The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival owns the title of the world’s largest Jewish film festival. This year it stirred up some folks by including in its list of films, Rachel. Rachel Corrie was a young American who was run over and killed by a bulldozer as she tried to block the path of the machine intent on tearing down a Palestinian home in Gaza.
The Israeli consul-general objected to the film and said that the Festival’s invitation to Rachel’s mother to speak, “becomes a kind of emotional grandstanding rather than the pursuit of a deeper insight.”
This morning’s scripture tells the story of a gentile woman crying out to Jesus on behalf of her daughter. How could a mother not bring emotion to the story of her daughter’s illness or in the case of Rachel, her death? And is emotion not a legitimate means of uncovering the truth?
Rachel will be on my list of films to watch for this year. Then I can judge for myself whose voice offers the deepest insight.
1 comment:
Dear Reverend Lougheed,
I am afraid that your seeing the Corrie film will fall short of your goal to discover the deepest insight.
Rachel Corrie has long been portrayed as an innocent participant in International Solidarity Movement actions to prevent “Israeli demolition of civilian homes.” Sadly, the truth is the opposite, she was a naïve human shield to protect supplies of arms and snipers and that had smuggling tunnels in the area in which she was demonstrating. Palestinian terrorists have a history of using civilian homes in order to prevent Israel from acting to stop them. That was Rachel’s job. To solidify her position with her new found friends, she burns an American flag, her face contorted in anger and rage as it goes up in smoke. (http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/rachel-corrie-flag-02.jpg) She admits “the difficulties the Israeli army would face if they shot an unarmed US citizen.” She was willing to a piece of propaganda if something were to happen to her while protecting terrorists.
At the time of her death she was demonstrating in front of a home near a smuggling tunnel that was used to bring in weapons and rockets to be used against Israeli civilians. Unfortunately, she picked an active war zone in which to demonstrate.
Rachel Corrie was no martyr. She was there with her fellow ISM activists to confront the Israeli military. She was a pawn of the ISM, an organization intent on destroying the State of Israel, and the terrorists it fronts.
Stephen M. Flatow
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