Families from Gaza U.S. tour to rebuild homes

By Ted Maher
The Oregonian
June 19, 2005

Palestinians losing their homes to Israeli bulldozers say their story is known to few Americans, so a small group is touring the country to plead their case and made a stop in Portland.

Two of them, Khaled and Samah Nasrallah, lost their home in Gaza in October 2003. Two others are the parents of an Olympia woman killed by an Israeli bulldozer on March 16, 2003, as the horrified Nasrallahs watched through cracks in their garden wall.

Rachel Corrie, 23, graduated posthumously from The Evergreen State College. Her parents, Cindy and Craig Corrie, deferred retirement to carry on their daughter's cause. They were in Portland on Thursday during a tour that includes California, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa.

"We never had a plan or strategy, but within an hour or two of Rachel's death, I said we must get her words out," Cindy Corrie said. "We released her e-mails, and the Guardian printed them for two days.

They appeared in The Washington Post and other papers and ran in full in Harper's magazine."

The complete set of e-mails -- available on the Internet -- was a revelation to Cindy Corrie.

"I understood her passion," Corrie said. "But I never grasped it fully until I read her e-mails. When I understood what she was doing and why, I felt even more strongly that we have to make others understand the way we do now."

An Israeli army investigation concluded that Rachel Corrie's death was accidental. Officials have said the driver of the machine could not see the woman -- a claim activists have fiercely disputed and her parents challenge.

In February, Israel abandoned its decades-old policy of destroying the homes of Palestinian suicide bombers and gunmen, saying it was ineffective. Palestinians and supporters contend the vast majority of Palestinian homes demolished by Israel had no link to suicide bombings.

Khaled Nasrallah, an accountant for Palestine Airlines, said his family was not involved with terrorism, saying, "We are normal civilian people."

Also traveling with the group is Donna Baranski-Walker, executive director of The Rebuilding Alliance, which formed in Palo Alto, Calif., in 2002 to rebuild some 2,200 homes razed in the Gaza town of Rafah.

"We have rebuilt six homes, a kindergarten and a peace center," she said. "We hope to raise $48,000 to rebuild the Nasrallahs' home as a duplex housing two families. We've raised about $15,000 so far."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

©2005 The Oregonian