The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

The Holy Church of St. Pancake
The International Solidarity Movement and the Rachel Corrie Death Cult

Posted on | June 6, 2010 | 99 Comments

Back in 2003, when Charles Johnson was still able to maintain some semblance of sanity, a commenter at Little Green Footballs — no doubt long since banished — responded to the death of Rachel Corrie by dubbing her “St. Pancake.”

A jest both crude and arguably cruel, yet in two words, that LGF commenter captured a reality that has endured, sadly, in the name of a ship that was seized Saturday when it tried to run the Gaza blockade:

The boarding of the Rachel Corrie containing activists and aid for Gaza was described by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Saturday as a quiet operation . . .
IDF navy forces boarded and took control of the MV Rachel Corrie Saturday afternoon. The troops did not meet any resistance from activists attempting to break the Gaza blockade, and the operation was completed without violent incidents.

In case you’ve forgotten, or perhaps never knew, who Rachel Corrie was, she was a 23-year-old middle-class college kid from Olympia, Washington, who got caught up in post-9/11 “peace” activism.

That was, in and of itself, a damned foolish thing to do, but college kids do foolish things all the time, and I suppose marching around with a bunch of smelly International A.N.S.W.E.R. commies shouting senseless slogans is no more foolish than getting a tramp-stamp tattoo during Spring Break in Daytona.

Ah, but Rachel Corrie was not content with peace slogans. She became a fanatic. Every fanatic needs a scapegoat and — like other fanatics before and since — Rachel scapegoated the Jews.

The Road to Rafah

During the Second Intifada, at a time when the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and other terrorists were blasting Jews to smithereens on a regular basis, Rachel Corrie took up the Palestinian cause, joining a radical “direct action” group called the International Solidarity Movement (ISM).

The ISM, it must be noted, was founded in August 2001, a few months after Israel intercepted a ship, the Santorini, which was loaded with millions of dollars of weapons en route to Gaza for delivery to the terrorist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Also, the ISM was founded mere weeks after the June 2001 bombing of an Israeli dance club that killed 21 people, 16 of whom were teenagers.

Such was the murderous cause to which the ISM sought — and still seeks — to demonstrate its “solidarity,” and Rachel Corrie’s decision to join the ISM thus put her on the most extreme fringe of the (arguably misnamed) peace movement.

Her fanaticism led Corrie to travel to Gaza in January 2003. Three weeks later, when activists organized an international protest of the impending U.S. invasion of Iraq, Corrie was photographed burning a hand-drawn fascimile of the U.S. flag, her face distorted by rage, while dozens of Palestinian children watched.

It is impossible to exaggerate the extent to which Corrie’s ideology had blinded her to the larger reality. Remember, this was in the third year of the second Intifada, when Palestinian suicide bombers were a constant threat to Israeli civilians. And yet Rachel Corrie wrote home from the Gaza town of Rafah:

“The vast majority of Palestinians right now, as far as I can tell, are engaged in Gandhian nonviolent resistance.”

Few would argue that the “vast majority” of Gaza’s residents in 2003 were innocent sufferers, trapped helplessly in circumstances beyond their control. However, those circumstances were the result of violence instigated by the Palestinian thugs who, having rejected the peace President Bill Clinton attempted to broker at Camp David in 2000, launched a relentless campaign of terrorism that lasted more than five years and took the lives of hundreds of Israelis as innocent as any resident of Gaza.

Sacred Martyr of the Intifada

Rachel Corrie never seems to have had any concern for dead Israelis, instead writing indignantly to justify the Intifada by “international law and the right of people to legitimate armed struggle in defense of their land and their families.” Dead Jews were utterly invisible to her, as she wrote home accusing Israel of “genocide,” and arguing that U.S. support to Israel implicated all Americans in genocide.

So it was that, on March 16, 2003, Rachel Corrie joined six other ISM activists in a “direct action” against the Israeli military. The Israelis were destroying terrorist bases and smuggling tunnels in Gaza, an operation that ISM attempted to thwart. The circumstances of Corrie’s death have been mired in controversy for years, but there is no argument that she positioned herself in the path of an Israeli bulldozer and was fatally crushed.

An Israeli investigation concluded that her death was an accident, and that the bulldozer operator did not see Corrie, while the ISM has depicted her death as willful murder. Whatever the case, Rachel Corrie’s death served the exact propaganda purpose she had anticipated in one of her final e-mails home:

“Coming here is one of the better things I’ve ever done. So when I sound crazy, or if the Israeli military should break with their racist tendency not to injure white people, please pin the reason squarely on the fact that I am in the midst of a genocide . . . for which my government is largely responsible.”

