Rachel Corrie

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

Rachel Aliene Corrie (April 10, 1979 – March 16, 2003) was an American activist and member of International Solidarity Movement (ISM) from Olympia, Washington, who was crushed to death by an Israel Defense Forces armored bulldozer in Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

She had come to Gaza during the height of the second Palestinian intifada as part of her senior-year college assignment to connect her home town with Rafah in a sister cities project. While there she had engaged with other ISM activists in an effort to prevent the Israeli army's demolition of the homes of Palestinian people.

Less than two months after her arrival, on March 16, 2003, Corrie was killed after a three hour confrontation between two bulldozers and eight ISM activists. Wearing a bright orange fluorescent jacket and, until shortly before her death, using a megaphone, she was killed while standing in the path of a bulldozer that she believed was about to demolish the house of local pharmacist Samir Nasralla's family whom she had befriended. She was run over twice by the bulldozer resulting in a fractured skull, shattered ribs and punctured lungs.

The exact nature of her death and the culpability of the bulldozer operator are disputed, with eyewitnesses saying that the Israeli soldier operating the bulldozer deliberately ran over Corrie, and the Israeli government saying that it was an accident since the bulldozer operator could not see her.

In 2005 Corrie's parents filed a civil lawsuit against the state of Israel. The lawsuit charged Israel with not conducting a full and credible investigation into the case and with responsibility for her death, contending that the she had either been intentionally killed or that the soldiers had acted with reckless neglect. They sued for a symbolic one U.S. dollar in damages to make the point that their case was about justice for their daughter and the Palestinian cause she had been defending.

In August 2012, an Israeli court rejected their suit and upheld the results of Israel's 2003 military investigation, ruling that the Israeli government was not responsible for Corrie's death. The ruling, the Israeli Justice system, and the investigation it exonerated have been criticized.

Rachel Corrie's life has been memorialized in several tributes, including the play My Name Is Rachel Corrie and the cantata The Skies are Weeping. Her collected writings were published in 2008 under the title Let Me Stand Alone, opening "a window on the maturation of a young woman seeking to make the world a better place". The Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice has been established to continue her work.

Early life

Corrie was born on April 10, 1979, and raised in Olympia, Washington, United States. She was the youngest of 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, also in Olympia, where she took a number of arts courses. She took a year off from her studies to work as a volunteer in the Washington State Conservation Corps. She also spent three years making weekly visits to mental patients.

While at Evergreen State College she became a "committed peace activist" arranging peace events through a local group called 'Olympians for Peace and Solidarity'. She later joined the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) organisation in order to use non-violent methods for challenging the policies of the Israeli army in the West Bank and Gaza. In her senior year, she proposed an independent-study program in which she would travel to Gaza, join protesters from the 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 Palestinian territories

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

After flying to Israel on January 22, 2003, and staying overnight in East Jerusalem, Corrie underwent a two-day training course at the ISM's West Bank headquarters before heading to Rafah to participate in ISM demonstrations. During her training, Corrie studied direct action tactics, which included basic rules for avoiding harm. A later article on the Corrie incident summarized these as: "Wear fluorescent jackets. Don't run. Don't frighten the army. Try to communicate by megaphone. Make your presence known." On January 27, 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. Demolitions were a common tactic employed at that time in Rafah, for military purposes according to the IDF, or as collective punishment according to human rights groups. According to B'Tselem, approximately 1,700 homes were demolished resulting in 17,000 people becoming homeless between 2000 and 2004. Corrie was a member of a group of about eight activists from outside of the Palestinian territories who tried to prevent the demolitions by acting as human shields.

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 visibly between the Palestinian residents and the Israeli snipers manning the watchtowers they hoped to discourage shooting by displaying banners stating that they were "internationals". However, Israeli soldiers fired bullets over their tent and at the ground a few feet away. Deciding that their presence was provoking the Israeli soldiers rather than deterring them, Corrie and her colleagues dismantled their tent and left the area.

Qishta, a Palestinian who worked as an interpreter, noted: "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 entirely safe for 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 made the activists feel preoccupied and frustrated, and on the morning of Corrie's death they planned ways to counteract its effects. According to one of them, "We all had a feeling that our role was too passive. We talked about how to engage the Israeli military."

On March 14, 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 Corrie "spent a lot of time at the Canada Well helping protect Rafah municipal workers" who were trying to repair damage to the well done by Israeli bulldozers. Canada Well was built in 1999 with CIDA funding. It, along with El Iskan Well, had supplied more than 50% of Rafah's water before the damage. 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 wrote that despite her group's having received permission from the Israeli District Command Office and the fact that they were 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

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Images of Corrie burning a mock American flag
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While in Gaza, Corrie 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 makeshift U.S. 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 the ISM released a statement quoting Corrie's parents on the widely-circulated picture of the incident:

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, four of which were later published by The Guardian. In January 2008 Norton published a book titled Let Me Stand Alone by Corrie, which included the e-mails along with some of her other writings. Yale Professor David Bromwich said that Corrie left "letters of great interest" and that 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." The play My Name is Rachel Corrie and the cantata The Skies are Weeping were based on Corrie's letters.

