When Some Lives Are Worth More than Others

On Rachel Corrie and Jessica Lynch from Naomi Klein's NoLogo site, first published
in Toronto Globe and Mail

When Some Lives Are Worth More than Others

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, West Virginia. Rachel Corrie, the
activist, died in Israeli-occupied Palestine.

Corrie was four years older than 19-year old
Lynch. Her body was crushed by an Israeli
bulldozer in Gaza seven days before Lynch was
taken into Iraqi custody on March 23. Before she
went to Iraq, Lynch organized a pen pal program
with a local kindergarden. Before Corrie left for
Gaza, she organized a pen pal program between
kids in her hometown of Olympia, Washington,
and children in Rafah.

Lynch went to Iraq as a soldier loyal to her
government. In the words of West Virginia
Senator Jay Rockefeller, "she approached the
prospect of combat with determination rather than
fear."

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 vividly
described how fresh water was being diverted
from Gaza to Israeli settlements, how death was
more normal than life. "This is what we pay for
here," she wrote.

Unlike Lynch, Corrie did not go to Gaza to engage
in combat ­— she went to try to thwart it. Along
with her fellow members of the International
Solidarity Movement (ISM), she believed that the
Israeli military's incursions could be slowed by the
presence of highly visible "internationals." The
killing of Palestinian civilians may have become
commonplace, the thinking went, but Israel
doesn't want the diplomatic or media scandals
that would come if it killed a U.S. college student.

In a way, Corrie was harnessing the very thing
that 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 fluorescent orange jacket would
serve as armor, that her bullhorn could repel
bullets, Corrie stood in front of bulldozers, slept
beside water wells, and escorted children to
school. If suicide bombers turn their bodies into
weapons of death, Corrie turned hers into the
opposite: a weapon of life, a "human shield."

When that Israeli bulldozer driver looked at
Corrie's orange jacket and 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 Rachel
Corrie and Private Jessica Lynch.

When the Pentagon announced Lynch's successful
rescue, she became an overnight hero, complete
with "America loves Jessica" fridge magnets,
stickers, t-shirts, mugs, country songs, and an
NBC made-for-TV movie. According to White
House spokesman Ari Fleisher, President George
W. Bush was "full of joy for Jessica Lynch."
Lynch's rescue, we were told, was a testament to
a core American value: as Senator Rockefeller put
it in a speech to the Senate, "We take care of our
people."

Do they? Corrie's death, which made the papers
for two days and then virtually disappeared, has
met with almost total official silence, despite the
fact that eye-witnesses claim it was a deliberate
act. President Bush has said nothing about a U.S.
citizen killed by a U.S. made bulldozer bought
with U.S. tax dollars. A U.S. congressional
resolution demanding an independent inquiry into
Corrie's death has been buried in committee,
leaving the Israeli military's investigation ­ which
conveniently cleared itself of any wrong doing as
the only official probe.

The ISM says that this non-response has sent a
clear, and dangerous, signal. According to Olivia
Jackson, a 25-year-old British citizen still in
Rafah, "after Rachel was killed, [the Israeli
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."

First there was Brian Avery, a 24-year-old citizen
shot in the face on April 5. Then Tom Hurndall, a
British ISM activist shot in the head and left brain
dead on April 11. Next was James Miller, the
British cameraman shot dead while wearing a vest
that said "TV." In all of these cases,
eye-witnesses say the shooters were Israeli
soldiers.

There is something else that Jessica Lynch and
Rachel Corrie have in common: both of their
stories have been distorted by a military for its
own purposes. According to the official story,
Lynch was captured in a bloody gun battle,
mistreated by sadistic Iraqi doctors, then rescued
in another storm of bullets by heroic Navy SEALs.
In the past weeks, another version has emerged.
The doctors that treated Lynch found no evidence
of battle wounds, and donated their own blood to
save her life. Most embarrassing of all, witnesses
have told the BBC that those daring Navy SEALs
already knew there were no Iraqi fighters left in
the area when they stormed the hospital.

But while Lynch's story has been distorted to
make its protagonists appear more heroic,
Corrie's story has been posthumously 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 that they had
attended a memorial to Rachel Corrie in Rafah, a
fact the Israeli military has seized on to link the
ISM to terrorism. Members of ISM point out that
the memorial was open to the public, and that
they knew nothing of the British visitors'
intentions. As an organization, the ISM is
explicitly opposed to the targeting of civilians,
whether by Israeli bulldozers or Palestinian
bombers. Furthermore, many ISMers believe that
their work may 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
deported, and the organization's offices have
been raided. The crack down is now spreading to
all "internationals," meaning there are fewer and
fewer people in the occupied territories to either
witness the ongoing abuses or assist the victims.
On Monday, the United Nations special
coordinator 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, calling it a violation of "Israel's
international humanitarian law obligations."

On June 5 there will be an international day of
action for Palestinian rights. One of the key
demands is for the UN to send an international
monitoring force into the occupied territories. Until
that happens, many are determined to continue
Corrie's work, despite the risks. Over forty
students at her former 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 attack on Iraq,
some of Corrie¹s friends emailed her picture to
MSNBC asking that it be included on the station's
"wall of heroes," along with Jessica Lynch. The
network didn't comply, but Corrie is being
honoured in other ways. Her family has received
more than 10,000 letters of support, communities
across the country have organized powerful
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.

This article first appeared in The Globe and Mail.