Cindy and Craig's Blog | The Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice

Letter from the Corries: Petitions Delivered to National Building Museum!

Posted on September 21, 2011

Earlier this month the Rachel Corrie Foundation convinced the National Building Museum (NBM) in Washington DC to cancel its September 14th public ceremony to award its prestigious Henry C. Turner Prize to Caterpillar Inc. Then last week, acting on behalf of the Rachel Corrie Foundation, we and representatives of Jewish Voice for Peace, Code Pink, the Washington Interfaith Alliance for Middle East Peace, and the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (a coalition of more than 350 organizations) held a protest outside the F Street museum entrance. We sang, chanted, flyered, and chatted with the public. We then entered the Museum’s lofty Great Hall to deliver the call from 150 regional, national, and international organizations and more than 7000 individuals to rescind the prize to Caterpillar Inc. completely.

We met with Museum Development Events Manager Jessie Cochran. She promised to deliver our petitions to the Museum’s Executive Director, Chase Rynd, along with our requests to consider the human rights records of future award candidates and to use the museum’s public forums to discuss the built environment during conflict and occupation.

Petition delivery and action at the National Building Museum
Video courtesy of Bill Simonds, JVP – DC Metro Chapter

Thank you for your amazing support of this effort! You signed our petition, encouraged groups to sign our letter to the museum, and communicated directly with NBM staff with your own letters and calls. This small but public victory is just one indicator of how together we are bringing Palestinian human rights front and center and making a difference. Once again, we have exposed the complicity of Caterpillar Inc. in the ongoing violations of these rights by the Israeli military and government in Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel.

The campaign to urge the National Building Museum to rescind its award to Caterpillar Inc. was spearheaded here at the Rachel Corrie Foundation. We are thrilled with what we’ve accomplished, but there is much more work to be done. Please help us! We function with a very small staff and a cadre of devoted community volunteers. We depend upon and need your support.

Please consider a donation now to the Rachel Corrie Foundation! And if you can provide RCF with financial stability by joining our growing list of monthly donors, we will be so grateful!

Thank you for your help with all of our efforts!

Cindy and Craig Corrie
On behalf of the Rachel Corrie Foundation

BACKGROUND

The Rachel Corrie Foundation’s opposition to the National Building Museum”s award to Caterpillar Inc. stems from CAT’s long history of designing and routinely supplying equipment used by the Israeli military. Caterpillar knows this equipment is used to demolish Palestinian homes, to destroy olive trees and farmland, and to facilitate expropriation of Palestinian territory through construction of Jewish-only settlements and an Israeli separation-annexation wall. Caterpillar equipment has also been used in the killing and injuring of Palestinian and international civilians. As the world’s leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, Caterpillar has long been aware of the human rights abuses and violations of international law committed with its help.

In a recent, related development, the Presbyterian Church’s Committee on Mission Responsibility Through Investment (MRTI) recommended on September 9th that Caterpillar Inc. be added to the divestment list of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA). In its announcement, MRTI stated, “Caterpillar has profited from sales of its products to Israeli military and civilian authorities, including its D-9 bulldozers which are used to demolish Palestinian homes and construct settlements and Israeli-only roads on Palestinian land, acts deemed illegal under international law. The company has never accepted responsibility for how its products are used and has not responded to requests for dialogue since 2009 from MRTI or other religious groups.

We at the Rachel Corrie Foundation applaud the Presbyterians for their thoughtful and courageous steps and look forward to supporting their efforts.

Further Action: No Award to Caterpillar Inc.!

Posted on September 21, 2011

Our work isn’t finished just yet! Here are a few more things you can do to help with the Caterpillar campaign:

1. Write your own letter, thanking the museum for canceling their award ceremony, but asking them to rescind the prize completely. Use our sample email or send your own email message to Mr. Chase Rynd, Executive Director of the National Building Museum, [email protected]. Or call the National Building Museum at (202) 272-2448 and ask to speak to the Executive Director, Mr. Chase Rynd. Courteously explain why the National Building Museum must reconsider its decision to award the Henry C. Turner Prize to Caterpillar Inc.

2. Contact the Washington Post to comment on their failure to mention the use of CAT equipment against Palestinians in Israel/Palestine in their article about the cancellation of the award ceremony. Post reporter Monica Hesse interviewed Craig Corrie, received our press releases and other materials, and yet left out this critical information. You can email Monica at [email protected] or send a letter to the editor at [email protected]

3. Consider making a tax deductible a donation to the Rachel Corrie Foundation so that we can continue this very important corporate accountability work! Consider joining our growing list of monthly donors who provide us with financial stability. The less time we need to spend fund raising, the more time we can spend in action!

Rachel Corrie standing in front of a Caterpillar DR9 bulldozer in Rafah, Gaza.