Corrie's death and subsequent controversy

On March 16, 2003 the IDF was engaged in an operation involving the demolition of Palestinian houses in a military zone between the Rafah refugee camp and the Egyptian border called Philadelphi Route. Corrie was part of a group of three British and four American ISM activists attempting to disrupt the IDF operation. Corrie placed herself in the path of a Caterpillar D9R armored bulldozer in the area and was fatally injured. After she was injured she was taken by a Red Crescent ambulance to the Palestinian Najar hospital, arriving at the emergency room at 5:05 pm still alive but near death. At 5:20 pm she was declared dead.

The events surrounding Corrie's death are disputed. Eyewitnesses said that the Israeli soldier operating the bulldozer deliberately ran Corrie over while she was acting as a human shield to prevent the demolition of the home of local pharmacist Samir Nasrallah. They said she was between the bulldozer and a wall near Nasrallah's home, in which ISM activists had spent the night several times. On the other hand an IDF officer testified in court that on that day they were only clearing "vegetation and rubble" and that no houses were slated for demolition. However, ISM activist Richard Purssell testified, "[t]hey 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 say that the demolitions had also been accompanied by gunfire from Israeli snipers. 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."

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, however, the ISM said, "[w]hen 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. The video makes a "credible case", wrote Joshua Hammer 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". Corrie's father, Craig Corrie has said "I know there's stuff you can't see out of the double glass windows." But he has denied that as a valid excuse for the death of his daughter, saying "you're responsible for knowing what's in front of your blade." Based on his experience of overseeing work with bulldozers similar to the D9 while serving as a combat engineer in Vietnam he said: "It's a no brainer that this was gross negligence", adding "they had three months to figure out how to deal with the activists that were there." Eye witness Tom Dale commenting on the 2012 verdict said: "Whatever one thinks about the visibility from a D9 bulldozer, it is inconceivable that at some point the driver did not see her, given the distance from which he approached, while she stood, unmoving, in front of it. As I told the court, just before she was crushed, Rachel briefly stood on top of the rolling mound of earth which had gathered in front of the bulldozer: her head was above the level of the blade, and just a few meters from the driver."

In April 2011, during the trial of 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. 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 infantry major later testified that the activists were endangering troops and had ignored numerous warnings to leave the area. Between September 2000 and the date of Corrie's death Israeli forces in the area had been subjected to 1,400 attacks involving gunfire, 150 involving explosive devices, 200 involving anti-tank rockets, and 6,000 involving hand grenades or mortar fire.Israeli military officials gave evidence in court stating that Corrie and other activists were legitimate military targets.

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 Corrie was all the way underneath the central section of the bulldozer.

On March 18, 2003, two days after Corrie's death, Joe (Smith) Carr was interviewed by British Channel 4 and The Observer reporter Sandra Jordan for a documentary, The Killing Zone, which aired in June 2003. 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."

However, "Smith" later acknowledged that after Corrie fell down the dirt pile, the bulldozer operator could well have lost sight of Corrie.

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 using the name "Richard", who said he had witnessed Corrie's death told 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.

In an affadavit given by British ISM activist Richard Purssell to the PCHR, he said

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.

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 March 24 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 says 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

Bulldozer similar to the one involved

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, April 14, 2003).

On June 26, 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.

The classified IDF report made no mention of the pathologist's conclusion.

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.

Political reactions

In March 2003, U.S. Representative Brian Baird introduced a resolution in the U.S. Congress 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.

Yasser Arafat offered his condolences and gave the blessings of the Palestinian people to Corrie and promised to name a street in Gaza after her. According to Cindy Corrie, Arafat told Craig Corrie that Rachel Corrie "is your daughter but she is also the daughter of all Palestinians. She is ours too now.”

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

In August 2012, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro stated that the Israeli investigation was not satisfactory, and was not as thorough, credible or transparent as it should have been. Shapiro said further that the government of the United States is unsatisfied with the IDF's closure of its official investigation into Corrie's death.

Human rights organizations

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

In 2005, Human Rights Watch published a report raising questions about the impartiality and professionalism of the IDF investigation. Some of the problems that the report mentioned were the investigators' lack of preparation, the "hostile," "inappropriate," and "mostly accusatory" questions they asked witnesses, the failure to ask witnesses to draw maps or to identify locations of events on maps, and their lack of interest in reconciling soldiers' testimonies with those of other eyewitnesses.

