Rachel Corrie

Born: April 10, 1979
Murdered: March 16, 2003

On Sunday March 16, 2003 in Rafah, occupied Gaza, 23 year old American peace activist Rachel Corrie from Olympia, Washington was murdered (crushed to death) by a US-made Israeli bulldozer. As a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement, Rachel was in Gaza opposing the bulldozing of Palestinian homes by the Israeli army.

Bless you Rachel Corrie.
May you rest in peace.
Mark R. Elsis



Rachel Corrie
Articles / Photographs / Writings

Family of Rachel Corrie (Audio, Video and Text)
Sues Israeli Government and Caterpillar Inc.
Two Years After She Was Crushed by Military Bulldozer
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/16/1458237

The Killing Of Rachel Corrie
Amnesty International Urges Rice
To Support Independent Investigation
http://tinyurl.com/5ecee

Family Of Protester Killed By Bulldozer Suing Caterpillar
by Elizabeth M. Gillespie
http://tinyurl.com/6xb37

The Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice
http://www.rachelcorriefoundation.org

Remembering Rachel Corrie:
Justice Still Not Served
by Elizabeth Corrie
http://tinyurl.com/6m67z

Rachel Corrie (Poem)
by Anwar Ul Haque
http://rachel-corrie.com/rachelcorriepoem.htm

We Won't Forget Rachel Corrie
Uprising On The Anniversary Of A Death
by Alison Weir
http://www.counterpunch.org/weir03152005.html

Rachel, Full of Life
by Brooks Berndt
http://tinyurl.com/65pk3

Palestinian Children Mark The 2nd Anniversary Of Israel's Murder Of US Peace Activist Rachel Corrie In Rafah, Gaza.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4359325.stm

The Day Israel Murdered Peace
by Clement
http://rachel-corrie.com/thedayisraelmurderedpeace.htm

One Year Later: Rachel Corrie's Critics Fire Blanks
by Steve Niva
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article2506.shtml

Four eyewitnesses describe the murder of Rachel Corrie
Tom Dale, Greg Schnabel, Richard Purssell, and Joe Smith, International Solidarity Movement, 19 March 2003
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1263.shtml

Friends call for inquiry in student's death
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/112978_evergreen18.shtml

Statement from the parents of Rachel Corrie
Craig and Cindy Corrie, Press Release, 19 March 2003
http://electronicIntifada.net/v2/article1270.shtml

Amnesty International Condemns Killing of Rachel Corrie
http://bbsnews.net/bw2003-03-17b.html

Bulldozer Death 'Deliberate'
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/03/18/
1047749747645.html

Photo story: Israeli bulldozer driver murders American peace activist Nigel Parry and Arjan El Fassed, The Electronic Intifada, 16 March 2003
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1248.shtml

Slain activist left tranquil Olympia for violent Middle East
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/aplocal_story.asp?
category=6420&slug=WA%20Protester%20Killed%20Wash

Rachel Corrie, Nuha Sweidan and Israeli war crimes
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_18-3-2003_pg4_12

Rachel Corrie: In her own words
Rachel Corrie, writing from Rafah, occupied Palestine 17 March 2003
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1254.shtml

Calls for protest over U.S. activist death
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030317-043912-8738r

Peace activist crushed to death
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,
6139546%255E1702,00.html

Remembering Rachel Corrie
Peter Bohmer, The Electronic Intifada, 17 March 2003
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1252.shtml

Rachel's War
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,916246,00.html

Increased targeting of International Solidarity Movement
Michael Sheikh, International Solidarity Movement, 16 March 2003
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1253.shtml

Statement On The Murder Of Rachel Corrie
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0303/S00235.htm

Of broken bodies and unbreakable laws
Laurie King-Irani, The Electronic Intifada, 19 March 2003
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1259.shtml

She felt it was something she had to do
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/03/17/MN258158.DTL

Rachel Corrie, Nuha Sweidan and Israeli War Crimes
Steve Niva, The Electronic Intifada, 17 March 2003
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1250.shtml

On Rescuing Private Lynch
And Forgetting Rachel Corrie

by Naomi Klein

Jessica Lynch and Rachel Corrie could have passed for sisters. Two all-American blondes, two destinies forever changed in a Middle East war zone. Private Jessica Lynch, the soldier, was born in Palestine, West Virginia. Rachel Corrie, the activist, died in Israeli-occupied Palestine.

Corrie was four years older than 19-year-old Lynch. Her body was crushed by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza seven days before Lynch was taken into Iraqi custody on March 23. Before she went to Iraq, Lynch organized a pen-pal program with a local kindergarten. Before Corrie left for Gaza, she organized a pen-pal program between kids in her hometown of Olympia, Washington, and children in Rafah.

Lynch went to Iraq as a soldier loyal to her government. Corrie went to Gaza to oppose the actions of her government. As a U.S. citizen, she believed she had a special responsibility to defend Palestinians against U.S.-built weapons, purchased with U.S. aid to Israel. In letters home, she described how fresh water was being diverted from Gaza to Israeli settlements, how death was more normal than life. "This is what we pay for here," she wrote.