This, then, was Rachel Corrie, for whom the radical group Free Gaza named its ship. At best, she was a misguided idealist whose youthful folly put her in harm’s way. At worst, she was a willing ally of terrorists, an American who volunteered as a “human shield” to protect the smuggling operations by which these bloodthirsty killers got their deadly weapons.

Flippantly dubbing her “St. Pancake” is admittedly callous, yet the LGF commenter’s mocking attribution of “sainthood” to Rachel Corrie accurately reflects the status of holy martyr that the Left and its media allies immediately bestowed upon her.

Within hours of her death, Corrie was transformed from human being to sacred symbol, an icon revered by the “Blame Israel First” crowd. She was subsequently glorified in a cantata composed by a University of Alaska professor (who has since become a notorious anti-Palin blogger) and in a play that ran for 48 performances on Broadway.

Exploited to advance the anti-Israel cause, this symbolic Rachel Corrie functions in death as the real Rachel Corrie functioned in life, scapegoating Jews and acting as a human shield for terrorists.

Who, therefore, is to blame if her name has become an epithet among Israelis? If we grant to Jews the same right that she demanded for Palestinians — “defense of their land and their families” — Israelis have a right to view Rachel Corrie as an ally of their enemies. She is a weapon in a propaganda war against Israel.

Death Remembered, Death Forgotten

 Those who have promoted the death-cult of Rachel Corrie insist that she must be remembered exactly as they wish her to be remembered, as a victim-hero whose name can only be spoken with hushed reverence for her innocent righteousness. To remember Rachel Corrie that way, you see, requires us to forget the victims of her terrorist allies.

In 1998, when Rachel Corrie was a high school senior, a 19-year-old Israeli girl traveled to America, touring the Grand Canyon and other sites. Later, the Israeli girl spent a year in Latin America, where she learned Spanish, hiked mountains and went scuba diving. She was the daughter of a dentist, third of five children, by all accounts beloved by everyone who knew her, and she signed her e-mails “Shiri Negari, World Traveler.”

“Shiri loved to laugh and made others laugh with her. She loved to dance and knew how to enjoy the little things in life. She had the gift of being able to see goodness and beauty in every person she met, and she kept up many close friendships with a wide variety of people. . . . Always full of life, she loved to sing and make music. A born actress, she often delighted family and friends with her spontaneous improvisations and impressions. She wrote poetry. She loved swimming.”

Shiri loved America so much that, shortly after her 21st birthday, she moved to New York City and got a job in a restaurant. After the 9/11 attacks destroyed the World Trade Center, her family became concerned for her safety, and eventually Shiri returned home to live with her parents near Jerusalem. She got a temporary job in a bank, working to save money for college where she planned to enroll in the fall of 2002.

Shiri Negari was on her way to work at the bank one Tuesday morning — June 18, 2002 — when she boarded Bus No. 32A in Gilo. A few minutes later, a little before 8 a.m., another passenger boarded the bus:

19 people were killed and 74 injured . . . in a suicide bombing at the Patt junction in Jerusalem.  . . .
Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack and identified the bomber as Muhamed al-Ral, an Islamic law student at An-Najah University. . . .
Al-Ral boarded Egged bus no. 32A from Gilo at 7:50 A.M. at the stop in Beit Safafa, an Arab neighborhood opposite Gilo, and almost immediately detonated the large bomb which he carried in a bag stuffed with ball bearings.

Shiri died that day, just two weeks before her 22nd birthday, in a blast that ended the lives of 18 other people ranging in age from 11 to 72. They were all killed on orders of Hamas — the same terrorist organization that rules Gaza, where 23-year-old Rachel Corrie arrived to join the anti-Israeli ISM contigent in January 2003, barely seven months after the blast that destroyed Bus No. 32A.

You’ve probably never heard of Shiri Negari before, and I would never have known her name were it not for a man named David Zucker.

In September 2007, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was invited to speak at Columbia University and Zucker showed up to protest, carrying a sign with Shiri’s photo and a simple message:

“My name is Shiri Negari and I would like to speak at Columbia too, but I was murdered when Iran gave money to Hamas to blow up the bus I was on.”

Zucker explained in an e-mail to Michelle Malkin:

“I did not know Shiri, just happened to come across her memorial site on Sunday when I was trying to figure out what type of sign to make when I got the idea to put a human face on the current debate. I emailed her family to get their permission and they emailed me the picture. I’m sure her family will get great solace from the fact that their daughter’s memory is still alive.”

