History Unknown: Rachel Corrie, The American Activist Crushed By An Israeli Bulldozer
A murder, a cover up, and the death of a myth.
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For close to a century, Israel and its supporters have positioned the nation as an oasis of humanity and modernity in the barren desert of barbarous Islamism. Zionist leaders claim their country cherishes “Western values,” while American politicians praise Israel as “the only democracy in the Middle East.” This framing worked well for the international Zionist project. Combined with America’s anti-Arab racism and Islamaphobia (especially post-9/11), it has convinced the parent-state population that Israel is a manifestation of what America ostensibly aspires for: freedom, liberty, and equal treatment for all.
“(Israel) is a stalwart ally of the United States. We have historical ties, emotional ties. As the only true democracy of the Middle East it is a source of admiration and inspiration for the American people.” - President Obama, 2009
While Israel’s ongoing genocide of Gaza has shattered this mirage, it is only the last in a long list of Israeli crimes revealing the country’s true nature. Paramount on Israel’s rap sheet is the murder, desecration, and mockery of American peace activist Rachel Corrie.
An American In Rafah
A life-long resident of Olympia, Washington, Rachel Corrie attended Evergreen State College. Like many college kids, she was drawn to activism and eventually joined the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a nonviolent group dedicated to Palestinian liberation. In 2003 Corrie traveled to Rafah, Palestine to connect it with Olympia through a sister-city program. Back then, the Israeli military was present inside Gaza (where Rafah is located), as opposed to the concentration camp strategy it has relied on since withdrawing in 2005. To facilitate the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, the Israelis would bulldoze Palestinian homes, a tactic still used today in the occupied West Bank. Bulldozing serves two purposes. First, it deprives Palestinians of shelter, incentivizing them to emigrate so Israel may take their land. Second, it’s the first step in constructing illegal Israeli settlements.
On March 16th, 2003, a foreboding rumble fell upon the Nasrallah family's home, which was hosting Rachel Corrie and her fellow ISM activists. Soon, an 80,000-pound war machine was roaring outside the door, preparing to destroy. Corrie donned a fluorescent orange safety vest, grabbed her bullhorn, and stood between the Israeli bulldozer and the ancestral home of her hosts. Human blockades before bulldozers were a common tactic of anti-apartheid activists, including Corrie. She had used this act to deter destruction before, and by the accounts of the survivors, expected to succeed.
We’ll never know why the driver of the bulldozer chose to kill Corrie that day. Perhaps he’d been ordered to destroy the home at all costs. Or maybe he felt a personal grievance that a blonde, blue-eyed American woman — the very type of person who was supposed to support Israel — was physically preventing his colonial act. As is the case with many offenses committed in Israel’s continual conquest of Palestine, whether the perpetrator’s motivation stemmed from intimate hatred or systemic orders is irrelevant. The result was the same. The driver sent his machine forward, crushing Corrie beneath his treads. The onlookers ran to her, but nothing could be done. Corrie uttered, “I think I broke my back,” then perished.
“I have been in Palestine for two weeks and one hour now, and I still have very few words to describe what I see. It is most difficult for me to think about what’s going on here when I sit down to write back to the United States. I don’t know if many of the children here have ever existed without tank-shell holes in their walls and the towers of an occupying army surveying them constantly from the near horizons.” — Rachel Corrie’s first email from Palestine.
Aftermath
News of Corrie’s death sparked an international uproar, but neither the engineer nor the Israeli military was held to account.
An IDF “investigation” claimed the driver didn’t see Corrie and an Israeli court ruled the military was not liable for her death, as the IDF was not bulldozing Palestinian homes. Both these claims are obvious lies. As the above photograph of Corrie’s final moments shows, she’s wearing a brightly visible safety vest, the type designed to make people visible to machine operators.
The Corrie family spent years pursuing justice for their daughter, subjecting themselves to the absurdity of Israel’s kangaroo courts. During their lawsuit for a symbolic $1 in reparations, it was learned Israel ignored their request that an American representative supervise their daughter’s autopsy. The performing doctor also kept “samples” of her body, which were neither explained nor produced. Furthermore, the IDF investigators who cleared the bulldozer driver admitted they never visited the site of Corrie’s death, nor did they sit in the bulldozer to check visible sight lines. Despite all the evidence of a coverup, the Corrie family never received justice. Their final appeal was thrown out in 2015 by the Israeli Supreme Court. Human rights groups condemned the ruling, stating it was a clear escalation of Israel’s faux-punishments for soldiers accused of crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
“This ruling has disturbing implications beyond the Corrie family’s case, as it sends a message that Israeli forces have immunity even for deaths caused by alleged negligence.” — Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director, Human Rights Watch
To add insult to injury, in 2013 an IDF battalion held a fundraiser entitled “Afternoon of ‘Rachel Corrie’ Pancakes and Fun!” According to pictures posted on Facebook, the mockery of Corrie aimed to raise money for illegal settlements, and in the words of their rabbi, “additional bulldozers.”
Rachel Corrie’s story is not only a heartbreaking tale of the murder of a young, courageous woman, but a concrete repudiation of every lie Americans have been told about our “ally” in the Middle East. Politicians, pundits, and school teachers assure us Israel is not an imperialist, apartheid state; If that’s the case, then why is Israel bulldozing Palestinian homes? They claim Israel is a democracy governed by the rule of law; then why did its courts bend over backward to hold Corrie’s murderer to account? Lastly, we’re told Israel is an ally, a nation Americans must fund, arm, and defend so that our liberal, humanist values can prosper around the globe. Perhaps the U.S. State Department has a different definition than I do, but my humanism does not include pulverizing young women under the gears of heavy machinery, then mocking them for it.
There’s a lesson for Americans to take from the murder of Rachel Corrie. If the democratic, equitable Israel we’ve been told exists, then she would still be alive. The myth of a just Israel died with Rachel Corrie. It’s time for Americans to recognize that.
A 10-year-old Rachel Corrie gives a speech on her dream for a peaceful world.
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