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Rachel Corrie |
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Rachel Corrie |
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Photos: AP |
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Rachel Corrie Feb 15 2003 |
The following was adapted from "The Death of Rachel Corrie" on the website Peace with Realism.
They counted on the bulldozer to stop.
"I couldn't believe it. I was sure the bulldozer would stop," said Tom Dale, 18, a member of Rachel Corrie's group. "When we arrived she was still alive but had blood all over her face."
They counted on the Israelis' basic human values.
"[The Israeli troops] have shot over our heads, and shot near our feet — they have fired tear gas at us," said Michael Shaik, the group's media coordinator. "But we thought we had an understanding. We didn't think they would kill us."
They dared to protest because they know the Israelis play by civilized rules, rules not binding on the people they came to support. But no rule can protect people from their own foolishness.
On March 16, 2003, in the town of Rafah in southern Gaza, Rachel Corrie, 23, an "international peace protester," dropped to her knees in front of an Israeli bulldozer. The bulldozer was clearing away foliage used to hide bombs. She expected it to stop, but it kept moving, trapping her under its tracks. An ambulance took her to Ajar hospital, where she died.
The protesters called it murder, even though they repeatedly defied warnings to leave the area, and even though a preliminary investigation determined that the driver of the bulldozer could not see Rachel Corrie. According to the inquiry, "the windows of the bulletproof bulldozer are very small and the visibility is very limited, and the bulldozer operator did not see the woman."
Nevertheless the murder charge has persisted. The group to which Rachel Corrie belonged, the International Solidarity Movement, even published "before" and "after" pictures claiming to show that the bulldozer operator could in fact see her.
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| Rachel Corrie "before" the accident (International Solidarity Movement) | After the accident (International Solidarity Movement) |
These pictures have been shown to be a hoax. The "before" picture shows Rachel standing in front of the bulldozer with a megaphone, some distance away and foreshortened by perspective, making her appear to be in clear sight of the bulldozer. The presentation also makes it appear that this took place immediately before the incident. However, the photographer himself later admitted that no one with a camera had been present at the site just before Rachel's accident, that the picture with the megaphone had actually been taken hours earlier, and that at the time of the accident Rachel was not in sight of the driver. An examination of the pictures themselves, noting, for example, the difference in the color of the sky, shows they could not have been taken close to the same point in time. In addition, the bulldozers shown in these supposed "before" and "after" pictures are not the same.
Indeed both CNN, which ran the two pictures, and the New York Times, which ran the first one, published the following corrections:
CNN, March 25, 2003:
The New York Times, March 26, 2003:
Nevertheless pro-Palestinian web sites, including the International Solidarity Movement's own web site, continue to present the two pictures with incorrect and misleading labels.
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Photo: ISM |
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Rachel Corrie and the bulldozer |
Another photo in the photographer's own report, posted on pro-Palestinian web sites, shows Rachel's true proportion in relation to the enormous size of the bulldozer, making it clear how the driver could easily have missed seeing her.
Furthermore, what those who accuse Israel never mention is that the bulldozer's task was to eliminate tunnels the Palestinian terrorists were using to smuggle weapons illegally from Egypt into Gaza.
Who are these "international peace protesters" to whom Rachel Corrie belonged?
The group calls itself the International Solidarity Movement. They are a group of European and American activists founded and led by Palestinians. Their agenda is not peace but the Palestinian cause.
They are enablers of terrorism. Because they know that Israel, unlike the Palestinian terrorists, cares about civilian casualties, they present themselves as "human shields," entering combat zones against orders and hindering Israeli efforts to restrain terrorism. And so the previous May members of the group entered the Church of the Nativity, where known Palestinian terrorists were taking a stand against Israeli forces.
They describe themselves as a "peace army." They claim to use only nonviolent tactics. But how nonviolent can one claim to be if one's actions help those who do resort to violence to continue doing their work?
They say they are trying to stop Israel from destroying Palestinian homes. They do not mention that these are buildings that Palestinian gunmen use as cover, or that these buildings hide tunnels used for arms smuggling. They do not mention that Gaza is the center of operations for Hamas, where terrorists are trained, where attacks are launched, and where terrorists hide. They do not mention that Israeli troops entered Gaza after a series of increasingly bloody attacks on civilians planned and executed by Hamas.
Rachel Corrie, an American college student from Olympia, Washington, was a pro-Palestinian activist and member of the International Solidarity Movement. She worked with Palestinian children in Gaza. She felt for their poverty and their suffering. She also helped teach them how to hate. On February 15, 2003, at a rally in Rafah, surrounded by Palestinian children, Rachel Corrie burned an American flag, her face torn with hatred.
I would like to ask these "peace" activists some questions:
Perhaps the world at large can also try to answer these questions.
The International Solidarity Movement has this quotation on its web site:
And perhaps also because of the people who don't do evil but who make it easier for others to do it.
Or is there really any difference?
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