Rachel Corrie

Rachel Corrie
Born	Rachel Aliene Corrie (1979-04-10)10 April 1979 Olympia, Washington, United States
Died	16 March 2003(2003-03-16) (aged 23) Rafah, Gaza Strip
Cause of death	Entered a war zone and died by accident while trying to block an Israeli armored bulldozer
Nationality	American
Known for	ISM activity
Parent(s)	Craig, Cindy

Rachel Aliene Corrie (10 April 1979 – 16 March 2003) was an American political activist, known for her support of Palestinians. As a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), she died while attempting to intervene in what she believed was the demolition of a Palestinian home in Gaza. The exact nature of her death and the actions of the bulldozer operator are disputed. On 28 August 2012, the Haifa District Court ruled that Corrie's death was an accident for which she was responsible and the IDF were absolved of any wrongdoing. Corrie has become a symbol of the Palestinian rights movement, both in Israel and Palestine and the rest of the world.

Early life

Corrie was born on 10 April 1979, and raised in Olympia, Washington, United States. She was the youngest of the three children of Craig Corrie, an insurance executive, and Cindy Corrie. Cindy describes their family as "average Americans—politically liberal, economically conservative, middle class".

After graduating from Capital High School, Corrie went on to attend The Evergreen State College (TESC), also in Olympia, where she took a number of arts courses. She took one year off from her studies to work as a volunteer in the Washington State Conservation Corps; other volunteer work included making weekly visits to patients with mental disorders for three years. In her senior year, she proposed an independent-study program in which she would travel to Gaza, join protesters from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), and initiate a "sister city" project between Olympia and Rafah. Before leaving, she also organized a pen-pal program between children in Olympia and Rafah.

Activities in the West Bank and Gaza

See also: House demolition in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and Gaza Strip smuggling tunnels

After flying to Israel on 22 January 2003, Corrie underwent a two-day training course at ISM West Bank headquarters, before heading to Rafah to participate in ISM demonstrations. During her training, Corrie studied tactics of direct action. Basic rules about avoiding harm were given, which a later article on the Corrie incident summarized as: "Wear fluorescent jackets. Don't run. Don't frighten the army. Try to communicate by megaphone. Make your presence known." On 27 January 2003, Corrie and William Hewitt (also from Olympia), traveled to the Erez checkpoint and entered the Gaza Strip.

Corrie with Israeli bulldozers in background

While in Rafah, Corrie acted as a human shield in an attempt to impede house demolitions carried out by the IDF using armored bulldozers. On Corrie's first night there, she and two other ISM members set up camp inside Block J, "a densely populated neighborhood along the Pink Line and frequent target of gunfire from an Israeli watchtower". By situating themselves very visibly between the Palestinian residents and the Israeli snipers manning the watchtowers they hoped to discourage any shooting by using banners stating that they were "internationals". But instead Israeli soldiers fired bullets over their tent and at the ground a few feet away. Deciding that their presence was provoking the Israeli soldiers, not deterring them, Corrie and her colleagues dismantled their tent and left the area.

Qishta, a Palestinian who worked as an interpreter, noted that: "Late January and February was a very crazy time. There were house demolitions taking place all over the border strip and the activists had no time to do anything else." Qishta also stated of the ISM activists: "They were not only brave; they were crazy." The confrontations were not without harm to the activists; a British participant was wounded by shrapnel while entering an olive grove to retrieve the body of a young Palestinian man killed by an Israeli sniper's bullet, and an Irish peace activist named Jenny was nearly run down by a bulldozer

Palestinian militants expressed concern that the "internationals" staying in tents between the Israeli watchtowers and the residential neighborhoods would get caught in crossfire, while other residents were concerned that the young activists might be spies. Corrie worked hard to overcome this suspicion, learning a few words of Arabic, and participating in a mock trial denouncing the "crimes of the Bush Administration". With time, the ISM members were taken into Palestinian family homes, and provided with meals and beds. Even so, in the days before Corrie's death, a letter gained wide circulation in Rafah, casting suspicion again on the ISM members. "Who are they? Why are they here? Who asked them to come here?" it asked. The letter caused the activists to be preoccupied and frustrated, and on the morning of Corrie's death they planned ways to counteract its effects. According to one activist, "We all had a feeling that our role was too passive. We talked about how to engage the Israeli military."

On 14 March 2003, during an interview with the Middle East Broadcasting network, Corrie said:

I feel like I'm witnessing the systematic destruction of a people's ability to survive.... Sometimes I sit down to dinner with people and I realize there is a massive military machine surrounding us, trying to kill the people I'm having dinner with.

