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17 March 2004

I was not present in Rafah that terrible day, but I have frequently replayed in my mind the events leading up to the moment when a bulldozer rolled over Rachel Corrie.  I think to myself:  What compelled this young woman, neither Jewish nor Palestinian, to travel 10,000 miles from home, to throw in her lot with a family not her own, a people not her own, and ultimately meet a death that came suddenly, swiftly, in an instant of shocked comprehension.

In the biblical book of Ruth, we read of Naomi whose two sons have died, leaving two young widows.  Naomi chooses to depart from the land of Moab and return to her home in Judah.  She encourages her daughters-in-law to remain in Moab, their own land.  One daughter-in-law kisses Naomi and bids her farewell.  The other, Ruth, chooses to accompany Naomi to the distant climes of Judah.  Why does Ruth go?  “Entreat me not to leave thee,” says Ruth, “for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God, my God.”  And she continues, “Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: if the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me”.

The biblical figure of Ruth journeys to her new people, expecting never to return, but to be buried in foreign soil.

The modern figure of Rachel journeyed to her new people, expecting to return for the start of the school year, and never to be buried, or to be buried at some vastly distant unimaginable future, but never to find her death in the soil of her chosen destination.  She journeyed to her new people expecting to find another culture, another language, another way of interacting, but never to find another attitude toward the taking of life.  She journeyed expecting to see death, but never to experience it directly, never to encounter herself as the object of deliberate death.

In his treatise Fear and Trembling, the philosopher Kierkegaard recounts the story of Abraham as he takes his son Isaac to be sacrificed on Mount Moriah.  The story is so unfathomable – how could Abraham take his son, his only son, and be willing to slaughter him for no apparent reason other than God’s inscrutable request?  Kierkegaard constructs several scenarios with thoughts and emotions that may have been coursing through Abraham’s heart as he walked his son to the place where he would kill him.

Writes Kierkegaard in one such scenario:  “It was early in the morning, Abraham rose betimes, he embraced Sarah, the bride of his old age, and Sarah kissed Isaac, who had taken away her reproach, who was her pride, her hope for all time.  So they rode on in silence along the way, and Abraham’s glance was fixed upon the ground until the fourth day when he lifted up his eyes and saw afar off Mount Moriah, but his glance turned again to the ground.  Silently he laid the wood in order, he bound Isaac, in silence he drew the knife – then he saw the ram which God had prepared.  Then he offered that and returned home…From that time on Abraham became old, he could not forget that God had required this of him.  Isaac throve as before, but Abraham’s eyes were darkened, and he knew joy no more.”

In my mind’s eye when I see Rachel standing on that mound of earth and facing the bulldozer, I envision a young woman looking at the small window fast approaching her in the brow of the bulldozer, trying to peer into that dark space, to find the eyes of the soldier who was driving, perhaps someone her own age, someone who also loved to dance and joke with a younger brother, someone who was thinking about how long it would take until he could finish this job and get back to the base where he didn’t have to face the anger of people who don’t understand what he’s doing, thinking about his weekend pass and his own future, maybe he would go back to school and finish that course, or about his own loneliness, and how it is to be out here alone at the gears every day, and then there’s this girl out there, and why doesn’t she get out of the way.  What was the next thought of this young man?  “Shall I kill her?” or “Shall I scare her – she’ll move at the last minute”?  or “I’ll show them once and for all”  or “Still time to brake”.  Or some other brief words that race through his mind as he hurtles ahead.

In this land where blood pours down like lemon drops and covers all the senses, to paraphrase Joni Mitchell, we cannot know what thought compelled this young man to carry out the deed.  Blood pours down like lemon drops and covers all the senses, and the senses ascribe new meanings to things.  Later that day, he may have wept and found comfort among his friends.  He may have shrugged it off – another killing in the line of duty, a sad but necessary evil, a dirty job but someone’s gotta do it, another notch in his belt of military exploits.  But we do know one thing:  He will live with the death of Rachel for the rest of his life.  He may not read every article about her, he may agree only with those that justify his deed, but we know that he reads some of what is written, and we know that he thinks about what happened that day, and if things could have, somehow, ended differently.  How do we know this?  We know because we agree with Rachel, who risked her life in the belief that whoever was driving that vehicle would stop before he harmed her.  We know because we believe, like Rachel, in the fundamental decency of every human being, and that even those who kill, harbor pain inside their hearts for that death.  We do not have to forgive this man or this system that led him to kill in order to understand that the trauma of Rachel’s death, which affected hundreds of thousands, millions of people throughout the world, also affected the man who took her life.

On that blindingly sunny day in Rafah, when optimism glints irrationally from every tank, every M16, every dogtag on the necks of 18-year-olds in uniform, photos of loved ones in their pockets, Rachel stood her ground with ease, waiting for his eyes to meet hers, waiting for decency to slow the grinding treads, waiting for the moment of sanity to kick in, to interrupt the flow of tension swelling toward collision, waiting for the inevitable to happen – that reason would prevail.

Today we are one year from that moment, 12 months of time to think about it, and still no more capable of fathoming what transpired that day: that until the moment of impact, Rachel never lost her faith in the decency of this bulldozer driver; that until the moment of impact, the driver never understood that he was capable of this terrible crime.

Writes Kierkegaard, “It was a quiet evening when Abraham rode out alone, and he rode to Mount Moriah; he threw himself upon his face, he prayed God to forgive him his sin, that he had been willing to offer Isaac, that the father had forgotten his duty toward the son.”

In my own efforts to understand these terrible deeds, the one on Mount Moriah and the one in Rafah, I ask myself:  At Moriah, what was the more terrible – that Abraham had been willing to sacrifice his son?  Or that God had demanded this of him?

And in Rafah, who is the real sinner – the soldier who ended the life of a girl on a mound of earth in a land not his and not hers – a land where Rachel, like Ruth, was invited and welcomed, but he was an interloper and resented?  Or, in Rafah, too, is the real sinner the God who had demanded this of him – God the army officers, God the brutal policies, God the society of those willing to inflict pain on others to still their own fears and traumas?

And whose gaze turned from one of trust to astonishing alarm?  The driver, who trusted that Rachel would leap away before it was too late?  Or Rachel, who trusted that the driver would halt the vehicle one tread sooner?

I end with an excerpt translated from “Season of the Camomile” by the Palestinian Samir Rantisi.  This poem was written 16 years ago after the killing of an Israeli and a Palestinian near the village of Beita:

How many more ordinary mornings

will fill us with horror

and transform our day to another sky

who chose us

to be the victim and the symbol

to be the beginning of the beginnings

the moment of historical trial

we, the two dreamers

the routine, the ordinary

who chose us

to be the heart of the conflict

and the crossroads of time

…

why didn't you find someone besides me to be a symbol?

why didn't they find someone besides you to be a victim?

why could they only find Beita in the spring.

Our hearts in grief, we ask:  Why didn’t they find someone besides you to be a victim?  Why didn’t they find someone besides you to be a symbol?  Ah, Rachel, ah, unknown soldier, why could you only find Rafah in the spring?

Gila Svirsky

Delivered at an evening in memory of Rachel Corrie sponsored by the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.