Rachel Corrie Trial Restarts. Key Questions Need Repeating

The Rachel Corrie trial restarted in Haifa yesterday. Her parents, Craig and Cindy Corrie, are using the civil trial to confront and vilify Israel. It is perfectly in character: in May Craig Corrie blessed the naming of one of the Gaza flotilla ships after his daughter Rachel. She had been a member of the Palestinian-led International Solidarity Movement, and the radical group was of the sponsors of the Gaza flotilla.

[Later this week ISM founder Adam Shapiro will be speaking at Stanford University. He is touted as a "co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement (along with this wife, Huwaida Arraf), Board member of the Free Gaza Movement, and organizer of the U.S. Boat to Gaza project."]

1. Where did the Rachel Corrie bulldozer incident take place?

Few people recall that the IDF's ground-clearing operation was carried out only 50 meters from the Egyptian border -- near the infamous Philadelphi road. [See map and diagram. All graphic material is from IDF sources.] Up until Corrie's death, the IDF had uncovered more than 40 tunnels from Egypt used to smuggle weapons and terrorists into Gaza. In recent years, after the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the number of tunnels approached 1,000.

Why was the ISM trying to block the bulldozers seven years ago? Presumably, they were attempting to protect Hamas' tunnels.

2. Couldn't the bulldozer driver see or hear Corrie?

The noise generated by the bulldozer is deafening, and Corrie had a megaphone only at an earlier confrontation with the Israel Defense Forces. It was not with her the afternoon she died.

The field of vision on the armored bulldozer is exceptionally limited (as the chart on the left indicates), and the driver could not see her.

Corrie's comrades claim that she was standing in front of the bulldozer -- and she was not -- but even if she were, the driver's line of vision is limited as the diagram shows.


The fact is, witnesses at the time of the incident reported that Corrie was sitting.

“When the bulldozer approached a house today,” wrote the New York Times, “Ms. Corrie, who was wearing a bright orange jacket, dropped to her knees.”

“The bulldozer drove toward Rachel slowly, gathering earth in its scoop as it went,” an ISM friend stated in 2003. “She knelt there, she did not move.” Another ISM colleague related: “She did not ‘trip and fall’ in front of the bulldozer. She sat down in front of it, well in advance.‎“ [Emphasis added.]

3. Was there a deliberate attempt by the IDF to kill Corrie, as her parents claim?

Indeed there was a plan to escalate the confrontation between the bulldozers and the "peace activists." But it was the ISM members who decided to escalate, as described by Newsweek writer Joshua Hammer in a lengthy article in Mother Jones. Why? One possible reason was because of the sexual tension that was hurting their relations with the local Palestinians.

"An anonymous letter was circulating," Hammer reported, "which referred to Corrie and the other expatriate women in Rafah as 'nasty foreign bitches' whom 'our Palestinian young men are following around.' That morning [of Corrie’s death], the ISM team tried to devise a strategy to counteract the letter’s effects. 'We all had a feeling that our role was too passive,' said one ISM member. 'We talked about how to engage the Israeli military.' That morning, team members made a number of proposals that seemed designed only to aggravate the problem. 'The idea was to more directly challenge the Israeli military dominance using our international status,' said the ISMer."

4. But why was Corrie singled out?

She wasn't. At least two ISMers had to be pulled out from under the bulldozers' blades after they started acting in accordance with their more aggressive policy. Newsweek’s Hammer reported on “Jenny’s” close call: "An Irish peace activist named Jenny was nearly run down by a D9. 'The bulldozer’s coming, the earth is burying my feet, my legs, I’ve got nowhere to run, and I thought, ‘This is out of control,’ she told me. 'Another activist pulled me up and out of the way at the last minute.'”

5. Does anyone believe this story that the ISMers were suicidal?

They should believe that the International Solidarity Movement is homicidal. The ISM has a long record of putting its members, particularly young Western women, into harm's way. Some are unbelievably naive and just plain dumb. Like Corrie, they were encouraged to confront the Israel Defense Forces. Not surprisingly, some were injured and killed:

* On 2 April 2002, Australian Kate Edwards was shot and wounded in Beit Jala near Jerusalem from where Palestinians were firing on the Jewish neighborhood of Gilo. She and other volunteers marched on Israeli lines to protect their Palestinian friends. The clearly logic-challenged Edwards complained, "I never thought for a moment that they would fire live ammunition at us."

* In April 2002, Irish ISM member Caomhe Butterly served as a human shield in Yasir Arafat's compound in Ramallah during the intifada. Later, on November 22, 2002, she inserted herself as a human shield again and was wounded during an IDF operation in Jenin. One of her admirers described how Butterly "would walk up to a tank and place her hand over the muzzle." Butterly was an organizer and spokesperson aboard the 2010 Gaza flotilla.

* April 13, 2003, ISM member Thomas Hurndall was shot and killed when he challenged an Israeli tank force in Gaza.

* On April 24, 2010 Bianca Zammit, a Maltese national, joined a group of Palestinians who charged the security fence between Gaza and Israel. That area of the fence has often seen terrorist attacks. Zammit was shot through the thigh by a sniper, but was back to her comrades an hour later (pictured, right).

* On May 31, 2010, Emily Henochowicz, an American Jewish ISMer, lost her eye after she was hit by a tear gas grenade that ricocheted off a highway divider during a violent demonstration near Qalandia in the West Bank. She had been a regular at Palestinian demonstrations at Sheikh Jarrah, Bilin, Nilin and Nabi Saleh.

As the Haifa trial proceeds, it is clear that the International Solidarity Movement should be the one on trial for reckless endangerment. Yet, when young Western women are injured, arrested or killed, the media pays attention.