Water well human shielding efforts

According to a January 2003 article by Gordon Murray, in the last month of her life Rachel "spent a lot of time at the Canada Well helping protect Rafah municipal workers", who were trying to repair damages to the well incurred by Israeli bulldozers. Built in 1999 with CIDA funding, Canada Well, together with El Iskan Well, had supplied more than 50% of Rafah's water before being damaged, and the city had been under "strict rationing (only a few hours of running water on alternate days)" since. Murray writes that ISM activists were maintaining a presence there since "Israeli snipers and tanks routinely shot at civilian workers trying to repair the wells." In one of her reports, Corrie relates that despite having received permission from Israeli District Command Office, and carrying "banners and megaphones the activists and workers were fired upon several times over a period of about one hour. One of the bullets came within two metres of three internationals and a municipal water worker close enough to spray bits of debris in their faces as it landed at their feet." According to Murray, the Canadian government refused to "officially protest or denounce the Israeli army actions", yet "quietly agreed to help fund the estimated $450,000 repair costs".

Controversy over protest against 2003 invasion of Iraq

While in Gaza, Rachel took part in a demonstration as part of the February 15, 2003 anti-war protest against the invasion of Iraq. She was photographed burning a mock US flag. Robert Spencer criticized Corrie for having burned the flag in front of children, writing that she was "fostering ... hatred" of the United States.

After her death, International Solidarity Movement ("ISM") and Corrie's parents wrote about the circulated picture of the incident:

Trying to use this picture to somehow indicate that Rachel deserved to be run over by a bulldozer is an appalling act of demonization that infers that forms of protest which include flag burning are capital offences. In the words of Rachel's parents: 'The act, while we may disagree with it, must be put into context. Rachel was partaking in a demonstration in Gaza opposing the War on Iraq. She was working with children who drew two pictures, one of the American flag, and one of the Israeli flag, for burning. Rachel said that she could not bring herself to burn the picture of the Israeli flag with the Star of David on it, but under such circumstances, in protest over a drive towards war and her government's foreign policy that was responsible for much of the devastation that she was witness to in Gaza, she felt it OK to burn the picture of her own flag. We have seen photographs of memorials held in Gaza after Rachel's death in which Palestinian children and adults honor our daughter by carrying a mock coffin draped with the American flag. We have been told that our flag has never been treated so respectfully in Gaza in recent years. We believe Rachel brought a different face of the United States to the Palestinian people, a face of compassion. It is this image of Rachel with the American flag that we hope will be remembered most.'

Corrie's e-mails from Gaza to her mother

Rachel Corrie sent a series of e-mails to her mother while she was in Gaza, of which four were later published by The Guardian (on page 2, comments and features section, 18 March 2003) and in January 2008 in a memorial book titled Let Me Stand Alone by W. W. Norton & Company, along with her other collected writings. Yale Professor David Bromwich stated, Rachel left "letters of great interest" and she had studied methods of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King with care. Corrie wrote to her mother, "The vast majority of Palestinians right now, as far as I can tell, are engaged in Gandhian nonviolent resistance." Her letters later formed the basis of the theatre play My Name is Rachel Corrie, and some parts of the letters were also used in the cantata The Skies are Weeping.

Corrie's death and subsequent controversy

On 16 March 2003, an IDF operation in the land between the Rafah refugee camp and the border with Egypt was engaged in demolition of Palestinian houses in Rafah. Corrie was part of a group of seven ISM activists (three British and four US) attempting to disrupt the actions of Israeli bulldozers. Corrie, who had positioned herself in the path of a Caterpillar D9R armored bulldozer that was clearing vegetation in a military zone along the Gaza-Egypt border and was fatally injured. They said she was interposed between the bulldozer and a wall near Nasrallah's home, in which ISM activists had several times spent the night.

The major points of dispute are whether the bulldozer operator saw Corrie, and whether her injuries were caused by being crushed under the blade or by the mound of debris the bulldozer was pushing. An IDF spokesman has acknowledged that Israeli army regulations normally require that the operators of the armored personnel carriers (APCs) that accompany bulldozers are responsible for directing the operators towards their targets, because the Caterpillar D9 bulldozers have a restricted field of vision with several blind spots. In a statement issued the day after Corrie's death, the ISM said that, "When the bulldozer refused to stop or turn aside she climbed up onto the mound of dirt and rubble being gathered in front of it ... to look directly at the operator who kept on advancing."

The IDF produced a video about Corrie's death that includes footage taken from inside the cockpit of a D9. It makes a "credible case", Joshua Hammer wrote of this video in Mother Jones, that "the operators, peering out through narrow, double-glazed, bulletproof windows, their view obscured behind pistons and the giant scooper, might not have seen Corrie kneeling in front of them".

In April 2011, during the trial in the civil suit brought by Corrie's parents, an IDF officer testified that Corrie and other activists had spent "hours" trying to block the bulldozers under his command. On that day, they were only clearing "vegetation and rubble", and no houses were slated for demolition. He went on to say that it was "a war zone where Palestinian militants used abandoned homes as firing positions" and exploited foreign activists for cover. He shouted over a megaphone for the activists to leave, tried to use tear gas to disperse them and moved his troops several times. "To my regret, after the eighth time, (Corrie) hid behind an earth embankment. The D9 operator didn't see her. She thought he saw her," he said. An ISM activist Richard Purssell testified: "They began demolishing one house. We gathered around and called out to them and went into the house, so they backed out. During the entire time they knew who we were and what we were doing, because they didn't shoot at us. We stood in their way and shouted. There were about eight of us in an area about 70 square meters. Suddenly, we saw they turned to a house they had started to demolish before, and I saw Rachel standing in the way of the front bulldozer." Human-rights activists and Palestinians maintain that the demolitions had also been accompanied by random gunfire from Israeli snipers perched in watchtowers and occupied buildings scattered throughout Rafah. The director of Rafah's hospital, Dr. Ali Moussa said that 240 Palestinians, including 78 children, had been killed. "Every night there is shooting at houses in which children are sleeping, without any attacks from Palestinians."

