umkahlil

http://www.icahd.org/eng/projects.asp?menu=3&submenu=5

It is too bad that New Yorkers won't get to see My Name is Rachel Corrie, any time soon because it has been postponed by the New York Theatre Workshop.

Edward Rothstein, culture critic for the New York Times, doesn't have too much of a problem with this development because according to him the play doesn't provide the underlying reasons for Israel's demolition of Palestinian houses. Aside from his non-sequitor that in light of the Hamas victory, the play about a non-violent young woman who died defending the home of a middle class Paletinian pharmacist and his family might "feed" its propagandistic maw" in "Too Hot to Handle, Too Hot Not To Handle," he writes, "there is no hint about why such demolitions were taking place."

Along with justifying House demolitions, a violation of international law, he also justifies the theater company's cowardice when he maintains, "there might have been assertions that the company was glorifying the mock-heroics of a naif who tried to block efforts to cut off terrorist weapon smuggling."

Never mind that Rachel Corrie was non-violently protecting and non-violently protesting the demolition of the house of a family that she knew well. And never mind that the Israeli Army never asserted that there were tunnels under the house. And never mind that according to Human Rights Watch ten percent of Rafah residents have had their houses demolished, which is in violation of international law. And never mind that stereotypes (see Planet of the Arabs) of violent Arabs proliferate the US media. Never mind any modicum of justice for Palestinians if a play based upon the writings of a socially conscious college girl from Washington State can not even make it to a New York stage.