Her family created a Web site devoted to Shiri’s memory, including this video tribute. Try to watch the whole thing without crying:

And that’s it. No American professor composed a cantata for Shiri Negari, no one produced a Broadway play about her life, and no “humanitarian” ships have been named in her honor. I’d scarcely thought about her since 2007 until Saturday, when Carl in Jerusalem did a post about the blockade-runner Rachel Corrie and invoked the “St. Pancake” nickname. When I re-Tweeted Carl’s post with an “LMAO,” I found myself targeted by a Corrie cultist:


While Shiri Negari’s life and death are nearly unknown, you see, no one can be permitted to defame the memory of that “great person” Rachel Corrie, who was the victim of a “brutal murder.” 

Reverent devotion to the martyrdom of St. Pancake makes it possible — indeed, makes it absolutely necessary — to forget the brutal murders of Shiri Negari and hundreds of other true innocents slain by the death-cult whose “armed struggle” Rachel Corrie died to defend.

* * * * * * *

UPDATE: Carl in Jerusalem:

I doubt many of you have thought of Shiri recently. But every time I drive to my sons’ school or take my car to the mechanic . . . I pass the spot where a suicide bomber blew up Egged Bus 32A and Shiri Negari was murdered. And I think of her.

Linked by Lisa Graas at Genuine GOP Mom — thanks!

UPDATE II: Linked by Yosef in Hebron, who comments below:

What I found painful, but necessary, was that the memory of Shiri Negari, a truly wonderful soul has to share the page with [Rachel Corrie].

The contrast, alas, is necessary. Too many young people have been raised with the same mentality that led Rachel Corrie to her death. It is easy for American liberals to buy into the propaganda depiction of Palestinians as victims of Israeli “racism.” In fact, innocent Palestinians are victims of their death-cult leadership — a pathological legacy of the sadistic butcher Yasser Arafat — who refuse to accept any reasonable terms of peace.

Arafat himself was responsible for the failure of the 2000 Camp David talks, and for the Intifada that followed. Arafat’s bloody legacy has been passed on to the current Palestinian leadership, who have never recanted their vow to continue the “armed struggle” until Israel is destroyed. These “leaders” have brought the Palestinians nothing but misery, and yet ISM insists on showing “solidarity” with the death-cult.

There are today in America many thousands of impressionable young liberals who, like Rachel Corrie, are predisposed to buy into the deadly lies that justify the “armed struggle.” They don’t remember the wars of 1967 and ’73, and they know nothing of the real origins and history of modern Middle Eastern terrorism. They don’t know, for example, that Arafat was allied with Moscow during the Cold War and that the PLO (as well as the Assad regime in Syria) endorsed the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Having been propagandized in their schools to accept the twisted Hamas/Fatah version of Middle Eastern history, young liberals swallow the Zionism-is-racism anti-colonial claptrap (another Soviet legacy, by the way) and easily imagine the Palestinian cause as the moral equivalent of the U.S. civil-rights movement. Furthermore, having been indoctrinated to view the 1960s protest movement against the Vietnam War as intrinsically righteous, many young liberals are as viciously anti-American as Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground.

So these young liberals are particulary vulnerable to the recruitment efforts of the ISM and other radical groups. And, just like Rachel Corrie, they never question why the “armed struggle” requires the purposeful murder of innocents like Shiri Negari. It is important that the truth be proclaimed to these young people, to make them understand that their “progressive” commitment to peace has made them accomplices to murder and blinded them to the violent hatefulness of Israel’s enemies. Only truth can persuade them to turn away from the death-cult.

I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life . . .
— Deuteronomy 30:19 (KJV)

UPDATE III: Linked by Melissa Clouthier, VodkaPundit, Cassy Fiano and Moe Lane at Red State. Thanks to commenter Dr. Evil for pointing out that Rachel Corrie’s alma mater, Evergreen State University, is a breeding ground for radicalism, due in part to pro-Hamas professor Steve Niva who “worked with Rachel Corrie before her death.” IYKWIMAITYD.

Thanks also to Noel at Cold Fury for calling attention to Tom Gross’s excellent 2005 essay on “The Forgotten Rachels,” which includes a few often-overlooked facts about the “solidarity” movement to which Professor Niva directed his protege Rachel Corrie:

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM), the group with which Corrie was affiliated, is routinely described as a “peace group” in the media. Few make any mention of the ISM’s meeting with the British suicide bombers Omar Khan Sharif and Asif Muhammad Hanif who, a few days later, blew up Mike’s Place, a Tel Aviv pub, killing three and injuring dozens, including British citizens. Or of the ISM’s sheltering in its office of Shadi Sukiya, a leading member of Islamic Jihad. Or of the fact that in its mission statement the ISM said “armed struggle” is a Palestinian “right”.
According to the “media co-ordinator” of the ISM, Flo Rosovski, “‘Israel’ is an illegal entity that should not exist” – which at any rate clarifies the ISM’s idea of peace.