ISM and other eyewitness accounts

Joe Carr, an American ISM activist who used the assumed name of Joseph Smith during his time in Gaza, gave the following account in an affidavit recorded and published by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR):

Corrie in the aftermath of the incident

Still wearing her fluorescent jacket, she knelt down at least 15 meters in front of the bulldozer, and began waving her arms and shouting, just as activists had successfully done dozens of times that day.... When it got so close that it was moving the earth beneath her, she climbed onto the pile of rubble being pushed by the bulldozer.... Her head and upper torso were above the bulldozer's blade, and the bulldozer operator and co-operator could clearly see her. Despite this, the operator continued forward, which caused her to fall back, out of view of the driver. [sic] He continued forward, and she tried to scoot back, but was quickly pulled underneath the bulldozer. We ran towards him, and waved our arms and shouted; one activist with the megaphone. But the bulldozer operator continued forward, until Rachel was all the way underneath the central section of the bulldozer.

On 18 March 2003, only two days after Corrie's death, Joe (Smith) Carr was interviewed by British Channel 4 and The Observer reporter Sandra Jordan for a documentary that was aired June 2003 on Channel 4 titled The Killing Zone. He stated, "It was either a really gross mistake or a really brutal murder."

According to the Seattle Times, "Smith, who witnessed Sunday's incident, said it began when Corrie sat down in front of the bulldozer. He said the operator scooped her up with a pile of earth, dumped her on the ground and ran over her twice." Smith also commented: "We were horribly surprised. They had been careful not to hurt us. They'd always stopped before.

British ISM activist Tom Dale, who was standing yards away from Corrie, told journalist Joshua Hammer, Jerusalem bureau chief for Newsweek:

The bulldozer built up earth in front of it.... She tried to climb on top of the earth, to avoid being overwhelmed. She climbed to the point where her shoulders were above the top lip of the blade. She was standing on this pile of earth. As the bulldozer continued, she lost her footing, and she turned and fell down from this pile of earth. Then it seemed like she got her foot caught under the blade. She was helpless, pushed prostrate, and looked absolutely panicked, with her arms out, and the earth was piling itself over her. The bulldozer continued so that the place where she fell down was directly beneath the cockpit.... The whole [incident] took place in about six or seven seconds.

An individual giving the name Richard, who stated that he witnessed Corrie's death, as recorded by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz:

There's no way he didn't see her, since she was practically looking into the cabin. At one stage, he turned around toward the building. The bulldozer kept moving, and she slipped and fell off the plow. But the bulldozer kept moving, the shovel above her. I guess it was about 10 or 15 meters that it dragged her and for some reason didn't stop. We shouted like crazy to the operator through loudspeakers that he should stop, but he just kept going and didn't lift the shovel. Then it stopped and backed up. We ran to Rachel. She was still breathing.

British ISM activist Richard Purssell gave the following account, in an affidavit made in a manner similar to Carr's:

As the bulldozer reached the place where Rachel was standing, she began as many of us did on the day to climb the pile of earth. She reached the top and at this point she must have been clearly visible to the operator, especially as she was still wearing the high visibility jacket ["orange fluorescent ... with reflective strips"]. She turned and faced in my direction and began to come back down the pile. The bulldozer continued to move forward at [5–6 mph]. As her feet hit the ground I saw a panicked expression on her face.... The pile of earth engulfed her and she was hidden from my view.

Some eyewitness accounts indicate that when Corrie slipped and fell, the operator may have been looking behind him.

The bulldozer operator, a Russian immigrant to Israel, was interviewed on Israeli TV and insisted he had no idea she was in front of him:

You can't hear, you can't see well. You can go over something and you'll never know. I scooped up some earth, I couldn't see anything. I pushed the earth, and I didn't see her at all. Maybe she was hiding in there.

Autopsy

Prime Minister of Israel Ariel Sharon, promised President Bush a "thorough, credible, and transparent investigation". Later, Capt. Jacob Dallal, a spokesman for the Israeli army, called Corrie's death a "regrettable accident" and said that she and the other ISM activists were "a group of protesters who were acting very irresponsibly, putting everyone in danger—the Palestinians, themselves and our forces—by intentionally placing themselves in a combat zone".

An autopsy was conducted on 24 March at the Israel's National Center of Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv. The final report was not released publicly, but in their report on the matter Human Rights Watch asserts a copy was provided to them by Craig Corrie, with a translation supplied by the U.S. Department of State. In the report they quote Professor Yehuda Hiss, who performed the autopsy, as concluding, "Her death was caused by pressure on the chest (mechanical asphyxiation) with fractures of the ribs and vertebrae of the dorsal spinal column and scapulas, and tear wounds in the right lung with hemorrhaging of the pleural cavities."

