CPT member facing deportation+2 women went to war
ISM: CPT member facing deportation / Why two women went
to war
1) Action Alert - CPT member facing deportation 2) Why two women went to war (Rachel Corrie & Private Jessica Lynch)_Naomi Klein
1) ACTION ALERT! Crackdown on the Christian Peacemaking Team in Hebron CPT member Greg Rollins facing deportation
A week after the raid on the ISM office in Beit Sahour, the army is targeting also the CPT (Christian Peacemakers Teams) - composed of North American and British religious pacifists, who have been based for much of the past decade at Hebron.
At 8:20pm on Tuesday, May 20, a group of eight soldiers entered the CPT apartments in the Old City of Hebron, for the second consecutive search in as many days. Soldiers looked at the passports and visas of the CPTers present, took photographs of the apartment and the CPTers themselves and examined the maps and pictures on the wall along with the contents of the filing cabinet.
CPTer Greg Rollins (a Canadian of Surrey, BC) was arrested on Sunday, May 18 when monitoring the detention of several Hebronites at the Beit Hadassa checkpoint, taken to prison and threatened with immediate deportation. The following alert is from the CPT. Please take action.
Date: Thu, 22
May 2003 03:30:16 -0000 From: "Christian Peacemaker Teams"
HEBRON:
Urgent Action and Update Christian Peacemaker Teams member,
Greg Rollins (Surrey, BC), remains in a holding cell near
Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv. So far the Israeli High
Court has not ruled on the request for an injunction to
block Rollins' deportation. The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz
today quoted Israeli immigration spokeswoman Orit Friedman,
saying, "[Rollins] is in our custody in the Ma'asiyahu
prison and he will probably be flown out tomorrow."
IMMEDIATE ACTION: PLEASE E-MAIL, PHONE OR FAX ISRAELI
MINISTER OF INTERIOR AVRAHAM PORAZ to express your concerns
about the impending deportation of Greg Rollins and other
peacemakers. Talking Points: Members of Christian Peacemaker
Teams are committed to confronting all violence. We work to
reduce violence through our physical presence. Rollins and
other CPTers accompany Palestinian school children who must
cross settler-controlled streets to get to school. Rollins
himself has also stood and talked with Israeli soldiers to
deter Palestinian youth from throwing stones at them. He
also worked with a member of the Temporary International
Presence in Hebron [TIPH] to calm a Palestinian woman
attempting to attack two Israeli soldiers with a knife.
Contact Info: Interior Minister Avraham Poraz mailto:sar@moin.gov.il Phone
011-972-2-670-1400 (remember 7-10 hour time difference) Fax
(from North America) 011-972-2-566-6376 The following
sample letter was provided by Gush-Shalom. Please either
use a version of this or compose your own. Dear Sir I
strongly protest the Government of Israel's crackdown on
international peace activists in the Occupied Territories,
and specifically the severe restrictions placed this week
upon the humanitarian activities of the Christian
Peacemakers Team in Hebron and the threatened deportation
of CPT member Greg Rollins, a Canadian citizen - following
upon the earlier attack upon the International Solidarity
Movement (ISM). The continued presence of international
activists, committed to peace and non-violence, is
beneficial to all including Israel. Their forcible removal,
or severe restrictions placed upon their movements, may
arouse the suspicion that your government and armed forces
have something to hide from the world. To learn more
about the CPT, look in at http://www.cpt.org and
http://www.clubphoto.com 2) Why two women went to
war By NAOMI KLEIN, UPDATED AT 5:02 AM EDT
Wednesday, May. 21, 2003, Toronto Globe and Mail Jessica
Lynch and Rachel Corrie could have passed for sisters. Two
all-American blondes, two destinies forever changed in a
Middle East war zone. Private Jessica Lynch, the soldier,
was born in Palestine, W.Va. Rachel Corrie, the activist,
died in Israeli-occupied Palestine. Ms. Corrie was four
years older than 19-year-old Pte. Lynch. Her body was
crushed by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza seven days before
Pte. Lynch was taken into Iraqi custody, on March 23.
Before she went to Iraq, Pte. Lynch organized a pen pal
program with a local kindergarten. Before Ms. Corrie left
for Gaza, she organized a pen pal program between kids in
her hometown of Olympia, Wash., and children in Rafah.
