Crushed by Israeli bulldozer
U.S. student's fate familiar to Palestinians
By Leslie Feinberg
Rachel Corrie faced down a super-sized, armor-plated Israeli
Army bulldozer in an attempt to stop it from demolishing the
home of a Palestinian doctor and his family in southern Gaza on
March 16. She was crushed to death in the Al-Salam refugee
neighborhood of Rafah City, defending the Palestinian movement
she held so dear.
The 23-year-old activist, a college student at Evergreen
State College in Olym pia, Wash., had been working in Rafah for
seven weeks as a member of the Pales tinian-led Grassroots
International Protector for Palestinians/International
Solidarity Movement (ISM).
These and other "internationals" put their bodies on the
line as human shields. The ISM explained in a March 17 "State
ment on the murder of Rachel Corrie" that they are attempting
"to protect Palestinian human rights and lives precisely
because formal international bodies have refused to take action
to do so." The statement em phasizes, "Rachel joins 1,900
Palestinians who have been killed by Israeli soldiers and
settlers since September 2000."
Masri, the doctor whose home she protected, recalled her:
"She was very brave and beautiful, a special friend to me and
my family. She only wanted to help us, and she paid with her
life."
Palestinian women carried an empty coffin draped in their
national flag through the streets of Gaza the day after her
death to show their solidarity with the young activist who had
so courageously demonstrated hers.
Palestinian Authority President Yasir Arafat called Corrie's
parents the following day to express his condolences and
reportedly told them that the Palestinian people embrace their
daughter. The same day, from Ramallah in the West Bank, he
referred to Rachel Corrie as "our sister; our martyr."
The very same bulldozer that crushed Corrie's life also
killed a nine-months preg nant Palestinian woman, Nuha Sweidan,
on March 3 while destroying her next-door neighbor's home,
reports Ever green faculty member Steve Niva. Sweidan bled to
death under the detritus, holding an 18-month-old daughter in
her arms. Her unborn baby also perished. (Palestine Chronicle,
March 17)
The U.S.-supplied that D-9 Caterpillar military vehicle.
Hundreds marched in New York City on March 17 to condemn
Corrie's killing and "to protest U.S. culpability for supplying
Israel with the financial aid, weapons, diplomatic and moral
support that underpins Israel's continuing assault on the
Palestinian people and their land." The protest brought
together activists from Jews Against the Occu pation, Direct
Action for a Free Palestine, Stop U.S. Tax-Funded Aid to Israel
Now, and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
Eyewitnesses of the horror
Arutz Sheva, Israel National News, tried to divert outrage
against Corrie's killing by providing the web location of an AP
photo reportedly showing Corrie burning a mock U.S. flag during
a February rally in the Gaza Strip. And the article baited the
international support movement about where it gets its meager
funding.
The Israeli Army termed her death a "regrettable accident,"
but claimed she ran in front of the bulldozer. Witnesses say
that's a lie. And photos of the hours-long confrontation
located at www.palsolidarity.org, chilling and painful to view,
bear out their account.
The ISM statement recounts that the face-off with the
military lasted almost three hours. When a bulldozer advanced,
Corrie--wearing a fluorescent orange jacket with reflective
stripes, and shouting through a megaphone for it to
stop--climbed onto the mound of dirt to face the driver. Troops
in a nearby tank that flanked the standoff were reportedly in
communication with the driver.
Corrie was visible to them all, witnesses emphasize, waving
to the driver to halt. And her seven fellow ISM
activists--three U.S. and four British--cried out to the driver
in fury and horror.
But, "The bulldozer continued to advance so that she was
pulled under the pile of dirt and rubble. After she had
disappeared from view, the driver kept advancing until the
bulldozer was completely on top of her. The driver did not lift
the bulldozer blade and so she was crushed beneath it. Then the
driver backed up--effectively running over her again."
Fellow activists rushed to dig out her massively injured
body. "My back is broken; my back is broken," she told them. An
ambulance rushed her to Al-Najar Hosp ital where she died.
BBS News of Charlotte, N.C., quoted a man named Mohammed,
web weaver of the pictorial site "Rafah Today," who also
witnessed the attack. He said that in addition to seeing Corrie
killed, he saw the IDF bury another member of the ISM. But
Palestinians were able to dig him out and save his life. (BBS,
March 17) The man was injured and hospitalized, according to
the March 17 Palestine Monitor. Israeli troops also reportedly
shot and killed a Pale stin ian man on the street, who the U.S.
media has not named.
Walking her talk
Evergreen faculty member Peter Bohmer remembers Corrie as
active in her union, 1199 SEIU, and staunchly opposed to the
U.S. blockade of Cuba, Bush's "war on terror" and the Pentagon
war drive.
She worked tirelessly to build the Sept. 11, 2002, protest
at Percival Landing in downtown Olympia against the U.S.
bombing of Afghanistan and against domestic state repression,
he wrote. "So it is very fitting that the vigil last night,
Sunday, March 16, against the war in Iraq and to honor and
mourn Rachel, was at Percival Landing. Close to 1,000 people
attended."