Military investigation

The Israeli army's report [seen by The Guardian], said:

The army was searching for explosives in the border zone when Corrie was "struck as she stood behind a mound of earth that was created by an engineering vehicle operating in the area and she was hidden from the view of the vehicle's operator who continued with his work. Corrie was struck by dirt and a slab of concrete resulting in her death.... The finding of the operational investigations shows that Rachel Corrie was not run over by an engineering vehicle but rather was struck by a hard object, most probably a slab of concrete which was moved or slid down while the mound of earth which she was standing behind was moved. (The Guardian, 14 April 2003).

On 26 June 2003, The Jerusalem Post quoted an Israeli military spokesman as saying that Corrie had not been run over and that the operator had not seen her:

The driver at no point saw or heard Corrie. She was standing behind debris which obstructed the view of the driver and the driver had a very limited field of vision due to the protective cage he was working in.... The driver and his commanders were interrogated extensively over a long period of time with the use of polygraph tests and video evidence. They had no knowledge that she was standing in the path of the tractor. An autopsy of Corrie's body revealed that the cause of death was from falling debris and not from the tractor physically rolling over her. It was a tragic accident that never should have happened.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shaprio stated that the Israeli investigation was not satisfactory, and was not as thorough, credible or transparent as it should have been. The IDF document "The Death of Rachel Corrie" made no mention of the pathologist's conclusion. However, according to Corrie's parents, the IDF has refused thus far to release the entire document.

Howard Blume told that IDF stated:

[a bulldozer with 2 crews] was engaged in "routine terrain leveling and debris clearing", not building demolition. Quoting from the IDF report, Corrie died "as a result of injuries sustained when earth and debris accidentally fell on her.... Ms. Corrie was not run over by the bulldozer," he added, IDF also claimed she was possibly "in a blindspot for the bulldozer operators and "behind an earth mound", so they did not see that she was in harm's way.

In later IDF operations, the house was damaged (a hole was knocked in a wall) and was later destroyed. By that time, the Nasrallah family had moved into a different house. It was reported in 2006 that the house that Corrie was trying to protect was rebuilt with funds raised by The Rebuilding Alliance.

A spokesman for the IDF told the Guardian that, while it did not accept responsibility for Corrie's death, it intended to change its operational procedures to avoid similar incidents in the future. The level of command of similar operations would be raised, said the spokesman, and civilians in the area would be dispersed or arrested before operations began. Observers will be deployed and CCTV cameras will be installed on the bulldozers to compensate for blind spots, which may have contributed to Corrie's death.

The IDF gave copies of the report, titled "The Death of Rachel Corrie", to members of the U.S. Congress in April 2003, and Corrie's family released the document to the media in June 2003, according to the Gannett News Service. In March 2004 the family said that the entire report had not been released, and that only they and two American staffers at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv had been allowed to view it. The family said they were allowed to look at the report in the Consulate General of Israel to the Pacific Northwest in San Francisco. The ISM rejected the Israeli report, stating that it contradicted their members' eyewitness reports and that the investigation had been far from credible and transparent.

Reactions

A Palestinian memorial

The Ramallah municipality in the Palestine region dedicated a street to Rachel Corrie

Corrie's death sparked controversy and led to international media coverage, in part because she was an American, and in part because of the highly politicized nature of the conflict itself.

Political reactions

U.S. Representative Brian Baird introduced House Concurrent Resolution 111 in the U.S. Congress on 25 March 2003, calling on the U.S. government to "undertake a full, fair, and expeditious investigation" into Corrie's death. The House of Representatives took no action on the resolution. The Corrie family joined Representative Baird in calling for a U.S. investigation. Baird, though reelected in 2004, 2006, and 2008, has not reintroduced the resolution in the Congress.

Yasser Arafat offered his condolences and gave the blessings of the Palestinian people to Corrie. Arafat promised to name a street in Gaza after Corrie (see image at right). According to Cindy Corrie, Arafat told Craig Corrie, "She is your daughter but she is also the daughter of all Palestinians. She is ours too now.” on the phone.

On 21 March 2003, the Green Party of the USA, called for an investigation of the "murder of American Peace Activist Rachel Corrie by Israeli Forces".

Former New Democratic Party Member of the Parliament of Canada Svend Robinson nominated ISM for 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, praising Brian Avery, Tom Hurndall and Rachel Corrie for their attempts.

Human rights organizations

Amnesty International USA called for an independent inquiry, with Christine Bustany, their advocacy director for the Middle East, saying that "U.S.-made bulldozers have been 'weaponized' and their transfer to Israel must be suspended."

