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Carlos Chavez: the Rachel Corrie nobody will talk about
Author
- Carlos Chavez: the Rachel Corrie nobody will talk about
Date Created
- 30 Jan 2008
Date Edited
- 30 Jan 2008 08:17:07 PM
Rating
- Current rating: 3
License
This work is in the public domain.
Today a man who came to work in peace, to help realize the dream of an egalitarian socialist society, or perhaps just to have a new experience, was murdered by Arab snipers. His death was hardly noticed, it seems.
A few years ago Rachel Corrie came to Israel(
![[search]](../../../images/content_searchlinks/search.jpg)
) to defend terrorists from "Zionist aggressors." She was killed by accident while trying to stop a bulldozer from destroying a building used for smuggling or terror attacks. Her death was trumpeted all over the world as an example of Zionist mentality. We know who she is and what she looked like and why she claimed to have come to Israel. We knew all about her views of the oppressive and evil Zionists.Today's victim was a righteous victim. He was murdered while planting potato seeds on a communal farm insider Israel. Carlos Chavez was not a reactionary imperialist warmonger illegal settler messianic fanatic - just a man growing food in a communal farm. For whatever reasons, he was planting potato seeds, not seeds of hatred.
For idealistic or frivolous or random reasons, Carlos Chavez came here to help us and be with us, and he paid for it with his life. It is wrong perhaps to ape the path of exploitation of his death for incitement and demonification as Rachel Corrie's "supporters" did. Perhaps there should be no demonstrations about Carlos, and perhaps there should not be any plays about Carlos. Perhaps Carlos was just a fellow looking for an interesting way to spend a few months of his life. Perhaps that is not as praiseworthy as the ideal of helping terrorists. But at least, we should honor our friend who came in peace and died in our war.
I do not know enough about Carlos Chavez from Quito Ecuador to tell you much about him, because the media do not tell us much - why he came, who he was, or what he was like. Most journals did not bother to show a picture of him, and the one that appears in Jerusalem Post is a bad joke.
Here is what we know of his story:
Ecuadorian volunteer Carlos Chavez, 21, was killed when a Palestinian sniper fired from the border area into Israel.
Chavez had been working in a potato field near the kibbutz border fence, Ein Hashlosha's security chief said. He was hit in the back and taken by his friends to the kibbutz infirmary.
A Magen David Adom ambulance arrived on the scene shortly after, but paramedics were unable to resuscitate him...
Yochai Kopler, a potato grower who worked with Chavez, said "sniper and mortar fire opened up. We didn't have luck this time, as we did the other times. Every day they shoot at us, and we run away like rabbits."
"It's tough for us to receive news like this," said Annie Rotman, who is responsible for the kibbutz's volunteers.
She said that Chavez came to the kibbutz two months ago. "Only yesterday, we spoke with him, laughed with him."
"Everyone here is afraid," she said. "The volunteers do the work, and when there is shooting, they go into hysteria. We are finding it difficult to digest what has happened."
David Lanos, 19, also a volunteer on the kibbutz, said the sniper fire came as they were preparing to plant potato seeds. "I told him, 'Sit down, they're shooting at us.' We managed to hide behind a car. When he stood up to get into it, he was hit in the back."
Lanos then told Chavez not to go to sleep. "He answered 'I'm not able,' and then I lost him."
Rest in peace, dear friend. I am sorry that I haven't a fancy bouquet to offer in your memory, only a few daisies I found in the path.
Ami Isseroff
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Quote-of-the-Moment
An inglorious peace is better than a dishonorable war.
