Brian Lamb, Host of Booknotes interviewed Michael Moore who dedicated his latest book, Dude, Where's my Country?  to Rachel Corrie. 11/16/03

LAMB: You tell us in the book your dedication is for Rachel Cory (ph). "Will I ever have her courage? Will I let her death be in vain?" Who was she?

MOORE: Rachel Cory was a young American girl who went over to Israel and the occupied territories to try and stop the violence against the Palestinian people. And what these kids do is, they go and they stand in front of the bulldozers when the Israelis go to bulldoze the homes of people who did nothing wrong, but because a family member committed a horrible crime -- with, you know, no trial, no anything, you know, the next -- you know how it works. The next day, they just come and bulldoze the family`s home. And so one day she was standing in front of one of those Israeli bulldozers, and the Israelis bulldozed her and killed her. And...

LAMB: You tell us in the book your dedication is for Rachel Cory (ph). "Will I ever have her courage? Will I let her death be in vain?" Who was she?

MOORE: Rachel Cory was a young American girl who went over to Israel and the occupied territories to try and stop the violence against the Palestinian people. And what these kids do is, they go and they stand in front of the bulldozers when the Israelis go to bulldoze the homes of people who did nothing wrong, but because a family member committed a horrible crime -- with, you know, no trial, no anything, you know, the next -- you know how it works. The next day, they just come and bulldoze the family's home. And so one day she was standing in front of one of those Israeli bulldozers, and the Israelis bulldozed her and killed her. And...

LAMB: Did you know her?

MOORE: No, I never met her. I didn't know her at all. I saw the pictures of it in the paper and on television, and I was very affected by this because the kind of courage it would take to do something like that and to stand up for a group of people that really are the pariahs -- at least in America, you know, the Palestinians are just -- you know, they just -- you know, you say that word, and it`s just, you know, what it triggers.

And it's a difficult issue because at the same time, you've got the people who live in Israel, the Jewish people of this world that have been so oppressed and so abused and you know, the Holocaust in the last century and everything and, you know, you want to be extremely supportive of anybody who's Jewish, to make sure that they never have to go through that again. I think that's all of our responsibility, to see that that never happens to them again. So there is that horrible thing that, you know, pulls people apart on this issue.

And there's got to be a way to find some common ground. I don't know if you've ever traveled over there, or whatever, but you know, it's amazing. The first day or two you're there is -- first of all, you start to see all the similarities between Arabs and Israelis. I mean, they're very similar, in terms of culture, language, food, the way they, you know, talk and, you know, interact with each other. And it's just -- and you get to a point where, Well, who's the Arab and who's the Israeli? These people are part of the same family. Historically, they're part of the same family. And this is absolutely insane that this is still going on. So that young girl attempted to do something in a non-violent way and was killed as a result of it.

Complete transcript: http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/?ProgramID=1754