A Tale of Two Rachels

When Rachel Corrie died accidentally while assisting Palestinian, the left was outraged and has gone so far as starting an unsuccessful boycott of Caterpillar. Rachel Thaler dies and the world acts as if she deserved it:

My Name Is Rachel Thaler is not the title of a play likely to be produced anytime soon in London. Thaler, aged 16, was blown up at a pizzeria in an Israeli shopping mall. She died after an 11-day struggle for life following the February 16, 2002 attack when a suicide bomber approached a crowd of teenagers and blew himself up.

She was a British citizen, born in London, where her grandparents still live. Yet I doubt that anyone at London's Royal Court Theatre, or most people in the British media, have heard of her. "Not a single British journalist has ever interviewed me or mentioned her death," her mother, Ginette, told me last week.

Thaler's parents donated her organs for transplant (helping to save the life of a young Russian man), and grieved quietly. After the accidental killing of Rachel Corrie, by contrast, her parents embarked on a major publicity campaign. They traveled to Ramallah to accept a plaque from Yasser Arafat on behalf of their daughter. They circulated her emails and diary entries to a world media eager to publicize them.

Charles has more thoughts.