ISM is part of a genocidal Jew-hating death-cult, and it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that Rachel Corrie is to the ISM what Horst Wessel was to the Brownshirts. Certainly, Yasser Arafat recognized her value as a propaganda weapon.

UPDATE IV: Linked by Professor William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection, who has video of  ISM/Free Gaza flotilla propaganda Greta Berlin, a professional Jew-hater profiled by Solomonia.

UPDATE V: Linked by Daley Gator, Virginia Right and Dyspepsia Generation. Thanks!

Category: Israel, Terrorism

Comments

99 Responses to “The Holy Church of St. Pancake
The International Solidarity Movement and the Rachel Corrie Death Cult”

  1. Avi Green
    June 6th, 2010 @ 2:41 pm

    Thanks for reminding everyone about these forgotten victims of Islamofascism. Even now, there’s still many who don’t know about Negari, among other good people whose lives were taken by Islamic terrorism, and it’s important to help provide clearer knowledge about victims of Islamofascism.

  2. D. Carney
    June 6th, 2010 @ 8:02 pm

    The tragedy of the people of Palestine is that their country was “given” by a foreign power to another people for the creation of a new state. The result was that many hundreds of thousands of innocent people were made permanently homeless. With every new conflict their numbers increased. How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty? It is abundantly clear that the refugees have every right to the homeland from which they were driven, and the denial of this right is at the heart of the continuing conflict. No people anywhere in the world would accept being expelled in masses from their own country; how can anyone require the people of Palestine to accept a punishment which nobody else would tolerate? A permanent just settlement of the refugees in their homeland is an essential ingredient of any genuine settlement in the Middle East. We are frequently told that we must sympathise with Israel because of the suffering of the Jews in Europe at the hands of the Nazis. […] What Israel is doing today cannot be condoned, and to invoke the horrors of the past to justify those of the present is gross hypocrisy.
    — Bertrand Russell, 31 January 1970

  3. D. Carney
    June 6th, 2010 @ 4:02 pm

    The tragedy of the people of Palestine is that their country was “given” by a foreign power to another people for the creation of a new state. The result was that many hundreds of thousands of innocent people were made permanently homeless. With every new conflict their numbers increased. How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty? It is abundantly clear that the refugees have every right to the homeland from which they were driven, and the denial of this right is at the heart of the continuing conflict. No people anywhere in the world would accept being expelled in masses from their own country; how can anyone require the people of Palestine to accept a punishment which nobody else would tolerate? A permanent just settlement of the refugees in their homeland is an essential ingredient of any genuine settlement in the Middle East. We are frequently told that we must sympathise with Israel because of the suffering of the Jews in Europe at the hands of the Nazis. […] What Israel is doing today cannot be condoned, and to invoke the horrors of the past to justify those of the present is gross hypocrisy.
    — Bertrand Russell, 31 January 1970

  4. Ron Jones
    June 6th, 2010 @ 8:23 pm

    Dr Evil, You said “Thousands of Americans died fighting evil there too (of a scale far bigger than Hamas’ wildest dreams).”

    I beg to differ. Global domination by the sword is the fervent dream of all mohammedans.

    A practitioner of Islam who “desires peace” is like a Christian who condones adultery. In other words, they have ‘fallen away’ from the tenets of their faith.

  5. Ron Jones
    June 6th, 2010 @ 4:23 pm

    Dr Evil, You said “Thousands of Americans died fighting evil there too (of a scale far bigger than Hamas’ wildest dreams).”

    I beg to differ. Global domination by the sword is the fervent dream of all mohammedans.

    A practitioner of Islam who “desires peace” is like a Christian who condones adultery. In other words, they have ‘fallen away’ from the tenets of their faith.

  6. DW in Tahoe
    June 6th, 2010 @ 8:36 pm

    The part I don’t get is the secular Jewish American left that helped put Obama in power, not to mention misinformed American Christians.

    Did they really think Obomb was going to stand up for Israel when the going IS rough everyday and even more so now?

    It’s also interesting that D-Day’s 66th anniversary is today and of course google has nothing on their home (search) page but bing does.

    The oil in the Gulf? More ‘historic’ labels for o.

  7. DW in Tahoe
    June 6th, 2010 @ 4:36 pm

    The part I don’t get is the secular Jewish American left that helped put Obama in power, not to mention misinformed American Christians.

    Did they really think Obomb was going to stand up for Israel when the going IS rough everyday and even more so now?

    It’s also interesting that D-Day’s 66th anniversary is today and of course google has nothing on their home (search) page but bing does.

    The oil in the Gulf? More ‘historic’ labels for o.

  8. Robert Stacy McCain
    June 6th, 2010 @ 9:52 pm

    The part I don’t get is the secular Jewish American left that helped put Obama in power . . .