Media

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

The Observer suggested that because Corrie was American her death attracted more attention than the deaths of Palestinians under similar circumstances: "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."

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

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.

Criticism of Corrie's actions

Tom Gross, in an article called "The Forgotten Rachels," discusses six other women named Rachel who were Jewish victims of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Their deaths, he wrote, received little if any coverage outside Israel. Gross went on to argue that "[p]artly 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 "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."

Criticism of the International Solidarity Movement's role

Joseph Smith (aka Joseph Carr) said in an interview that the International Solidarity Movement knowingly put its activists' lives at risk. Smith was quoted in "Making of a Martyr" by Sandra Jordan as saying that "'We knew there was a risk ... 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 defy 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, director of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement between Peoples, told the San Francisco Chronicle that "'When Palestinians get shot by Israeli soldiers, no one is interested anymore ... [b]ut if some of these foreign volunteers get shot or even killed, then the international media will sit up and take notice.'"

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 foundation and launched projects in memory of their daughter. They have also advanced investigation into the incident and asked the U.S. Congress and various courts for redress.

Corrie's parents have visited the region several times since their daughter's death and have twice visited Gaza. Following their daughter's death, they visited Gaza and Israel, seeing the place where she 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 March 28, 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, whose home Rachel Corrie believed she was preventing from destruction, toured with the Corries across the United States in June 2005. The aim of the trip was, with the cooperation of the Rebuilding Alliance, to raise funds to rebuild the Nasrallah home and other homes destroyed in Rafah.

In January 2011, Corrie's parents visited the Mavi Marmara in Turkey, together with the head of the IHH Bulent Yildirim. Cindy Corrie called dead Mavi Marmara activists "martyrs" and compared them to her daughter.

Subsequent events

Lawsuits

In the United States

Corrie's family and several Palestinians filed a federal lawsuit against Caterpillar Inc. alleging liability for Corrie's death. The suit alleged Caterpillar supplied the bulldozers 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 Corrie family appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In September 2007 the Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal on the political question grounds and thus did not rule on 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, 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 and that this was a matter 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 U.S. 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 March 10, 2010.

The court ruled against Corrie's family on August 28, 2012, stating that Corrie's death was an accident for which she was responsible and it absolved the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) of any wrongdoing. According to the Israeli Court "The mission of the IDF force on the day of the incident was solely to clear the ground.... The mission did not include, in any way, the demolition of homes." The court invoked 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 were 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, who 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 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 Corrie family laywer, Hussein Abu Hussein, said they were "now studying our options", in regards to a possible appeal.

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." The right wing political movement Yisrael Beitenu issued a statement that called the verdict "vindication after vilification".

Richard Falk, UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories and vocal critic of Israel, said of the verdict that it was "a sad outcome, above all for the Corrie family that had initiated the case back in 2005, but also for the rule of law and the hope that an Israeli court would place limits on the violence of the state, particularly in relation to innocents and unarmed civilians in an occupied territory". Former U. S. President Jimmy Carter of the Carter Center, said that the "court's decision confirms a climate of impunity, which facilitates Israeli human rights violations against Palestinian civilians in the Occupied Territory". However, journalist Brendan O'Neill, supported the court's verdict.

The Israel Law Center, Shurat HaDin, has said that the Corrie Family should sue the Palestinian Authority and ISM over their daughter's death. In addition, NGO Monitor president, Gerald Steinberg said, "Corrie's death was entirely unnecessary, and the leaders of the ISM bear much culpability for her death."

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." 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 says 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, "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

In 2004, Alaska composer Philip Munger wrote a cantata about Corrie called The Skies are Weeping, which was scheduled to premiere on April 27 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 antisemitic 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 November 1, 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 October 15, 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.

Documentaries

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

MV Rachel Corrie

Main article: MV Rachel Corrie

On March 30, 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 May 12, 2010. It sailed to join a flotilla intended to break Israel's blockade of Gaza and take in supplies. The flotilla was intercepted; 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, June 5, 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

• Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice
• ISM casualties in Palestine and Israel
• Iain Hook – British UNRWA project manager shot and killed by IDF in Jenin, November 22, 2002.
• James Miller – British film-maker shot and killed by the IDF in Gaza, May 2, 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
• Anne Herzberg (August 28, 2012). "The Corrie case: Reckless choices". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved August 28, 2012.

External links

• Rachel Corrie's speech when she was in 5th Grade: "I'm here because I care"
• Footage from interview conducted in 2003 of Rachel two days before her death.
• The Rachel Corrie Verdict
• Rachel Corrie Memorial Page
• Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice
• Rachel's Words (archived from the original February 3, 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 Joshua Hammer's Mother Jones article referenced in this 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