In 2005, Human Rights Watch published a report titled Promoting Impunity: The Israeli Military's Failure to Investigate Wrongdoing, raising several issues related to the impartiality and professionalism with which the Military Police investigation was conducted. Among them were what Human Rights Watch described as the investigators' lack of preparation; "hostile", "inappropriate", "mostly accusatory" questions they asked witnesses; omitting to get witnesses to draw maps or identify locations on a map of how it occurred; and their asserted uninterest in reconciling soldiers' testimonies with those of other eyewitnesses. The report was not limited in scope to Corrie's death; it described a number of similar instances in which one-line summary findings were reported to the media after closed investigations in which neither non-military witnesses nor victims or their families were involved.

Media

Rachel Corrie memorial vigil at Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC 18 March 2003

The Observer suggested that because she was from the United States, her death attracted the kind of attention that the deaths of Palestinians failed to garner. It wrote that: "On the night of Corrie's death, nine Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip, among them a four-year-old girl and a man aged 90. A total of 220 people have died in Rafah since the beginning of the intifada. Palestinians know the death of one American receives more attention than the killing of hundreds of Muslims."

Corrie's photograph has been carried during protests against Israel's actions in Gaza and the West Bank. On 15 July 2003, the Chicago Tribune reported that: "To the people of Rafah, Rachel Corrie will always remain a very special martyr, their American martyr."

In 2006, Haaretz political columnist Bradley Burston, asserted Corrie's death was accidental, yet "incidental killing is no less tragic than intentional killing", he criticized both the pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli sides for excessive rhetoric, noting that:

Of all of the tragedies and casualties of the intifada, in which more than 4,000 people were killed over five years, the case of Rachel Corrie still stands apart, the subject of intense world interest and fierce debate.... Part of it starts with us. "They had no business being there" is no excuse for what the Pentagon long ago christened collateral damage. We've learned much. But we're still not there. We should have saved Rachel Corrie's life that day, either by sending out a spotter or delaying the bulldozer's work. Right now, somewhere in the West Bank, there's an eight-year-old whose life could be saved next week, if we've managed to learn the lesson and are resourceful enough to know how to apply it.

But in 2012 Haaretz reported that US Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro had told the Corrie family at the end of August 2012 that Israel's investigation into the death of Rachel was "not sufficiently credible". And a spokeswoman for the Corrie family told a news agency that the military's investigation into the activist's death had been "careless and shoddy ... and emotionally taxing for the family".

Criticism of Corrie's actions

According to The Boston Globe, "Corrie ... has been praised as a heroic martyr and denounced as a misguided, ill-informed naïf." In a review of Simone Bitton's documentary Rachel, Salon noted that Corrie was subjected to "shocking verbal abuse" on right-wing bulletin boards and Web sites, including "grotesque sexual fantasies and elaborate conspiracy theories".

Journalist and Middle East commentator Tom Gross has referred to "the cult of Rachel Corrie". In an article called "The Forgotten Rachels" republished on his website, Gross refers to six other women called Rachel, Jewish victims of the Arab-Israeli conflict whose deaths, he wrote, received little, if any, coverage outside Israel. Gross went on to argue that "Partly thanks to the efforts of Corrie and her fellow activists, the flow of explosives from Egypt into Gaza continued—and were later used to kill children in southern Israel." The article prompted a National Review editorial arguing that "Corrie's death was unfortunate, but more unfortunate is a Western media and cultural establishment that lionizes 'martyrs' for illiberal causes while ignoring the victims those causes create."

In March 2003, the University of Maryland, College Park's campus newspaper The Diamondback published an editorial cartoon by Daniel J. Friedman, depicting Rachel Corrie sitting in front of an approaching bulldozer, with two definitions of the word "stupidity" from the American Heritage Dictionary, along with an additional self-created third line "sitting in front of a bulldozer to protect a gang of terrorists", resulting in student sit-ins and protests at the University of Maryland the Wednesday after the cartoon appeared. The group Palestine Media Watch published the e-mail addresses and phone number of Diamondback editors, urging readers to contact the newspaper to secure an apology, and thousands of e-mails and hundreds of phone calls were received by the paper in protest. Describing the cartoon as "indecent and anti-American", over 60 student protesters staged a sit-in at the newspaper's offices (with 10 staying overnight), demanding that the paper apologize and "publish an article honoring Corrie's life". The newspaper refused to apologize, "though many staff members objected to the cartoon's viewpoint" while "the newspaper had received thousands of e-mails and hundreds of telephone calls protesting the cartoon", citing the First Amendment. While Friedman did not return the telephone call and e-mail by The Associated Press, editor-in-chief Jay Parsons (who had initially objected to the cartoon when it was first submitted) commented, "The decision was about freedom of speech, and that made the decision easy."