-- Mark Twain
Source:
"Glances at History" (suppressed)
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Comments
Re: Carlos Chavez: the Rachel Corrie nobody will talk about
31 Jan 2008
Carlos Chavez was murdered this week, another foreigner who put himself in harm's way and became a casualty of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Of course, the other foreigner I refer to was Rachel Corrie, an idealistic young American student who chose to go to Gaza(
Rachel Corrie of Washington State, as any observer of the issue is undoubtedly aware, has been canonized by the opponents of Israel(
Rachel Corrie died while trying to interfere with an Israel Defense Forces action against a house used for smuggling weapons into the Gaza Strip. While accounts of the actual incident vary, there is no doubt that she deliberately placed herself in harm's way and was attempting to block the IDF from demolishing the structure. Carlos Chavez, it could be said, also placed himself in harm's way just by being in the state of Israel; he was shot in the back by a sniper while working in the fields near the border with Gaza. His murderer didn't know who he was; didn't care whether he was Jewish, Christian, Buddhist or atheist; didn't ask his opinion on the two-state solution, or settlements, or the so-called "right" of return. Chavez was targeted because he was in the state of Israel. Just like the 12 civilians in Sderot who were killed by Qassam missiles--(of which the raw materials are smuggled in through houses in Gaza like the one Rachel Corrie was trying to protect):
June 28, 2004 - Afik Ohion Zehavi, 4, killed when a rocket lands in his nursery school in Sderot.
June 28, 2004 - Mordechai Yosephus, 49, killed when a rocket lands in a kindergarten in Sderot.
Sept. 29, 2004 - Dorit Inso, 2, killed when two rockets hit her residence building.
Sept. 29, 2004 - Yuval Abeva, 4, killed when two rockets hit his residence building.
Jan. 15, 2005 - Ayala Haya Abukasis, 17, killed when a rocket hits Sderot.
July 15, 2005 - Dana Gelkowitz, 22, killed by a Qassam that strikes a home in Moshav Nativ Ha'asara.
March 28, 2006 - A Bedouin father and son, Salam Ziadin and Khalid, 16, killed when a Qassam rocket they find in the Nahal Oz area explodes.
Nov. 11, 2006 - Faina Slutzker, 57, killed when a rocket hits the street where she is walking near the home of Defense Minister Amir Peretz.
Nov. 21, 2006 - Yaakov Yaakobovich, 43, killed while at work in a Sderot poultry processing plant.
May 21, 2007 - Shir-el Friedman, 35, killed in Sderot when a rocket hits a car she is walking near.May 27, 2007 - Oshri Oz, 36, is killed in Sderot when a rocket hits the car he is driving.
Sderot is a civilian town; there are no Israeli army installations, no missiles are launched from the town. But it's a town full of Israelis, and that's reason enough for Hamas and Islamic Jihad to try to indiscriminately slaughter them.
The Consul General of Israel in San Francisco personally contacted Rachel Corrie's parents to express his country's regrets. As far as we know, nobody from Hamas or Islamic Jihad has contacted the family of Carlos Chavez to apologize (and what would they say? "We're sorry, we assumed he was a Jewish son of apes and pigs so therefore deserved a bullet in his chest; if we had known he was just a Christian infidel then we would have only winged him"?).
Rachel Corrie is the subject of adorational prose, theatre, websites, and even songs. But those in Israel, and those who support Israel, don't like to use tragic deaths for political "gotcha" points. They don't take photos of casualties who then stand up and walk away, and they don't claim that victims of their own mines were the result of attacks from the other side. They don't celebrate the deaths of their civilians as "martyrs" and they don't celebrate the deaths of civilians on the other side, either. So I don't think we're going to see any plays or songs about Carlos Chavez.
In America and Europe, Rachel Corrie's visage is prominently displayed at a variety of anti-Israel events. Of course, those exploiting her death in support of the elimination of Israel wouldn't have cared a whit about her had she been gunned down while planting potatoes at Ein Hashlosha, any more than they care about Carlos Chavez, or about Afik Zehavi and the others who died in Sderot. Because for Hamas and Islamic Jihad, being in Israel is enough of a reason to be killed; and for too many of those around the world who rally around Rachel Corrie's picture, it's enough of a reason not to care.