Pte. Lynch went to Iraq as a soldier loyal to her
government. Ms. Corrie went to Gaza to oppose the actions of
her government. As a U.S. citizen, she believed she had a
special responsibility to defend Palestinians against
U.S.-built weapons, purchased with U.S. aid to Israel. In
letters home, she described how fresh water was being
diverted from Gaza to Israeli settlements, and how death was
more normal than life. Unlike Pte. Lynch, Ms. Corrie did
not set out to engage in combat; she went to try to thwart
it. Along with fellow members of the International
Solidarity Movement, she believed that the Israeli
military's incursions could be slowed by the presence of
highly visible "internationals," that Israel would not want
the diplomatic or media scandals that would result if it
started shooting U.S. and British college students. In a
way, Ms. Corrie was harnessing the very thing she disliked
most about her country -- the belief that American lives are
worth more than any others -- and trying to use it to save a
few Palestinian homes from demolition. Believing her
florescent orange jacket would serve as armour, that her
bullhorn could repel bullets, she stood in front of
bulldozers, slept beside wells, and escorted children to
school. If suicide bombers turn their bodies into weapons of
death, Ms. Corrie turned hers into a weapon of life, a
"human shield." When that Israeli bulldozer driver
pressed the accelerator, her strategy failed. It turns out
that the lives of some U.S. citizens -- even
beautiful,young, white women -- are valued more than others.
And nothing demonstrates this more starkly than the opposing
responses to Ms. Corrie and Pte. Lynch. When the Pentagon
announced Pte. Lynch's rescue, she became an overnight hero,
complete with "America loves Jessica" fridge magnets,
stickers, T-shirts, mugs, country songs and a made-for-TV
movie. According to White House spokesman Ari Fleischer,
President George W. Bush was "full of joy for Jessica
Lynch." Her rescue, we were told, was a testament to a core
American value. As Senator Jay Rockefeller said, "We take
care of our people." Do they? Ms. Corrie's death was met
with almost total official silence, despite the fact that
witnesses claim it was a deliberate act. Mr. Bush has said
nothing about a U.S. citizen being killed by a U.S.-made
bulldozer bought with U.S. tax dollars. A congressional
resolution demanding an independent inquiry into Ms.
Corrie's death has been buried in committee, leaving the
Israeli military's investigation -- which conveniently
cleared itself of any wrongdoing -- as the only official
probe. The ISM activists say this non-response sent a
dangerous signal. According to Olivia Jackson, a 25-year-old
British citizen still in Rafah, the Israel military "waited
for the response from the American government, and the
response was pathetic. They have realized that they can get
away with it, and it has encouraged them to keep on going."
On April 5, Brian Avery, a U.S. citizen, was shot in the
face. On April 11, Tom Hurndall, a British ISM activist, was
shot in the head and left brain dead. Next was James Miller,
a British cameraman shot dead while wearing a vest that read
"TV." Witnesses said the shooters in all three cases were
Israeli soldiers. There is something else Pte. Lynch and Ms.
Corrie have in common: the military's distortion of their
stories. According to the Pentagon, Pte. Lynch was
captured in a bloody gun battle, mistreated by sadistic
Iraqi doctors, then rescued in another storm of bullets by
heroic Navy SEALs. But another version has emerged: The
Iraqi doctors who treated her found no evidence of battle
wounds, and they donateed their own blood to save her life.
And witnesses have told the BBC that the SEALs already knew
there were no Iraqi fighters in the area. While Pte.
Lynch's story has been distorted to make its protagonists
appear more heroic, Ms. Corrie's has been twisted to make
her and her fellow ISM activists appear sinister. For
months, the Israeli military had been looking for an excuse
to get rid of the ISM "troublemakers." It found it in Asif
Mohammed Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif, the two British suicide
bombers. It turns out they had attended a memorial to Ms.
Corrie in Rafah, a fact the Israeli military has seized on
to link the ISM to terrorism. ISM members say that the
memorial was open to the public, and that they knew nothing
of the British visitors' intentions. The ISM says it is
opposed to the targeting of civilians, whether by Israeli
bulldozers or Palestinian bombers. And many ISMers believe
their work can reduce terrorist incidents by demonstrating
that there are ways to resist occupation other than the
nihilistic revenge offered by suicide bombing. No matter.
In the past two weeks, half a dozen ISM activists have been
arrested, several have been deported, and the organization's
offices have been raided. The crackdown is now spreading to
all "internationals." On Monday, the United Nations special
co-ordinator for the Middle East peace process told the
Security Council that dozens of UN aid workers had been
prevented from getting in and out of Gaza. On June 5, the
36th anniversary of the Israeli occupation, there will be an
internationally co-ordinated day of action for Palestinian
rights. One of the key demands is for the UN to send a
monitoring force into the occupied territories. Until that
happens, many activists are determined to continue Ms.
Corrie's work. More than 40 students at Ms. Corrie's
college, Evergreen State in Olympia, have already signed up
to go to Gaza with the ISM this summer. So who is a hero?
During the war on Iraq, some of Ms. Corrie's friends
e-mailed her picture to MSNBC asking that it be included on
the station's "wall of heroes," along with Pte. Lynch. The
station didn't comply, but Ms. Corrie is being honoured in
other ways. Her family has received more than 10,000 letters
of support, communities across the country have organized
dozens of memorials, and children all over the occupied
territories are being named Rachel. It's not a made-for-TV
kind of tribute, but perhaps that's for the best. Naomi
Klein is the author of No Logo and Fences and Windows.