    Many, including the late Norman Podhoretz, have pondered this question. For many secular Jews, their actual religion is liberalism. Upwards of 80% of Jews vote Democrat, year in, year out, and have been doing so for decades. This preponderance of liberalism among any group — academics and journalists are similarly situated — creates a sort of “bubble” within which conservatism is seen as an alien and potentially hostile force.

    Changing that kind of deep-rooted political loyalty is never fast or easy. Trust me, I know. I was a born-and-bred yellow-dog Democrat, a native of Georgia who came of age when the GOP was only slightly less popular than the CPUSA in the “Solid South.” I never voted for a Republican until 1994.

  9. Robert Stacy McCain
    June 6th, 2010 @ 5:52 pm

    The part I don’t get is the secular Jewish American left that helped put Obama in power . . .

    Many, including the late Norman Podhoretz, have pondered this question. For many secular Jews, their actual religion is liberalism. Upwards of 80% of Jews vote Democrat, year in, year out, and have been doing so for decades. This preponderance of liberalism among any group — academics and journalists are similarly situated — creates a sort of “bubble” within which conservatism is seen as an alien and potentially hostile force.

    Changing that kind of deep-rooted political loyalty is never fast or easy. Trust me, I know. I was a born-and-bred yellow-dog Democrat, a native of Georgia who came of age when the GOP was only slightly less popular than the CPUSA in the “Solid South.” I never voted for a Republican until 1994.

  10. MrPaulRevere
    June 6th, 2010 @ 10:11 pm

    Norman Podhoretz is still alive and kicking Mr. McCain, perhaps you were thinking of Irving Kristol who did indeed ruminate on the subject.

  11. MrPaulRevere
    June 6th, 2010 @ 6:11 pm

    Norman Podhoretz is still alive and kicking Mr. McCain, perhaps you were thinking of Irving Kristol who did indeed ruminate on the subject.

  12. CountVikula
    June 6th, 2010 @ 10:39 pm

    Dude, Norman is still alive and doing quite well!

    @D. Carney — See: American Indians. These things happen throughout human history.

  13. CountVikula
    June 6th, 2010 @ 6:39 pm

    Dude, Norman is still alive and doing quite well!

    @D. Carney — See: American Indians. These things happen throughout human history.

  14. Obama vs. Israel : The Other McCain
    June 6th, 2010 @ 6:56 pm

    […] a second Obama term?Read the whole thing. One of the points I considered discussing in the “Rachel Corrie Death Cult” post was how, by showing “solidarity” with Hamas, liberals are guaranteeing a […]

  15. Robert Stacy McCain
    June 7th, 2010 @ 12:15 am

    Norman Podhoretz is still alive and kicking Mr. McCain, perhaps you were thinking of Irving Kristol who did indeed ruminate on the subject.

    Dammit. I’ve had this problem ever since I misplaced my copy of The Official Bloggers Guide to Neocons, Living and Dead.

  16. Robert Stacy McCain
    June 6th, 2010 @ 8:15 pm

    Norman Podhoretz is still alive and kicking Mr. McCain, perhaps you were thinking of Irving Kristol who did indeed ruminate on the subject.

    Dammit. I’ve had this problem ever since I misplaced my copy of The Official Bloggers Guide to Neocons, Living and Dead.

  17. Patrick
    June 7th, 2010 @ 1:47 am

    What she looks like now..

    http://jewsribsinbearjaw.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/rachel-corrie-dead.jpg

    I’m just not right.

    😉

  18. Patrick
    June 6th, 2010 @ 9:47 pm

    What she looks like now..

    http://jewsribsinbearjaw.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/rachel-corrie-dead.jpg

    I’m just not right.

    😉

  19. section9
    June 7th, 2010 @ 2:41 am

    Masterful post, Stacy. This should be read across the blogosphere, both right and left.

    Unfortunately, I suspect that the Lefties will dismiss it.

  20. section9
    June 6th, 2010 @ 10:41 pm

    Masterful post, Stacy. This should be read across the blogosphere, both right and left.

    Unfortunately, I suspect that the Lefties will dismiss it.

  21. Dr. Evil
    June 7th, 2010 @ 4:00 am

    @32, I was talking about D-Day and the allied casualties that day. Today is the aniversary. But you can add in Iraq and Afghanistan American service war casualties to that brave bunch.

  22. Dr. Evil
    June 7th, 2010 @ 12:00 am

    @32, I was talking about D-Day and the allied casualties that day. Today is the aniversary. But you can add in Iraq and Afghanistan American service war casualties to that brave bunch.