Maybe Rachel Corrie wasn't so dumb, after all. She wrote to her mother about the possibility of an American activist’s death as a propaganda tool: "You just can’t imagine it unless you see it, and even then you are always well aware that your experience is not at all the reality: what with the difficulties the Israeli Army would face if they shot an unarmed U.S. citizen."

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The Upcoming Rachel Corrie Trial: Go After Her Real Killers

Reprinted from Pajamas Media
By Lenny Ben-David

Jerusalem — Craig and Cindy Corrie, I welcome you to Israel where, I understand, you plan to bring a civil suit before an Israeli court on March 10 “to put on public record,” the British Guardian wrote, “the events that led to [your] daughter Rachel’s death in March 2003.”

I thank God for the well-being of my children and grandchildren, and I cannot imagine the pain and anger you feel over the loss of your daughter, Rachel.

My sons have served as combat soldiers, and may have actually fought on the very ground where your daughter died. The area was laced with tunnels to smuggle weapons and explosives for use against Israelis. My children are Israelis who ride in buses and eat in pizzerias, and by the grace of God they have been spared attacks by the suicide bombers your daughter championed.

Some may see the irony in your using the courts and the free press of Israel in your attempt to pursue and denounce the nation your daughter loathed. I see the tragedy in your allying with the International Solidarity Movement — the very people and organization who led and, in a sense, really pushed Rachel to her death.

According to news accounts, Israel will permit four of Corrie’s colleagues from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) to enter Israel to give testimony on what occurred that day. Actually, I believe it’s a good decision to permit the four into Israel’s jurisdiction where the ISM members could and should be arrested for reckless endangerment, fraud, manslaughter, aiding terrorists, and a host of other charges. The public may also discover who paid for your lawsuit and the expenses of bringing you and ISM witnesses to Israel.

Mr. and Mrs. Corrie, three pictures relating to your daughter are etched in my memory.

The first is a very agonizing photo of your daughter broken and crumpled and bleeding in a Gaza field — with her ISM friends attempting to help her:

(Photo attribution: Right to a Sustainable Future blog)

But I am troubled by the pictures. Who took them? Someone from ISM, according to the organization’s literature. Why wasn’t that person aiding your daughter? (God, I hope they were not posing her for a better shot!) What would motivate a person to not drop everything to help a wounded colleague? Is the ISM hatred of Israel so strong that his first priority was to document the scene? Was Corrie just an expendable foot soldier of an evil organization that used her for the photo-op? Apparently so. Her ISM colleague and handler Joseph Smith, who also goes by the name Joseph Carr, took the picture, actually one of many (!), and later eulogized Rachel with these horrifying words:

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.

The second photo is that of a very angry woman surrounded by a mob of children as she burns an American flag at a pro-Saddam Hussein rally:

The rage is palpable. What did she hate more, Israel or the United States? I suspect the former, because she justified the use of terrorism against Israeli civilians. She imbibed the ISM philosophy, as stated by one of its leaders during an interview with Al-Jazeera: “We recognize that violence is necessary and it is permissible for oppressed and occupied people to use armed resistance and we recognize their right to do so.”

That radical belief is clear in a phone message Rachel left you, Cindy, with instructions on how to speak to the press:

Please think about your language when you talk to them. I think it was smart that you’re wary of using the word “terrorism,” and if you talk about the cycle of violence, or “an eye for an eye,” you could be perpetuating the idea that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a balanced conflict, instead of a largely unarmed people against the fourth most powerful military in the world.

Rachel spoke those words in 2003 after Israel had buried 1000 civilians killed in Palestinian suicide bomber attacks.

And the third picture is of your earlier visit to the region to see where your daughter lived and died. You were met and honored by Yasser Arafat.

That is where you should have realized that you daughter was his pawn, another young idealist brainwashed into hating Israel. Arafat regaled in his “shahids,” the suicide bombers who blew up Israeli civilians. The New York Times documented the training of 25,000 Palestinian teens in the summer prior to launching the September 2000 intifada. Your daughter Rachel was another impressionable youth recruited for the Palestinian cause. I’m sure that is hard for you to believe, but read what her ISM buddy Joseph Smith believed:

“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.”

According to another account:

“Her death serves me more than it served her,” said one activist [unclear if the speaker is an IMS activist or a Hamas activist] at a Hamas funeral. “Going in front of the tanks was heroic. Her death will bring more attention than the other 2,000 martyrs.”

And Corrie herself discussed the possibility of an American activist’s death as a propaganda tool:

"You just can’t imagine it unless you see it, and even then you are always well aware that your experience is not at all the reality: what with the difficulties the Israeli Army would face if they shot an unarmed U.S. citizen."

Finally, who sent your daughter into Gaza? The International Solidarity Movement, a Palestinian-led group, founded in August 2001 by Huwwaida Arraf, Adam Shapiro, Ghassan Andoni, Neta Golan, and George Rishmawi.

In July of 2004, the San Francisco Chronicle reported:

Rishmawi said the ISM’s main purpose is to increase international awareness of Palestinian suffering through the involvement of foreign activists, who pay their own way to the West Bank, where they are trained in various methods of nonviolent direct action.

“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.”

Mr. and Mrs. Corrie, leave Israel with our deep condolences. It may be easier for you to live with the belief that Rachel was an idealistic fighter for peace. Maybe she was, but she was also used as a tool and discarded. ISM actually tried to market her as the “new Anne Frank.” Her life was wasted by a cruel, opportunistic, radical movement for whom the ends justify the means.

Sue them.

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