault on nonviolent human rights activists (Palestinian, Israeli
and international) and we hope it will underscore the fact that so
many Palestinian families, harmed as deeply as ours or more, cannot
access Israeli courts."

The State's attorneys have decided to use any and all ammunition to
undermine Corrie's suit. They claim that there is no evidence
that Rachel's parents and siblings are indeed her rightful
inheritors; they argue that she "helped attack Israeli soldiers,"
"took part in belligerent activities" and accompanied armed men who
attacked Israeli soldiers. In defense of the soldiers, the lawyers even
write
that the state "denies the deceased's pain and suffering, the loss
of pleasures and the loss of longevity."

The Israeli state attorneys demonstrate yet again that when winning is
everything, shame becomes superfluous.

As Corrie's civil suit is being heard in a Haifa court, Simone
Bitton's movie Rachel
is being shown at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque.
Rendering, as it were, the trial public, Bitton's subtle and nuanced
movie also presents two narratives, one offered by the state of
Israel and the other by the ISM activists and the Palestinian
eyewitnesses who were with Rachel on that tragic day.

In a self-reflective moment, the film reveals that about an hour
after Rachel was crushed to death, Salim Najar, a Palestinian street
cleaner, was killed by an Israeli sniper in Rafah. The incident is
important
because it emphasizes that Palestinian blood is cheap--no media
outlet bothered to cover the killing, and, as Bitton herself notes,
no one will likely be making a movie about Najar. This incident also
helps underscore that Rachel has become an iconic "Palestinian" of
sorts as well as a symbol of the struggle for social justice. She
dedicated the last part of her short life to the Palestinian cause,
and, after she was killed, the memory of her human rights work in
Rafah has helped internationalize the struggle. Rachel's memory
has thus itself become a site where several struggles
continue to be
played out.

The Israeli government has always recognized the importance of the
fight over narrative; it is particularly sensitive to stories--like
Rachel Corrie's death--that take on global proportions and therefore
influence Israel's international image.

These struggles are considered so important that in 2004 the Israeli
Foreign Ministry introduced the "Brand
Israel" campaign, whose
objective was to alter the country's image by rebranding Israel as a
land of medical, scientific and technological innovations. Over the
years millions
of dollars have been channeled into international PR
firms; these firms advised the ministry to draw attention to
Israeli scientists doing stem-cell research or to the young computer
experts who have given the world Instant Messaging, while trying to
de-emphasize the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by loosening the link
between Israel and concrete walls, torture, terrorism,
house demolitions and extrajudicial executions.

Yet following last year's assault on Gaza and the subsequent
publication of the Goldstone
Report, Brand Israel proponents
realized that drawing attention away from conflict-related issues
just wasn't working. Turning the wheels back, they argued that
"winning
the battle of narratives" had to remain a prime objective.

Cutting-edge technology--such as Twitter,

YouTube and a newly
devised "Internet
megaphone"--was immediately utilized by the
Israeli military and Foreign Ministry to counter the images of mass
destruction coming out of Gaza. Simultaneously, the strategy of
branding anyone critical of Israeli policies as an anti-Semite
became even more pervasive, and a variety of methods developed by
Bar Ilan University's Gerald
Steinberg were deployed to delegitimize
human rights organizations documenting Israel's occupation while
condemning the organizations' donors.

But this, apparently, was not enough. The attack now is directed not
only against the messengers--namely, human rights groups and people
like Rachel Corrie who refer to international law in order to
protest the abusive nature of Israeli policies--but also against
the very legitimacy of international human rights law.
International law is now considered a major problem, because it is
used to criticize
Israel's violation of human rights in the occupied territories and
obstructs certain strategies employed in the war on terrorism, like
torture. The well-known trope that Israel is merely defending itself is
at the
heart of this complaint too.

When social justice activists like Rachel Corrie are branded
terrorists and international human rights law becomes the enemy of
the state--all in the name of winning the narrative battle--then it
becomes absolutely clear that something is terribly wrong. As Jews
around the world come together to celebrate Passover, the liberation
of the Hebrews from slavery and the beginning of a life of freedom,
they should keep in mind Rachel's last words to her mother: "I
think
freedom for Palestine could be an incredible source of hope to
people struggling all over the world. I think it could also be an
incredible inspiration to Arab people in the Middle East, who are
struggling under undemocratic regimes which the US supports...." As
Jews sit at the Passover table this year, they should take Rachel
Corrie's words to heart.