  23. Dr. Evil
    June 7th, 2010 @ 4:04 am

    As for your take that the only way for Islam is the sword, I disagree. Those appostates (who truly believe in peace) will be Islam as it moves forward. The ones who live by the sword will…

  24. Dr. Evil
    June 7th, 2010 @ 12:04 am

    As for your take that the only way for Islam is the sword, I disagree. Those appostates (who truly believe in peace) will be Islam as it moves forward. The ones who live by the sword will…

  25. John Burke
    June 7th, 2010 @ 6:04 am

    Where is the “genocide?” I was struck by Corrie’s reference in her email home to the “genocide” sponsored by the USA she was helping to stop — presumably meaning that Israel was out to wipe out the Palestinian population. Pro-Palestinian radicals use this term routinely as an obvious rhetorical device to denigrate the real genocide of the Holocaust which set the background for the creation of Israel.

    Apart from all other issues involving the claims of Israel and the Arabs and the rights and wrongs of their clashes over 60 years, there is a simple factual issue: there is no genocide or anything remotely resembling a genocide. Through the five years of the Intifada into which Corrie injected herself — 2000 through 2004 — according to a UN agency, 3194 Palestinians and 946 Israelis died as a result of violence. A somewhat lopsided casualty figure due to the superior force wielded by the IDF. But most of the Palestinians died in direct conflict with the IDF or Israeli police forces, while most of the Israelis were killed in acts of terrorism. In any case and regardless of how they died, little more than 600 deaths a year out of a population of more than 4 million in the Palestinian territories is hardly a genocide.

    If Israel had ever acted as ruthlessly as its enemies constantly claim, it could easily have driven the population of Gaza into Egypt in 1967. Moderation and restarint have governed Israeli policy for decades but the Jewish state wins no credit for that from the world’s left.

    It’s intriguing to wonder whether people like Corrie actually believe this nonsense.

    But then there were Bolsheviks who doubtless believed that that the Kronstadt sailors they were shooting were really all counterrevolutionaries in the pay of foreigners (the 1921 revolt against the Bolsheviks led by sailors at the Kronstadt Navy base outside Petrograd was actually a popular rebellion against harsh Bolshevik repression of workers’ strikes in that city!). For example, the American writer and life-long Soviet shill, Emma Goldman, really did swallow the line and fervently believed the whole thing was concocted by French Intelligence and White Russian emigres.

    When you embrace a Great Idea, the truth and the facts no longer mean anything.

  26. John Burke
    June 7th, 2010 @ 2:04 am

    Where is the “genocide?” I was struck by Corrie’s reference in her email home to the “genocide” sponsored by the USA she was helping to stop — presumably meaning that Israel was out to wipe out the Palestinian population. Pro-Palestinian radicals use this term routinely as an obvious rhetorical device to denigrate the real genocide of the Holocaust which set the background for the creation of Israel.

    Apart from all other issues involving the claims of Israel and the Arabs and the rights and wrongs of their clashes over 60 years, there is a simple factual issue: there is no genocide or anything remotely resembling a genocide. Through the five years of the Intifada into which Corrie injected herself — 2000 through 2004 — according to a UN agency, 3194 Palestinians and 946 Israelis died as a result of violence. A somewhat lopsided casualty figure due to the superior force wielded by the IDF. But most of the Palestinians died in direct conflict with the IDF or Israeli police forces, while most of the Israelis were killed in acts of terrorism. In any case and regardless of how they died, little more than 600 deaths a year out of a population of more than 4 million in the Palestinian territories is hardly a genocide.

    If Israel had ever acted as ruthlessly as its enemies constantly claim, it could easily have driven the population of Gaza into Egypt in 1967. Moderation and restarint have governed Israeli policy for decades but the Jewish state wins no credit for that from the world’s left.

    It’s intriguing to wonder whether people like Corrie actually believe this nonsense.

    But then there were Bolsheviks who doubtless believed that that the Kronstadt sailors they were shooting were really all counterrevolutionaries in the pay of foreigners (the 1921 revolt against the Bolsheviks led by sailors at the Kronstadt Navy base outside Petrograd was actually a popular rebellion against harsh Bolshevik repression of workers’ strikes in that city!). For example, the American writer and life-long Soviet shill, Emma Goldman, really did swallow the line and fervently believed the whole thing was concocted by French Intelligence and White Russian emigres.

    When you embrace a Great Idea, the truth and the facts no longer mean anything.

  27. Jason
    June 7th, 2010 @ 2:22 am

    I wished you did more posts like this one. Great true story.

  28. Jason
    June 7th, 2010 @ 6:22 am

    I wished you did more posts like this one. Great true story.

  29. Robert Stacy McCain
    June 7th, 2010 @ 7:01 am

    I wished you did more posts like this one.

