This entry is pretty much the word-for-word text of a set of emails to Gwen:

Been thinking about martyrdom. I find myself thinking that there is both a place for day to day activism, and a place for the acts of a martyr. Drastic, desperate acts get people's attention that no amount of slow and steady pressure can achieve. At the same time, you can’t use martyrdom to building something new - you can only use it to demonstrate the horror of the old, and the need for change.

One especially poignant part of what happened to Rachel Corrie is, I think, that she didn't intend to be a martyr. Standing in front of bulldozers, when they don’t kill you, is an act of everyday activism. It's the kind of daily pressure that can change a regime - letting the people in charge know that the world is watching, and giving the soldiers enacting the policy a new face that opposes them. And that, I think, is what Rachel Corrie was trying to do.

I don’t think her death could have served as an Israeli wake-up call, I think it could have served as something to mobilize American public opinion to end US support for Israeli policy. If it had gotten any media attention.

I agree that she thought her skin and nationality would protect her, but most of the time, it does. Americans have been doing the human shield for Palestinian homes for over a decade, and this has never happened before. I think the Palestinian suicide bombings have permanently changed the Israeli psyche in ways we are only just realizing...

And I agree she must have decided to keep standing there. maybe it was a fleeting impulse that lasted just long enough to get her killed, or maybe it was an actual calculation on the value of her death. But I have to admit I respect her decision, even if you're probably right that a lifetime of work on behalf of the Palestinians would have added up to more in the long run. On the other hand, we've tried that, and it isn’t working so far. Letting Israeli bulldozers kill Americans has not been tried.

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USAID is one of many donors for the project I work for. The views expressed herein are the author’s own views and do not necessarily reflect those of the author’s employer or especially those of the United States Agency for International Development or the United States Government. And I mean it. I probably give the US government heart attacks.