Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Did Rachel Corrie get college credit for joining the ISM? (updated)

There is an interesting detail in this 2003 article from a local Olympia, Washington newspaper that profiles a number of Evergreen College students who traveled to Rafah along with Rachel Corrie:

Rafah is one of the most dangerous places in the Gaza Strip--"a combat zone," according to Captain Jacob Dallal, the Israeli army spokesperson.

...My Jewish ass has been to Israel several times, but never to Gaza, and I am a bit scared. I have been told not to use any of my Arabic, lest I be suspected of being an Israeli spy. Above all, I have been told not to mention my religion.

[Corrie's] cohorts at ISM Rafah were an international group, with members from both Europe and the U.S. It was a young group--most people were under 30, and many were closer to 20. And it was a group that held the potential for romance--a Swedish ISMer named Stefan Villkatt would soon become Rachel's boyfriend.

...In addition to Stefan, there was Chris Allert, 31, also from Olympia, who joined the ISM in April 2002 after hearing about the intense fighting in the West Bank town of Jenin.

...There was Will Hewitt, 25, another Evergreen student who arrived in Israel around the same time as Rachel.

..And then there was Joe Smith, 21--yet another Evergreen student who, with his thick beard and red-checked kaffiyeh, looks like a better-fed, Palestinian-territory version of John Walker Lindh. Joe is from Kansas City, Missouri, and says he (like other Evergreen students) is getting independent study credit for his time in Rafah.
At the time, the US State Department had a travel warning against Americans going to Gaza.

If true, Evergreen College was rewarding students to go to a war zone and put their lives in danger.

(h/t Daled Amos via email)

UPDATE: MThis was noticed in 2010 in this JPost article:
Corrie arrived in Israel as part of an independent study program during her senior year at Evergreen State College. It was there that Corrie first heard of going to Gaza with the loosely affiliated assortment of left-wing radicals known as the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). Evergreen's faculty also displayed gross negligence in allowing her to spend a semester abroad, for course credit, in the West Bank and Gaza during the height of the second intifada. After a mere two days of ISM 'training,' Corrie and her fellow activist trainees were sent to the Rafah crossing, described by IDF spokesman Capt. Jacob Dellal as 'the most dangerous area in the West Bank and Gaza.'

And Evergreen still has an independent study program that could include study abroad.

I wonder who the academic supervisor of the Evergreen students was?

(h/t Nevet)


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