    If I did more posts like this one, there would scarcely be time to do anything else. It took a lot of work, and there is other work to be done, which involves actually getting paid. But to see Rachel Corrie celebrated by the naming of a “humanitarian” ship in her honor . . . Well, I was provoked.

  30. Robert Stacy McCain
    June 7th, 2010 @ 3:01 am

    I wished you did more posts like this one.

    If I did more posts like this one, there would scarcely be time to do anything else. It took a lot of work, and there is other work to be done, which involves actually getting paid. But to see Rachel Corrie celebrated by the naming of a “humanitarian” ship in her honor . . . Well, I was provoked.

  31. USMC Steve
    June 7th, 2010 @ 12:57 pm

    It is always good to have ideals. It would be even better if they were sane ones. This woman was both stupid, ignorant, and with her support of Hamass, a TERRORIST.

    She thought she could stand in front of bulldozers and nothing bad would happen to her, and she got proven wrong. Frankly, I don’t care if her death was an accident of intentional. She stood up to be counted with a terrorist state that vows to kill EVERY SINGLE Israeli on the face of the earth simply because they EXIST. That puts them in the same league with the Nazis, except that the Nazis could actually fight. Had her loser parents spent more time teaching this woman right from wrong, and less time running around in a liberal daze, she might have turned out to be something other than DEAD.

    No sympathy and no slack for her or them. Actions have consequences.

  32. USMC Steve
    June 7th, 2010 @ 8:57 am

    It is always good to have ideals. It would be even better if they were sane ones. This woman was both stupid, ignorant, and with her support of Hamass, a TERRORIST.

    She thought she could stand in front of bulldozers and nothing bad would happen to her, and she got proven wrong. Frankly, I don’t care if her death was an accident of intentional. She stood up to be counted with a terrorist state that vows to kill EVERY SINGLE Israeli on the face of the earth simply because they EXIST. That puts them in the same league with the Nazis, except that the Nazis could actually fight. Had her loser parents spent more time teaching this woman right from wrong, and less time running around in a liberal daze, she might have turned out to be something other than DEAD.

    No sympathy and no slack for her or them. Actions have consequences.

  33. H Springer
    June 7th, 2010 @ 2:41 pm

    Sink the boat at first opportunity.

  34. H Springer
    June 7th, 2010 @ 10:41 am

    Sink the boat at first opportunity.

  35. Adobe Walls
    June 7th, 2010 @ 8:44 pm

    @ H Springer:
    Saw a great photo-shop somewhere earlier this week depicting a heavy lift chopper dropping a bulldozer on the good ship Rachel Corrie. One of the inspirations for my Caterpillar references in comment #25.

  36. Adobe Walls
    June 7th, 2010 @ 4:44 pm

    @ H Springer:
    Saw a great photo-shop somewhere earlier this week depicting a heavy lift chopper dropping a bulldozer on the good ship Rachel Corrie. One of the inspirations for my Caterpillar references in comment #25.

  37.  | Gallery
    June 7th, 2010 @ 7:16 pm

    […] The Holy Church of St. Pancake The International Solidarity … […]

  38. steve
    June 8th, 2010 @ 2:51 pm

    Outstanding piece. I had only heard of you through the trashing you received at LGF for alleged associations with far-right nuts.
    After reading this piece, now I know better.

    One point regarding your comment on the Jewish vote. I hear over and over that 80 % voted for Obama and always vote democratic. While I don’t doubt the liberal bent of most Jews – I’m skeptical of blindly accepted statistics. Who did the poll? Was it really an accurate reflection of the Jewish community? We don’t even have a good way of measuring the size of the Jewish population in America never mind gauging its collective opinion. We need to carefully navigate between the two extremes – disbelieving everything we are told -like conspiracy theorists are prone to do, and on the other extreme, believing whatever the media reports.

  39. steve
    June 8th, 2010 @ 10:51 am

    Outstanding piece. I had only heard of you through the trashing you received at LGF for alleged associations with far-right nuts.
    After reading this piece, now I know better.

    One point regarding your comment on the Jewish vote. I hear over and over that 80 % voted for Obama and always vote democratic. While I don’t doubt the liberal bent of most Jews – I’m skeptical of blindly accepted statistics. Who did the poll? Was it really an accurate reflection of the Jewish community? We don’t even have a good way of measuring the size of the Jewish population in America never mind gauging its collective opinion. We need to carefully navigate between the two extremes – disbelieving everything we are told -like conspiracy theorists are prone to do, and on the other extreme, believing whatever the media reports.

