The Beautiful Face of the United States
Imad Jadaa Palestinian Ambassador to Cuba:This
article was published in the Cuban newspaper Juventud Rebelde
Rachel Corrie was never a terrorist. She never sympathized
with Al Qaeda.
Her blond hair and U.S. nationality and the fact than no
Arab blood ran in her veins made her stand out among the
other young women in the Gaza Strip. Neither was she a follower
of Islam and she was barely 23 years old.
Rachel lived in Olympia, in the state of Washington, and
she had been far from home for many months. She belonged
to the International Solidarity Movement and for the moment
her profession was a new one for the 21st century: that
of a human shield against evil and wrongdoing.
One might guess at the reasons why Rachel found herself
in a Palestinian refugee camp in Gaza, and why she postponed
her dream of graduating from college, leaving behind for
the moment the beautiful possibility of loving, of having
children. She wanted now, not later to bear witness to the
Palestinian tragedy and, far from home, she was learning
the true meaning of U.S. justice.
Rachel was guilty. Guilty according to Israeli statements
of being in the wrong country at the wrong time with the
wrong people. She was guilty of not staying home to dance
in the discotheques of the United States, of ceasing to
be a common, ordinary citizen.
She chose to stand in front of a Palestinian home at the
moment an Israeli bulldozer was trying to tear it down.
In the first image captured on camera, she is challenging
the driver with a megaphone in her hand. Her hair is loose
around her shoulders. She places her body between the weakened
wall of the house and the brutal shovel of the bulldozer.
The scene takes place in Rafah, in Gaza, and her protective
gesture is poignant. Never has such an undefended, fragile
person challenged a vehicle transformed into a machine of
death and destruction.
One cannot hear her words. Next to her in the first photograph
is another young solidarity worker, perhaps of her same
nationality. In the second photo, she is on the ground bleeding.
According to witnesses the bulldozer, after stopping for
awhile, decided to move forward. After knocking her down
with the first blow, it backed up and attacked once again.
With a turn of the steering wheel, the driver drove away
from the scene.
He changed direction and left her there to one side, like
some unimportant object: the house still standing, the young
woman on the ground. The image has no sound. ¨What was she
shouting at her assassin? Her cries were not in Hebrew,
but in the purest English pronounced by a pure girl. The
Israeli soldier could not understand why the shouts were
directed at him in the same language of his godfather and
protector. Maybe he thought for an instant how odd were
these blond Palestinians speaking English, a second before
he floored the accelerator for the final attack.
Silence. The death of a blond young woman, 23 years old,
crushed to death in Gaza, deserves silence. There are no
investigations. No one orders the assassin arrested because
that would mean one less driver for the bulldozers, for
the tanks, one less soldier to carry on the killing. And
all of them are needed to keep carrying out these crimes.
No one has expressed regret to Rachel's parents. Only the
Palestinian leader has expressed his condolences. Nothing
important has happened because no one has to ask forgiveness
in the United States or Israel. No one has begged forgiveness
or even contemplated the collateral damage. It is not necessary.
Perhaps they may even think that the Palestinians were
responsible, for not preventing her from standing in front
of that house at the hour of the disaster. If the young
woman stood together with the Arab people under attack,
together with the Third World, it is a certain fact that
she was not a legitimate U.S. citizen. If she were one,
she would have been like the President of her country, on
the side of Zionism.
Something is missing from their statistics: Rachel Corrie
is the first U.S. martyr, the first U.S. blood shed on Palestinian
soil in Gaza. Now her banner is raised and flies in the
wind. From now on she will accompany the struggle, because
she has entered into history to accompany the sadness and
pain of the Palestinian nation.
Missiles and bombs will fall now on Bagdad, the mourning
will spread to new homes and this image will remain as the
terrible face of the United States. The United States has
two faces, the contemptible face of Bush, and the sweet
face of Rachel . He, arrogance, she, solidarity; he, disrespect
for a sovereign people, she, admiration and love of humanity.
Unlike everything that W. Bush stands for, Rachel represents
the beautiful face of the United States, and the beautifully
human face is everlasting. (*Palestinian Ambassador to Cuba)
This article was published in the Cuban newspaper Juventud
Rebelde
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