Criticism of the International Solidarity Movement's role

Joseph Smith (aka Joseph Carr) acknowledged in an interview that the International Solidarity Movement knowingly put its activists' lives at risk. Per Making of a Martyr by Sandra Jordan, "'We knew there was a risk,' Smith said, 'but we also knew it never happened in the two years that we (the ISM) have been working here. I knew we take lots of precautions so that it doesn't happen, that if it did happen it would have to be an intentional act by a soldier, in which case it would bring a lot of publicity and significance to the cause.'" The Electronic Intifada reported that the activists continued to interact with the bulldozers despite at least one close call earlier in the day: "In the instance pictured, the bulldozer did not stop and Rachel was pinned between the scooped earth and the fence behind her. On this occasion, the driver stopped before seriously injuring her." George Rishmawi is quoted thus in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle: "'When Palestinians get shot by Israeli soldiers, no one is interested anymore', Rishmawi said. 'But if some of these foreign volunteers get shot or even killed, then the international media will sit up and take notice.'" And Joseph Smith has said: "The spirit that she died for is worth a life. This idea of resistance, this spirit of resisting this brutal occupying force, is worth anything. And many, many, many Palestinians give their lives for it all the time. So the life of one international, I feel, is more than worth the spirit of resisting oppression."

Activities of Corrie's parents

Craig and Cindy Corrie at an End the Occupation rally, 2007

Since their daughter's death, Corrie's parents, Cindy and Craig, have spent time trying to "promote peace and raise awareness about the plight of Palestinians", and continue what they believe to be her work. The Corries have worked to set up foundations, launch projects in memory of their daughter, and advance investigation into the incident, approaching the U.S. Congress and the courts for redress.

Corries' parents have several times visited the region since their daughter's death, and have twice visited Gaza. Following their daughter's death, they visited Gaza and Israel, seeing the place where Rachel died, and meeting ISM members and Palestinians whom she had known. They also visited Ramallah in the West Bank, where Arafat met them and presented them with a plaque in memory of their daughter. On 28 March 2008 they addressed a demonstration in Ramallah at which Craig Corrie said: "This village has become a symbol of nonviolent resistance. I call for solidarity with the people of Palestine in resisting the conditions imposed by the Israeli occupation to prevent the establishment of their state."

The Nasrallahs, the Palestinian family whose home Rachel believed she was preventing from destruction, joined the Corries on a cross-country tour in the United States in June 2005. The aim of the trip was to raise funds to rebuild the Nasrallah home, and other homes destroyed in Rafah with the cooperation of the Rebuilding Alliance. The 22-city, 7 state tour made stops in Iowa and California among other locations.

Subsequent events

Lawsuits

In the United States

Corrie's family and several Palestinians filed a lawsuit against Caterpillar Inc. alleging liability under various Federal statutes over the death of Corrie in connection with the bulldozers, alleging Caterpillar supplied them to the Israelis despite having notice they would be used to further "a policy plaintiffs contend violates international law". The case was dismissed by a Federal judge in November 2005 for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, citing, among other things, the political question doctrine. The judge found, alternatively, that the plaintiffs' claims failed on the merits.

The ruling was appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. On 17 September 2007, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal on political question grounds, and did not reach the merits of the suit. The Court found that as the bulldozers were paid for by the U.S. Government as part of its aid to Israel, that the Judicial Branch could not rule on the merits of the case without ruling on whether or not the government's financing of such bulldozers was appropriate, a matter it felt was not entrusted to the Judicial Branch.

In Israel

In 2010, Corrie's parents, represented by Attorney Hussein Abu Hussein, filed a lawsuit against the Israel Defense Forces and the Israeli Defense Ministry in the Haifa District Court, seeking US$324,000 in compensation. In February 2010, after US pressure, Israel gave entry visas to four ISM witnesses so that they could testify. However it refused entry permission to the Palestinian physician from Gaza who had examined Corrie's wounds on the scene, and also rejected an application for him to testify by video link. The case began in Haifa on 10 March 2010.

The court ruled against Corrie's family on 28 August 2012, invoking the principle of the combatant activities exception, as the IDF was attacked in the same area where Corrie was killed a few hours earlier; that Corrie could have avoided the danger and that defendants was not at fault as there was neither intent nor negligence involved in her death. During the trial, four experts—including an expert on the behalf of the Corrie family—concluded that the bulldozer driver could not see Corrie. This conclusion was approved by the judge Oded Gershon. Judge Oded Gershon said that the IDF did not violate Corrie's right to life because Corrie had placed herself in a dangerous situation, that Israel's investigation was appropriate and did not contain mistakes. The judge also criticized the U.S. government for failing to send a diplomatic representative to observe Corrie's autopsy. Gershon said: "I rule unequivocally that the claim that the deceased was intentionally hit by the bulldozer is totally baseless. This was an extremely unfortunate accident. I reached the conclusion that there was no negligence on the part of the bulldozer driver. I reject the suit. There is no justification to demand the state pay any damages. She [Corrie] did not distance herself from the area, as any thinking person would have done. She consciously put herself in harm's way."

Furthermore, Gershon pointed to three different entry bans, and also pointed out that the Philadelphi route was effectively a war zone and was formally declared a closed military zone at when Corrie died. Gershon also noted that the United States had issued an Israel travel advisory warning to avoid Gaza and the West Bank. In addition, Gershon said that the ISM "abuses the human rights discourse to blur its actions which are de facto violence" and specialized in disrupting IDF activity, which "included an army of activists serving as 'human shields' for terrorists wanted by Israeli security forces, financial and logistical aid to Palestinians including terrorists and their families, and disruption of the sealing of suicide bombers' houses."

