Our entire family is appreciative of the efforts of the Mid-Hudson Friends

Dear Friends of Rachel Corrie,

Below is some follow-up from the copy of our 2013 In Memoriam that I sent to Rachel's relatives.  Thanks again for making it possible!

Greg

-------- Begin forwarded message --------

Subject: Rachel Corrie

Date: 4/19/13 11:26:40 AM

From: "Gene Robbins"

Hi Greg,

I'm Gene Robbins (Cindy Corrie's brother-in-law).  My wife Bonnie is Cindy's sister.  We all really appreciate the interest and support you folks in Rhinebeck have shown over the years.  Rest assured none of us disagree with what was written.  Cindy is extremely busy right now and doesn't always get to her emails but has always expressed gratitude for your work in the past.   Colette and her husband Bill are likewise appreciative.  Bill (Pusateri) has spoken to Tom Shaker several times and has enjoyed their talks immensely. Bonnie and I are about to go down to Berkeley for the national Jewish Voice for Peace conference this week-end.  So many people are fighting for justice and decency in so many ways...we're all important!  Rachel has been a personal inspiration to me.  Our entire family is appreciative of the efforts of the Mid-Hudson Friends of Rachel Corrie. Thanks for contributing.

Gene

To the Editor:

I am a fisherman in Gaza. I am hungry and my children are hungry. We go fishing in legal waters but we are attacked by Israeli gunboats and our boat is riddled with bullets. We are still hungry. Please help us.

I am Palestinian and live in the Israeli occupied West Bank. Jewish settlers stole my land and water. My children are thirsty. I dug a well but the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) destroyed it. We are still thirsty and we drink putrid, contaminated water. Please help us.

I am Palestinian and live in Jerusalem. My wife is sick and needs emergency medical care. On the way to the hospital we are detained for hours at the Israeli military check point. My wife dies while waiting at the checkpoint. Please help me.

I am a Palestinian farmer in the Israeli occupied territories. My family is hungry and my fruit trees are ripe. The IDF bulldozers crushed and burned my orchard. We are still hungry. Please help us.

I am an American. My tax dollars support Israel. I believe the Zionist myths and Israeli propaganda scares me. I support the occupation but have lost my humanity. God help me.

We are all humans. Some of us are free. Please help. Go to www.hudsonvalleybds.org to see how. Thank you.

Eli Kassirer
New Paltz

The Jewish Smorgasbord

The Jewish Smorgasbord

Building up fairy tales out of disinformation and intellectual blindness is a dangerous mixture.

And so, when did it happen that standing in the center of Woodstock, excercisng the right of free speech, became a language of hate?

Since when has exposing the billions of dollars that gratuituosly we Americans are forced to give to a country like Israel becomes a hate speech?

Israel is a country that economically is in better shape than we are here at home.  Let's see, for example, their health care plan: universal.  the envy of every American.  Construction and infrastructure surpass the American dream  (of course, out of our expense, all that construction is done on stolen Palestinian land, illegal under all universal laws and rules). Military: we are the first power, with 300 million people, Israel is the fourth power, with barely 7 million people.

And then, with that same money, we are supporting the brutality of a regime that kills children, pregnant women, and has a system of ethnically cleansing the Palestinian population, by brutally destroying their livelihoods. And that same brutality is extended to U.S. citizens who commit the "crime" of trying to protect these helpless, innocent people, like what happened to U.S. citizen Rachel Corrie from Washington State, who was bulldozed to her death by an American-made vehicle driven by an Israeli citizen while our U.S. government did absolutely nothing.

Since when has exposing these atrocities become hate speech?

And now we come to the issue of the Jewish smorgasbord.  This fusion of long-past remembrances, trying to conflate Holocaust, hate speech, yoam hashoa, antisemitism, anti-israel, "goodness for all" (excluding some), Bible tales, and then fusing it with the reality of the present genocide makes a mockery of what should be something very serious and discussed, not ignored and crushed.

Bible tales and the European Holocaust belong to the past and are old issues.  The ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is a current issue; it is being conducted in front of our eyes, paid with our tax money, with the blessing of our own government and perpetrated by Israeli citizens. There is not enough space here to disentangle these two issues and put them in the same dish. 

Fanny Prizant 

Bearsville