Unlike Lynch, Corrie did not go to Gaza to engage in combat: she went to try to thwart it. Along with her fellow members of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), she believed that the Israeli military's incursions could be slowed by the presence of highly visible "internationals." The killing of Palestinian civilians may have become commonplace, the thinking went, but Israel doesn't want the diplomatic or media scandals that would come if it killed a U.S. student.

In a way, Corrie was harnessing the very thing that she disliked most about her country—the belief that American lives are worth more than any others—and trying to use it to save a few Palestinian homes from demolition.

Believing her fluorescent orange jacket would serve as armor, Corrie stood in front of bulldozers, slept beside wells and escorted children to school. If suicide bombers turn their bodies into weapons of death, Corrie turned hers into the opposite—a weapon of life, a "human shield."

When that Israeli bulldozer driver looked at Corrie's orange jacket and pressed the accelerator, her strategy failed. It turns out that the lives of some U.S. citizens—even beautiful, young, white women—are valued more than others. And nothing demonstrates this more starkly than the opposing responses to Rachel Corrie and Pvt. Jessica Lynch.

When the Pentagon announced Lynch's successful rescue, she became a hero, complete with "America loves Jessica" fridge magnets, stickers, T-shirts, mugs, country songs and an NBC made-for-TV movie. According to White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, President George Bush was "full of joy for Jessica Lynch." Her rescue, we were told, was a testament to a core American value: as West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller said to the Senate: "We take care of our people."

Do they? Corrie's death, which made the papers for two days and then virtually disappeared, has met with almost total official silence, despite the fact that eyewitnesses claim it was a deliberate act. President Bush has said nothing about a U.S. citizen killed by a U.S.-made bulldozer bought with U.S. tax dollars. A U.S. congressional resolution demanding an independent inquiry has been buried in committee, leaving the Israeli military's investigation—which cleared itself of any wrongdoing—as the only official investigation.

The ISM says that this non-response has sent a clear, and dangerous, signal. According to Olivia Jackson, a 25-year-old British citizen in Rafah: "After Rachel was killed, [the Israeli military] waited for the response from the American government and the response was pathetic. They know they can get away with it, and it has encouraged them to keep on going."

First there was Brian Avery, a 24-year-old U.S. citizen shot in the face on April 5. Then Tom Hurndall, a British ISM activist shot in the head and left brain dead on April 11. Next was James Miller, the British cameraman shot dead while wearing a vest that said "TV." In all of these cases, eyewitnesses say the shooters were Israeli soldiers.

There is something else that Jessica Lynch and Rachel Corrie have in common: both of their stories have been distorted by the military for its own purposes. According to the official story, Lynch was captured in a bloody gun battle, mistreated by sadistic Iraqi doctors, then rescued in another storm of bullets by heroic Navy SEALs. In the past weeks, another version has emerged. The doctors who treated Lynch found no evidence of battle wounds, and donated their own blood to save her life. Most embarrassing of all, witnesses have told the BBC that those daring Navy SEALs already knew there were no Iraqi fighters left in the area when they stormed the hospital.

But while Lynch's story has been distorted to make its protagonists appear more heroic, Corrie's story has been posthumously twisted to make her, and her fellow ISM activists, appear sinister.

For months, the Israeli military had been looking for an excuse to get rid of the ISM "troublemakers." It found it in Asif Mohammed Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif, the two British suicide bombers. It turns out that they had attended a memorial service for Corrie in Rafah, a fact the Israeli military has seized on to link the ISM to terrorism. Members of ISM point out that the event was open to the public, and that they knew nothing of the British visitors' intentions.

In the past two weeks, half a dozen ISM activists have been arrested, several deported, and the organization's offices raided. The crackdown is spreading to all "internationals," meaning there are fewer people in the occupied territories to either witness the abuses or assist the victims. On Monday, the U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process told the Security Council that dozens of U.N. aid workers had been prevented from getting in and out of Gaza, calling it a violation of "Israel's international humanitarian law obligations."

On June 5 there will be an international day of action for Palestinian rights. One of the demands is for the U.N. to send a monitoring force into the occupied territories. Until that happens, many are determined to continue Corrie's work. More than 40 students at her former college, Evergreen State, in Olympia, Washington, have signed up to go to Gaza with the ISM this summer.

So who is a hero? During the attack on Iraq, some of Corrie's friends e-mailed her picture to MSNBC asking that it be included on the station's "wall of heroes," along with Jessica Lynch. The network didn't comply, but Corrie is being honored in other ways. Her family has received more than 10,000 letters of support, communities across the country have organized memorial services, and children from the occupied territories are being named Rachel. It's not a made-for-TV kind of tribute, but maybe that's for the best.

Naomi Klein's most recent book is Fences and Windows. This article first appeared in The Guardian, May 22, 2003. ©Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003. Reprinted with permission.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/
comment/0,10551,961025,00.html