The bulldozer that ran over and killed Rachel Corrie was a D9 Caterpillar made in America and paid for by part of the 5 billion dollars of tax money the U.S. gives to Israel each year as ‘aid.’ She was a 23-year-old college student from Washington state.
Rachel died trying to prevent the demolition of the home of Samir Nasrallah – trying to protect one small piece of land in the poorest city in one of the most devastated places in the world: Palestine.
The Seattle Post-Intelligence reports: “Corrie’s supporters and other witnesses said the driver intentionally hit her as she stood trying to prevent a Palestinian home from being demolished; the Israeli government responded that the driver did not see her and that the death was a regrettable accident.� Does it matter? Even laying aside the Israeli army’s tendency towards self-serving deception when it comes to the death of innocents – Palestinian or otherwise – Rachel’s death lies in a context of Israeli disregard for human life in the Occupied Territories.
Human rights organizations often comment that the violence of the Israeli occupation equally targets armed resistance, non-violent protest, and civilians going about their daily lives. The seemingly indiscriminate destruction – children shot point blank, checkpoints closed without reason, fields uprooted on the whims of illegal Israeli settlers – forms a pattern of calculated attempts to destroy Palestinian national existence. The International Solidarity Movement recognizes these “attempts to close down life as [Palestinians] know it,� and uses non-violent direct action to call attention to and ease the everyday horrors of living under full military occupation.
One of these horrors is home demolitions. The city of Rafah, where Rachel was killed, has the highest rate of people killed per capita this year. Perhaps this is because large parts of it seem to be “in the way� of Israeli land-grabbing. Ten thousand Palestinian houses have been destroyed since 1967, says Jeff Halper, director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. The innocent inhabitants are rarely warned and frequently buried in the rubble. Less than two weeks before Rachel’s death, a pregnant woman, Nuha Makadma Sweidan, was killed as a nearby home was blown up. Halper explains that even when the residents are able to escape, demolition “leaves families homeless, impoverished, traumatized, ruined.�
In one of her last emails to her mother, Rachel described a typical day in Rafah: “To some degree, we are all just kids curious about other kids. Egyptian kids shouting at strange women wandering into the path of tanks. Palestinian kids shot from the tanks when they peek out from behind walls to see what’s going on. International kids standing in front of tanks with banners. Israeli kids in the tanks anonymously – occasionally shouting and also waving – many forced to be here, many just aggressive – shooting into the houses as we wander away.�
The Bush administration wants to fool the world into believing that all Americans are arrogant ultra-nationalists, deaf to the demands of the world’s peoples. That’s not true. Rachel was an example of an American who was also a true internationalist.
Outrageously, the U.S. government has agreed to let Rachel’s murderer – the Israeli army – conduct the investigation into her death. Her parents are leading a campaign for an independent investigation. To honor Rachel’s memory, we must support them, and we must continue to defend the right of Palestinians to live peacefully in their own land. Like her, we must try to stop the bulldozers.
Keren Wheeler is a member of the International Peace and
Solidarity Committee of the National Council of the YCL
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