Read Press Release Here

A Joyful Ramadan

Posted on August 11, 2011

We wish our Muslim friends in the U.S. and around the world a joyful Ramadan. Welcomed this week to a local iftar (the evening meal to break fast), we were reminded of the shared values of family, community, and giving that connect us all, and that are celebrated through this rich holiday month.

[Read more…]

US collusion in the Gaza blockade is an affront to human rights

Posted on July 8, 2011

By Cindy Corrie, Originally published in The Guardian

My daughter’s death shows the cruelty of an America that won’t protect its own and is complicit in harming Palestinian civilians

When Greek authorities prevented the US ship the Audacity of Hope leaving its port in Athens this week, they dealt a blow to a group of brave and principled Americans who were trying to carry thousands of letters from US citizens to those who wait on Gaza’s shores.

I know many of the people who were on this boat, and my family’s letter was part of their cargo. In 2003 my daughter Rachel Corrie made her journey to Gaza and was run down and killed by a US-made Israeli military Caterpillar D-9 bulldozer. She was trying to protect a Gazan family and their home, one of thousands illegally destroyed in Israeli military clearing operations.

Now my family is on a parallel journey with those activists as we return this week to Israeli court to confront Colonel Pinhas Zuaretz, the commanding officer of the Gaza Division’s Southern Brigade in 2003. His testimony should shed light not only on actions of troops responsible for Rachel’s killing but also on the Israeli military’s broad failures as an occupying power to protect civilian life and property.

This week’s flotilla was travelling to Gaza, as Rachel did, to stand with Palestinians against oppression and illegal occupation and for a just, enduring peace.

Read the entire article here.

Juliano Mer-Khamis – A Legacy of Hope

Posted on April 14, 2011

By Cindy and Craig Corrie

(Haifa, Israel) – Word of the murder of Juliano Mer-Khamis, founder of the Jenin Freedom Theatre, spread quickly through the internet, through activist circles, and through Haifa – this Mediterranean city in northern Israel where we are staying for the trial in our daughter’s case, and where Mer-Khamis sometimes lived. As we departed Massada Street that evening, friends hailed us from a cafe owned by one of Juliano’s comrades. They had come to join others who needed the comfort of fellow mourners that night. Juliano’s intense, determined, handsome face (projected in photos hung in each of the cafe’s several windows) confronted those who passed by on the narrow sidewalk and street outside. Some stopped before the cluster of burning votive candles that filled a table below one of the portraits, and bent over them to light more. A week later, black stenciled portraits of Juliano and the words “Arna’s son” have appeared on exterior walls throughout the city.

Our family has entered a bit into the mourning. It is another terrible, senseless loss – one that strikes at the hearts of peace-with-justice-seeking-communities throughout Israel, in Palestine, and beyond. We hear that Juliano (“Jules” to some of our friends who knew him best) was a larger than life figure whose presence dominated any setting. Contrary to what occasional critics charge about his allegiances, he is reported to have told Israeli radio, “I am 100% Palestinian and 100% Jewish.” It was this bridge he provided, as well as his passion and courage that seem to have engaged and inspired many others. It is, also, all that he and his mother, Arna Mer, stood for and acted upon – opposition to the occupation, freedom for Palestinians, coexistence, and the freeing of spirits and minds through creative work.

While the search for responsible parties and for explanations of Juliano’s murder continues, there can be no question that the disintegration of hope, trust, and civility generated by decades of oppression and occupation, and by the current climate in Israel/Palestine, as well, form the context.

We are told that as Juliano taught and encouraged the youth of Jenin refugee camp to process their experiences and to find their voices through theater, he insisted that they identify and claim hope, along with their pain. It is challenging to find hope in the wretched act that snuffed out Juliano Mer-Khamis’ life, but it seems to exist in the energy he cultivated and in the voices he trained who refuse now to allow his light – or their own – to be extinguished.

We always wanted to visit Jenin and the Freedom Theater, but still have not done so. During earlier trips to the region, getting there was always unpredictable and a long journey from Jerusalem because of checkpoints and closures. More recently, the demands of the trial in Haifa have kept us away. We did spend a morning with Juliano in New York some years ago, when he was speaking there about the Freedom Theater and raising funds for it. Because of that brief encounter over coffee, we felt we knew him a bit more personally, which made word of his murder last Monday even more unsettling. We are so sorry for this loss – for Juliano, for his wife and children, for his family and friends, and for us all. We want to go to Jenin, and we will – to visit the theater, to feel Juliano’s presence there, and to hear from the children.

Just a short distance up the street from the Haifa cafe where we often congregate, there is a large graffitied sign that reads, “Juliano, R.I.P.” It is a sentiment we share. May Juliano Mer-Khamis rest peacefully knowing that his spirit lives and that we all continue his work.

Click here to learn more about The Freedom Theater and to lend support.

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