  40. The Holy Church of St. Pancake « The Loyal Opposition
    June 8th, 2010 @ 11:28 pm

    […] in Anti-Semitism, Islam, Israel, Judaism, jihad by Nachman on June 8, 2010 From The Other McCain, required reading: Flippantly dubbing her “St. Pancake” is admittedly callous, yet the LGF commenter’s […]

  41. Christian Zionist
    June 18th, 2010 @ 1:42 am

    Two details:

    1. The NYT and other major sources have repeatedly and erroneously stated Corrie died trying to prevent the bulldozing of a Palestinian home. In fact, the bulldozer in question was clearing brush in attempt to find tunnels for smuggling of arms (in contravention of Oslo).

    2. The doctor who treated Shiri Negari has decribed (available on the internet) treating her. As many victims of concussion blasts, she arrived at hospital appearing whole and calm, but the x-rays showed the tell-tale “butterfly” pattern of lungs liquefying, and the doctors knew they could do nothing to prevent her death within hours.

  42. Christian Zionist
    June 17th, 2010 @ 9:42 pm

    Two details:

    1. The NYT and other major sources have repeatedly and erroneously stated Corrie died trying to prevent the bulldozing of a Palestinian home. In fact, the bulldozer in question was clearing brush in attempt to find tunnels for smuggling of arms (in contravention of Oslo).

    2. The doctor who treated Shiri Negari has decribed (available on the internet) treating her. As many victims of concussion blasts, she arrived at hospital appearing whole and calm, but the x-rays showed the tell-tale “butterfly” pattern of lungs liquefying, and the doctors knew they could do nothing to prevent her death within hours.

  43. Christian Zionist
    June 18th, 2010 @ 1:53 am

    Surprisingly, LGF got the detail of Corrie’s death right – not defending a home, but defending an arms-smuggling tunnel:

    “Disparaging nickname for Rachel Corrie, a American activist who voluteered to help Palestinian militants in their attacks on Israel; she was killed after being crushed by a Israeli bulldozer while “defending” Palestinian smuggling tunnels. She was subsequently beatified by the extreme left, and in mockery of her new holy status, LGFers dubbed her “St. Pancake,” in reference to the manner of her death.”

    One wonders if Corrie had any consciousness that she was defending war, not peace.

  44. Christian Zionist
    June 17th, 2010 @ 9:53 pm

    Surprisingly, LGF got the detail of Corrie’s death right – not defending a home, but defending an arms-smuggling tunnel:

    “Disparaging nickname for Rachel Corrie, a American activist who voluteered to help Palestinian militants in their attacks on Israel; she was killed after being crushed by a Israeli bulldozer while “defending” Palestinian smuggling tunnels. She was subsequently beatified by the extreme left, and in mockery of her new holy status, LGFers dubbed her “St. Pancake,” in reference to the manner of her death.”

    One wonders if Corrie had any consciousness that she was defending war, not peace.

  45. Jews and Israel: Death by Relativism : The Other McCain
    July 19th, 2010 @ 8:16 am

    […] to point out that young people don’t know history and are thus easily propagandized, as I explained last month:There are today in America many thousands of impressionable young liberals who, like Rachel Corrie, […]

  46. Lila
    July 20th, 2010 @ 5:56 am

    In Israel, Shiri is certainly not forgotten. When she died on the operation table at Hadassah, the head of the emergency room, Prof. Rifkind (whom we were used to see nearly every evening on the news) broke into tears. She was lovely. She let her hair grow long, after she had seen pictures of a long-haired relative who perished in the Holocaust. She wrote a poem about her death a short time before the attack.

    No, anybody who lived in Israel in the terror wave will not have forgotten neither Shiri nor the other victims. They are burned into our memories.

  47. Lila
    July 20th, 2010 @ 1:56 am

    In Israel, Shiri is certainly not forgotten. When she died on the operation table at Hadassah, the head of the emergency room, Prof. Rifkind (whom we were used to see nearly every evening on the news) broke into tears. She was lovely. She let her hair grow long, after she had seen pictures of a long-haired relative who perished in the Holocaust. She wrote a poem about her death a short time before the attack.

    No, anybody who lived in Israel in the terror wave will not have forgotten neither Shiri nor the other victims. They are burned into our memories.

  48. More Peace, Tolerance and Sanity from the Left « Annoy the Left
    September 4th, 2010 @ 6:54 pm

    […] you know, the last one worked out so well. Except, of course, the part where their ship, the Rachel Corrie, was boarded for illegally running the Israeli blockade and the passengers and crew […]

  49. Palin Derangement Syndrome Outbreak: There Are Still Five A’s in Raaaaacism : The Other McCain
    September 4th, 2010 @ 10:46 pm

    […] Linked by Jehuda the Rhetorican — thanks! BTW, if you don’t know who Phil Munger is, here’s a reminder:Within hours of her death, [Rachel] Corrie was transformed from human being to sacred symbol, an […]