The court's spokeswoman Nitsan Eyal said that her family could appeal the ruling. The amount sought was a symbolic US$1 and legal costs. Her mother reacted to the verdict in saying: "I am hurt. We are, of course, deeply saddened and deeply troubled by what we heard today from Judge Oded Gershon." Ruling coalition member Yisrael Beitenu issued a statement that called the verdict "vindication after vilification".

Kidnapping attempt

During a visit in January 2006, two Palestinians, one armed, entered the home of Samir Nasrallah, the Palestinian pharmacist whose former home Rachel Corrie had been trying to protect when she was killed. Corrie's parents were staying overnight there, and it was reported that the gunmen had tried to kidnap them, but had abandoned their plans when told who his guests were. According to Nasrallah, the gunmen were seeking Americans as bargaining chips to secure the release of Alaa al-Hams, a Palestinian militia leader arrested by Palestine intelligence on suspicion of ordering the abduction of British human-rights activist Kate Burton and her parents.

The ISM issued a statement asserting that the actual targets whose home the gunmen came to were three Americans staying nearby, and that the Corries helped talk the men out of their plan. By the ISM's account, "the Corries were never threatened with kidnapping, nor did gunmen burst into the house where the Corries were staying." The Jerusalem Post reported Craig Corrie as saying: "There was never a threat made against us and the gun was never pointed at anyone." According to the Post, Craig Corrie said that when he entered the room and saw the man with the gun, he feared it might be a kidnapping attempt, but that the situation was never described to him that way by his host. Corrie added that the media accounts over-dramatized the incident.

Memorial events

Vigil in Olympia, WA

Immediately after her death, posters and graffiti praising Corrie were posted in Rafah, with one graffiti tag reading, "Rachel was an American citizen with Palestinian blood." To most Palestinians, everyone killed by the Israeli army is considered a shaheed (martyr), and hundreds of local residents came to express their condolences. The day after Corrie died, about thirty American and European ISM activists with 300 Palestinians began protests during the public memorial service over the spot where she was fatally injured in Rafah. Jordan states that IDF sent a representative to the memorial as the service "got under way". However, Murray asserts that the same bulldozer that killed Corrie, identified by its army serial number 949623, suddenly appeared at the memorial. According to Jordan, "A bizarre game of cat-and-mouse began as the peace activists chased the tank around", with protesters covering the tank with posters of Corrie and throwing flowers on it. In response, it is asserted that "Israeli soldiers inside threatened, in return, to run them down", a tank sprayed the mourners with tear gas and later armored personnel carriers [APC] fired guns along with percussion bombs. Murray further stated that IDF fired "concussion grenades, tear gas, warning shots" over the protesters while they were choking on diesel smoke. The escalating danger caused the memorial service to be halted.

In 2008, Corrie's parents commemorated the fifth anniversary of her death at an event held in the West Bank town of Nablus. About 150 Palestinians and foreigners joined them to dedicate a memorial to Corrie on one of the city's streets.

In 2011, Iran named a street in Tehran in Corrie's honor.

Artistic tributes

My Name Is Rachel Corrie at Playhouse Theatre, London, 2006.

Main articles: The Skies are Weeping and My Name is Rachel Corrie

More than 30 songs were written about and dedicated to Rachel Corrie since 2003 by various musicians including Patti Smith, Alice Shields, Mike Stout, Billy Bragg, Philip Munger, David Rovics, Christy Moore, Jim Page, Dawud Wharnsby, Elizabeth Hummel with Carl Dexter, Valerie Webb with Paul LaBrecque, Ben Ellis with Lawrence Williams and music groups including Klimt 1918, Ten Foot Pole, The Can Kickers, Project Qua Project and Casa del Vento, internationally.

In 2004, Alaskan composer Philip Munger wrote a cantata about Corrie called The Skies are Weeping, which was scheduled to premiere on 27 April at the University of Alaska Anchorage, where Munger teaches. Some objected to the upcoming performance, including members of the Jewish community, and so a forum was held, co-chaired by Munger and a local rabbi, who described the work as bordering on antsemitic because Corrie was working with Palestinians and said that consequently it "romanticized terrorism". Munger later related that he had received threatening e-mails "[just] short of what you'd take to the troopers", and that some of his students had received similar communications. After the forum "disintegrate[d]", Munger announced, "I cannot subject 16 students ... to any possibility of physical harm or to the type of character assassination some of us are already undergoing. Performance of The Skies are Weeping at this time and place is withdrawn for the safety of the student performers." The cantata was eventually performed at the Hackney Empire theatre in London, premiering on 1 November 2005.

In early 2005, My Name is Rachel Corrie, a play composed from Corrie's journals and e-mails from Gaza and directed by British actor Alan Rickman, was presented in London and later revived in October 2005. The play was to be transported to the New York Theatre Workshop, but when it was postponed indefinitely, the English producers denounced the decision as "censorship" and withdrew the show. It finally opened Off-Broadway on 15 October 2006, for an initial run of 48 performances. In the same year, "My Name is Rachel Corrie" was shown at the Pleasance (a theatre) as part of the Edinburgh (Fringe) Festival. The play has also been published as a paperback, and performed in ten countries worldwide, including Israel.

