------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the March 27, 2003 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
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 Olympia, Wash., had been working in Rafah for seven weeks as a member of the Palestinian-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 "Statement 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 emphasizes, "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 President 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 Palestinian 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."
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