A STAGED LEGACY

James Kirchick writes in today's online edition of The New Republic about THE STAGED LEGACY OF RACHEL CORRIE.

"My Name is Rachel Corrie" is a one-woman show playing in New York about the International Solidarity Movement activist who died in 2003 after being crushed by an Israeli bulldozer in disputed circumstances while attempting to prevent the destruction of Palestinian houses near the Gaza/Egypt border.

The play opened in London two years ago to mixed reviews. The more prescient observers recognised immediately that it was nothing more than a simple piece of agitprop designed to promote antagonism towards the Jewish state.

The ISM is an organization which supports the Palestinian "armed struggle" while at the same time claiming to be "anti war". As such, it has been reasonably successful in recruiting naive young activists like Corrie to do their handiwork (i.e. disrupt the IDF's attempts to protect its own citizens from terrorism) in the Palestinian territories.

Kirchick points out that while the play takes us into the streets of the Rafah refugee camp where Corrie worked just before her death, "there is hardly any mention of the Palestinian people she was so committed to."

He adds -

"We hear machine guns, helicopter blades, and tanks (though never the sounds of suicide bombs). If you watched 'My Name is Rachel Corrie' knowing little about this decades-long crisis, you would leave thinking that Israelis are sadistic monsters who kill Palestinians at random, destroy olive groves, and harass women and children for the sheer thrill of it. The few mentions of terrorism or suicide bombing are vague, and only in reference to 'the right of people to legitimate armed struggle.' Never is it suggested that these acts take place against civilian targets, not soldiers (though, in her diary, Corrie excuses that, too)."

And this highlights what is so sad about the Palestinian narrative.

While many Palestinians and Israelis would like to see a peaceful and a just solution to the conflict, it seems that for some Palestinians and their supporters, the propaganda war and the lies and deceit never stop.

Earlier this week, the Age published a letter from reader Moammar Mashni of Hawthorn. Incredibly the letter that follows was headed "A glimmer of hope in the Middle East" -

"HOPES of renewed peace negotiations in Palestine/Israel were lifted this past weekend after a truce was announced. Since June, Israel has blasted its way through the towns and villages of Gaza, killing more than 500 Palestinians. Five Israelis have also died since the assault began.

Without being too pessimistic, one wonders what will be the trigger for the collapse of this current truce. Reports of militants firing rockets from Gaza have already begun filtering out (The Age, 27/11), which will no doubt be the pretext for another bombardment of the Palestinians. These home-made rockets have killed eight Israelis in five years and in response Israel has killed over 4000 Palestinians. Such disproportionate force is precisely why mutterings of an Israeli peace pact are met with scepticism by the Palestinians."

Putting aside for a moment the reasons why the Age could see fit to publish such a deceptive piece of drivel, the letter shows how difficult it is going to be for the current ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian terrorists to hold.

Apologists for Palestinian terror feel it is necessary to portray events even untruthfully and without any ethics if it can win an argument.

In his letter, Mashni ignores the reasons why Israel started operating in Gaza in June of this year. He ignores the fact that the Israeli death toll at the hands of Palestinian terror during the Second Intifada was in far in excess of eight; in fact it was in excess of 1,000!

Also conveniently ignored is the fact that the majority of the Palestinian casualties were armed combatants or put in harm's way by terrorists.

So, even at a time when they should be looking forward to an era of peace in the region, the public is fed a never ending stream of deceit from the Palestinian propaganda machine.

And this is what I see as the staged legacy of Rachel Corrie and the tacky little play that carries her name.

[And yes, I have read and been bored by the terrible script]