In 2006, Australian playwright Ben Ellis wrote Blindingly Obvious Facts, a 10-minute fugue composed of "ugly" verbatim excerpts from right-wing blogs discussing Corrie's death. It was performed as part of the 2007 Melbourne season of the Short and Sweet short play competition. In early 2008, Sydney composer Lawrence Williams mixed a recorded version of Ellis' play for the play's Sydney Short and Sweet production.

US Power Violence trio Bastard Noise included the song "Rachel" on the full length album Skulldozer as a tribute to Corrie.

Documentaries

Main article: Rachel (film)

In 2003, British Channel 4 and The Observer reporter Sandra Jordan and producer Rodrigo Vasquez made a documentary that was aired June 2003 on Channel 4 titled The Killing Zone, about ongoing violence in the Gaza Strip. Jordan said: "There has been a lot of interest in Britain and around the world about what happened to Rachel, I find it highly disappointing that no serious American investigative journalist has taken Rachel's story seriously or questioned or challenged the Israeli Army version of events."

In 2005, the BBC produced a 60 minute documentary titled When Killing is Easy aka Shooting the Messenger, Why are foreigners suddenly under fire in Israel?, described as "a meticulous examination of" the shooting to death of James Miller, who was "a British cameraman with considerable experience of filming in war zones", by Israeli soldiers in May 2003; the shooting of British photography student Tom Hurndall as "he tried to rescue a terrified Palestinian child from a hail of Israeli bullets" in April 2003 and the death of "American peace activist" Rachel Corrie after "she was crushed by an Israeli bulldozer" in March 2003, while trying to find an answer to the question: "Were the attacks random acts of violence, or do they represent a culture of killing with impunity which is sanctioned by the higher echelons of the Israeli army?"

In 2005 Yahya Barakat, who lectures on TV production, cinematography, and filmmaking at al-Quds University, filmed a documentary in Arabic with English subtitles, named Rachel Corrie – An American Conscience.

In 2009, a documentary film titled Rachel is produced by Morocco born, French-Israeli director Simone Bitton detailing the death of Rachel Corrie from "an Israeli point of view". Its first North American public screening was at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival.

MV Rachel Corrie

Main article: MV Rachel Corrie

On 30 March 2010, a 1800-tonne vessel was bought at auction in Dundalk, Ireland for €70,000 by the Free Gaza Movement. It was outfitted for use in a voyage to Gaza, named in honour of Rachel Corrie and launched 12 May 2010. It sailed to join a flotilla intended to directly confront Israel's blockade of Gaza and take in basic supplies. The flotilla was intercepted (see Gaza flotilla raid) however the MV Rachel Corrie had not reached the other ships and continued towards Gaza by itself. Israeli navy officers addressed the ship as "Linda"—the vessel's name before it was renamed for Rachel Corrie. The ship was intercepted by the Israeli navy on Saturday, 5 June 2010, 23 miles off the coast, and diverted to the port of Ashdod. There the cargo was to be inspected and sent over land to Gaza.

Bibliography

• Let Me Stand Alone collected writings and memoirs of Rachel Corrie published in January 2008 by W.W. Norton & Company
• My Name is Rachel Corrie, a theatre play drawn from Rachel Corrie's writings and edited by British actor Alan Rickman and Guardian editor Katharine Viner, published by W.W. Norton & Company
• Corrie, Rachel. "Letter from Palestine". Voices of a People's History of the United States. Ed. Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove. New York: Seven Stories Press. pp. 609–610. ISBN 978-1-58322-628-5

See also

• House demolition in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict
• Human shield
• ISM casualties in Palestine and Israel
• Iain Hook – British UNRWA project manager shot and killed by IDF in Jenin, 22 November 2002.
• James Miller – British film-maker shot and killed by the IDF in Gaza, 2 May 2003.
• Vittorio Arrigoni – Italian ISM volunteer abducted and murdered in Gaza by a Salafist militant group.

Further reading

• Peace under fire: Israel/Palestine and the International Solidarity Movement, by Josie Sandercock, Nicholas Blincoe, Radhika Sainath, Marissa McLaughlin, Hussein Khalili, Huwaida Arraf and Ghassan Andoni, Foreword Edward W. Said, by Verso Books, 2004, ISBN 978-1-84467-501-2, 297 pages

External links

• Rachel Corrie Memorial Page
• Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice
• Rachel's Words (archived from the original 3 February 2011)
• The Case Against Rachel Corrie
• Death of a dreamer
• Martyr with a Cause
• Rachel Corrie, One Year Later
• Rachel Corrie's diaries
• counterpunch.org criticism of mother jones article
• 7 Years After, Family of Rachel Corrie Heads to Israel for Wrongful Death Suit – video by Democracy Now!
• Rachel Corrie at Find a Grave