Corrie had taken part in a televised people's trial in Gaza,
which charged Pre sident George W. Bush with war crimes for
U.S. support of Israel's assault there. (news14.com, March
17)
"She strongly opposed the Israeli occupation and supported a
Palestinian state," he recalled. "She had studied Arabic at
Ever green and decided to go to the Gaza Strip in occupied
Palestine for winter quarter.
"Part of her reasoning was that it was important to have
international observers there as Israeli aggression was likely
to increase when the U.S. attacked, bombed and invaded Iraq.
She strongly opposed the U.S. war against Iraq."
Her parents, Cindy and Craig Corrie--who live in North
Carolina--are both members of the Charlotte Coalition for Peace
and Justice. "We are very proud of her courage and what she
stood for," Craig Corrie said after hearing of her death.
(news14.com, March 17)
The other U.S.-backed war
in Middle East
While the eyes of the world are riveted on the Pentagon
military machine advancing on Iraq, Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon has been given a green light from Washington to
ratchet up the war against the Palestinian people.
Menachem Klein, an Israeli political scientist at Bar Ilan
University near Tel Aviv, said Sharon's raids are "a kind of
rehearsal. ... And the thinking is that if the world gets used
to these short-term occupations, it will digest the long-term
one."
Corrie's family made public a Feb. 7 e-mail she wrote them
in which she relayed, "I hear an escalation of war of Iraq is
inevitable. There is a great deal of concern here about the
'reoccupation of Gaza.' Gaza is reoccupied every day to various
extents, but I think the fear is that the tanks will enter all
the streets and remain here. ... If people aren't already
thinking about the consequences of this war for the people of
the entire region then I hope they will start. ...
"Once you have experienced the reality of a world that isn't
surrounded by murderous towers, tanks, armed 'settlements' and
now a giant metal wall, I wonder if you can forgive the world
for all the years of your childhood spent existing--just
existing--in resistance to the constant stranglehold of the
world's fourth-largest military--backed by the world's only
superpower--in its attempt to erase you from your home."
Corrie was moved to describe life for Palestinians in the
apartheid garrison state.
The fenced-in Gaza Strip that is still
Palestinian-controlled has been regularly pummeled by Israeli
tank and helicopter raids.
Arutz Sheva claimed Corrie was killed "trying to stop a
bulldozer from razing the home of a terrorist in Gaza." In
fact, the home was one of some 602 civilian houses that have
reportedly been completely razed in Rafah--a city of about
140,000 people, some 60 percent of whom are refugees from their
original homes in historic Palestine. The Israelis have reduced
the houses to rubble to build a 14-meter high prison wall with
gun towers along the perimeter of Rafah to the border. Far more
homes have been partially destroyed in the construction.
Corrie and other ISM activists had also been defending two
water works that the Israeli military were attacking in an
attempt to destroy 60 percent of the total municipal water
supply.
Just hours after Corrie's death, some 30 Israeli tanks
pushed into the Nusseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, killing
at least six Palestinians, including a two-year-old girl. (Los
Angeles Times, March 17)
"Internationals" like Corrie have worked to bring world
attention to the conditions in Gaza.
Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, from the Palestinian
non-governmental network that spearheaded the international
solidarity campaign, stated, "The killing of Rachel is a
tragedy. We express our sorrow, anger and disgust at this
cold-blooded murder and we call for international condemnation
of this event, and the ongoing Israeli policy of indiscriminate
killings of Palestinians and internationals."
Corrie was the first member of the group to be killed, but
the violence has been increasing. Several others have been
badly hurt, reports the March 18 Herald in Jerusalem,
"including elderly U.S. Jewish activists attempting to prevent
Jewish settlers from attacking Palestinian farmers working
their land."
Michael Sheikh, media coordinator of the ISM, wrote about
two recent incidents on Feb. 14. ISM members faced machine-gun
and tank fire and were nearly run over in a deliberate
bulldozer attack. A Pales tin ian activist with the group was
sadistically brutalized. (electronicintifada.net)
Urgent calls to the U.S. Consulate to stop the Feb. 14
attacks, Sheikh explained, were rebuffed: "Though its
international activists have often encountered a level of
hostility from their missions in Israel which are expected to
protect them, this is the first time a consulate has stated
explicitly that it will take no responsibility whatsoever for
the welfare of its nationals performing peace work in the
Occupied Territories."
He concluded, "We believe that this is part of an Israeli
plan to step up its campaign of terror against the people of
Palestine once the U.S. commences its invasion of Iraq."
The U.S. State Department said it "deeply regretted"
Corrie's death, which it termed "tragic." And it called for an
immediate and full investigation--to be conducted by the
government of Israel and the Israeli Defense Forces.
Barghouthi stressed that Corrie's death "is an extremely
dangerous precedent as it means the Israeli army is ready to
kill international peace activists in order to frighten them
away, so that the army can carry out its crimes against
Palestinians without witnesses and with impunity. This is
especially dangerous with the impending Gulf war.
"We call for more internationals to come at this terrible
time, and not let the Israeli military isolate
Palestinians."
The ISM statement after Corrie's death makes clear their
resolve: "We pledge to continue actively working for the ideals
of freedom and justice that Rachel died for."
Reprinted from the March 27, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
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