A cousin of Rachel Corrie, Brij Patnaik, has a piece in OpinionJournal defending Rachel from what he obviously feels are unwarranted slurs by James Taranto and Ruhama Shattan. I was waiting for Mr. Taranto to respond before noting this, since Patnaik’s article is harshly critical of him: An Unfitting ‘Tribute’.

Ms. Shattan suggests that Rachel’s criticisms of U.S. government policy may have provided “help in fanning the flames of the violent anti-American sentiment [that] led to the October 2003 bombing of the Fulbright delegation to Gaza.” Drawing a connection between an individual’s criticism of government policy and the murder of government officials is disingenuous; moreover, such a connection consciously misrepresents the fact that Rachel repeatedly and unequivocally condemned the violent acts of both Palestinians and Israelis. Ms. Shattan offers a speciously complicated analysis that tries to attribute incitement to violence to a person committed to a peaceful means of resolving the conflict.

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Is this hateful and illogical article something that the editor of OpinionJournal.com can call “clearheaded”? Is there a reason for the interruption of human compassion that allows Mr. Taranto and Ms. Shattan to ironically label their words “tributes” to the life of an American citizen, a person whom they didn’t know and whose actions they refuse to try to understand?

Both writings exemplify the kind of thoughtless, rhetorical response that saturates discourse on the question of Israel/Palestine. This kind of response too often demonstrates a deceitful willingness to wield terms like “terror,” “realism” and “Islamic militancy” as if these words could be used as evidence to justify occupation of territory and violence toward people. It is this kind of response that is sadly and frighteningly all too susceptible to forgetting the humanity of those involved.

James Taranto responds in today’s Best of the Web.

In his article, Patnaik doesn’t dispute Shattan’s account of Corrie’s actions; he merely describes those actions with the innocuous-sounding phrase criticism of government policy. This is a common trope on the far left: describing all manner of anti-American expression as “criticism” or “dissent” and saying or implying that those who merely criticize such expression are guilty of trying to stifle free expression.

A few paragraphs later, though, Patnaik offers this observation:

The day following the publication of Ms. Shattan’s piece in the Jerusalem Post, the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv wrote a response calling it “disgusting”, “inexcusable” and “unbefitting any serious newspaper.”

The question why Mr. Taranto chose to republish the piece awaits an answer. Is he really so dismissive of his own government’s opinion?

The answer, in this case at least, is yes. We had read the letter, from Paul Patin, the embassy’s press attach�, two weeks before we republished Shattan’s piece, and we found it unpersuasive.

It’s a free country, of course, and those who disagree are entitled to their opinion. But it strikes us as a bit odd that Patnaik would defend his cousin’s burning the American flag and accusing the president of war crimes as mere “criticism of government policy,” then turn around and criticize us for making editorial decisions heedless of the objections of a government spokesman.

I won’t post the photographs of Rachel burning the American flag again; I think we’ve seen them enough. But I do have one more point to add. Mr. Patnaik writes:

…such a connection consciously misrepresents the fact that Rachel repeatedly and unequivocally condemned the violent acts of both Palestinians and Israelis.

But Rachel is the only author listed on this page of messages from ISM members, written shortly before her death. And the sentiment expressed here is anything but balanced; the title of the page is “Courage and More Martyrs:”

In retaliation for this murderous attack, fighters last night offered their life for their friend and killed two of the illegal occupying force, and injuring another. Two young fighters were killed and I don’t yet know the extent of other injuries. I would tell you that, from my bedroom window, I saw the night sky in the area lit up like it was day for more than an hour with brilliant flares and I saw the trail of rockets missiles and machine-guns bullets fired from the US gunship helicopters - so inappropriately named “Apache’ - and heard the rapid clatter of the guns of the ships of death riding the starry sky like alien invaders from another world. I heard the explosions of many shells and, I am not sure, but I think a bomb from a US F-16 warplane - the sky was full of them. There was protracted gun-fire for more than an hour. So these young guys really fought it out.

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While the huge force of Israelis have every technical aid invented by the US war machine, the few young fighters have NOTHING BUT THEIR WEAPON (and this not the most modern) - no helmet, bullet proof vest, radio contact or other protection. No back-up, no plane, helicopter, tank, APC, searchlight, dogs, flares, ambulance or refuge - put all the Israeli/American propaganda aside for a few minutes and try to imagine, please, the courage it requires to do what these young fighters do, knowing that the odds are against escape and that, every time they do succeed in evading death, the odds against a further survival are shortened. Even if the operation is a success the price is always high.

And every time the Israeli Command terrorises Nablus as today with tanks and Jeeps and APC’s bristling with death at every junction within the city, operating a lock-down even worse than before (how can this be possible), more Martyrs are ready to defend the honour of Palestine and fight for the freedom of surely the most gentle, generous and peaceful people on earth.

UPDATE: Some people in our comments are questioning whether the words above were written by Rachel Corrie; the page at Scoop where the quote appears contains only Rachel’s name (as I wrote above), but a reader named “Hipocrite [sic]” wants us to know that the ISM web site and the Palestine Chronicle (both of which are nothing more than propaganda organs for the PLO) attribute the quote to Welsh moonbat Anne Gwynne.

Whether Corrie wrote those words or not, there’s no denying that they express the politics and philosophy of the PLO-funded International Solidarity Movement. You don’t have to go far to find similar things written by many other members.

UPDATE: And if you have any doubt about Rachel Corrie’s support for Palestinian violence, see: Rachel Corrie’s Last Letter Home. (Hat tip: Hhar.)

“If any of us had our lives and welfare completely strangled, lived with children in a shrinking place where we knew, because of previous experience, that soldiers and tanks and bulldozers could come for us at any moment and destroy all the greenhouses that we had been cultivating for however long, and did this while some of us were beaten and held captive with 149 other people for several hours - do you think we might try to use somewhat violent means to protect whatever fragments remained? I think about this especially when I see orchards and greenhouses and fruit trees destroyed - just years of care and cultivation. I think about you and how long it takes to make things grow and what a labour of love it is. I really think, in a similar situation, most people would defend themselves as best they could. I think Uncle Craig would. I think probably Grandma would. I think I would. You asked me about non-violent resistance.”

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