Still No Justice for Rachel Corrie

[Resistance]

by Wendy Smith | Common Dreams

Tom Hurndall, a 22-year-old British peace activist, died last week in a London hospital. He was shot in the head by Israeli sniper fire nine months ago while shepherding Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip out of the line of fire. He had been in a coma since his injury. Hours before Hurndall died, the soldier who shot him was charged with aggravated assault. The charge is now likely to be revised to manslaughter or murder; British police are participating in an official investigation of his death.

Rachel Corrie from Olympia was crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer in the Rafah refugee camp about a month before Hurndall was shot there. Like Hurndall, Corrie was a volunteer with the Palestinian-led International Solidarity Movement to End the Occupation of Palestine (ISM). Like Hurndall, she was killed by an identifiable Israeli soldier. As in Hurndall's case, the Israeli government initially released a report on Corrie's killing, stating that nobody connected with the Israeli military was culpable and that further investigation was not required.

So, why has Hurndall's killer been charged when nothing has happened to Corrie's killer?

Somehow the Hurndall family was able to take the necessary steps in the timeframe required. Believing what their congressman, senators and State Department officials told them, the Corries have been left to swallow lies.

Is this the best our members of Congress can do for a citizen killed abroad? Plenty of them made pretty speeches but real action is a question of political will.

[GabysPoppy]

1. The good Rabbi has already answered your question

"“I don’t think we’ll ever know whether she fell, whether the bulldozer saw her or whether it was a game of chicken that went too far,” Ascherman says. “If it was an accident, it drives home that when you’re in front of a bulldozer knocking down a home, accidents can happen.”"

[Resistance]

2. oh

so the opinion of a Rabbi should halt a murder investigation. LOL you're not serious are you?

BBC documentary proves Israeli army murdered Rachel Corrie

A recently released 50-minute "hard-hitting" program produced by the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) investigated the three killings and provides crucial video evidence. "That's murder," an Israeli soldier said after viewing footage from the film, When Killing is Easy.

[GabysPoppy]

3. Don't argue with me

Debate the poster of that quotation

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=124&topic_id=46887

[Resistance]

18. Umm hello

You just posted that quotation. :crazy:

[GabysPoppy]

23. As Mark Twain once said

"Get your facts first, and then you can distort 'em as you please."

It was first posted here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=124&topic_id=46314


In this article:


http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/59F4C01E-F53A-4321-AB37-933AB59C5A9B.htm

[Resistance]

30. you posted the quote

in post #1. Then you said I should not debate you, but rather the person who posted the quote. That just doesn't make any sense, sorry.

Did you have any comment on the lack of U.S. investigation on the murder of Rachel Corrie? Or can we just assume you'd rather continue to play this game of who posted the quote you reposted here?

[GabysPoppy]

31. Rather than criticize sources that don't agree with you

Please read post #27 for a partial answer to your question. Not liking the messenger doesn't relieve you of possibly hearing something contrary to the "facts" you think you know. If that were the case every piece from Al-Jazeer or Ramallah-on-line should receive the same treatment.

When you begin to call for investigations for ALL Americans that have died at the hands of Palestinian terrorists, maybe I could take seriously your obsession with Rachel Corrie.

When you add those people to your list, any lack of U.S. investigations might have some gravitas. Just saying those deaths are horrible doesn't relieve you of that burden. Here, Rachel's death was tragic. I believe that now puts us on an equal footing.

Whenever you want a list of names to your calling for an investigation, I will gladly supply them to you.

[Resistance]

32. once again

did you have any comment on the lack of U.S. investigation on the murder of Rachel Corrie?

(and no, talking on and on about what you think are my likes, dislikes, seriousness or unseriousness does not count)

[GabysPoppy]

33. Read my post closely

My comment was there. Your turn to comment on the article posted besides a comment the source is not to your liking.

You might also wish to comment on ALL investigations concerning deaths in the area.

[Resistance]

34. yes I see your comments

It's all about me and what I like or dislike, and playing games with some quote you found. These are irrelevant to your opinion on the lack of investigation concerning the murdered girl.

[meti57b]

35. An investigation was not needed and so there was none.

It is more than evident that her death was accidental and no harm was intended towards her.

[Resistance]

36. not so.

Four eyewitnesses said the killing was intentional.

There needs to be an investigation. Tom Hurndall got one: why can't Rachel Corrie?

[GabysPoppy]

37. Four mindreaders?

When would you like me to list the other Americans killed by the Palestinian terrorists for you to clamor for an investigation.

Will it be equally loud and obsessive?

[Resistance]

38. What mindreaders?

It's four eyewitnesses, and they all say the killing was intentional. I trust them, because I trust peace activists.

Rachel Corrie was murdered in cold blood by a military that American taxpayers send billions to every year, and that military needs to be held accountable for its actions. Why should anyone have a problem with that? It isn't being "loud" or "obsessive" - it's making demands for justice for a murdered girl.

There is nothing wrong with that.

[JohnLocke]

39. Never.

[Resistance]

40. Never what?

[JohnLocke]

42. Read post #37

[Resistance]

43. Explain your post further, please.

[Name removed]

44. Deleted message

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[liberalhistorian]

46. Bullshit. It was not at all

"more than evident that her death was accidental and no harm was intended towards her." In fact, it was very evident to the eyewitnesses and to those Israelies who've investigated it.

It's evident to all but the Israel-is-always-right-and-can-never-do-any-wrong crowd, who refuse to see ANYTHING Israel does as anything less than great.

nd the fact that the bulldozer's driver BACKED OVER HER AFTER KNOWING THAT HE'D RUN HER OVER says it all right there to me. He knew damn well she was there in the first place, and he knew damn well what he was doing. He just didn't like the fact that she was trying to stop him from destroying the home of an elderly Palestinian doctor whose only crime was that he and his family happened to have the misfortune of living on land that the insatiably greedy settlers wanted as their own.

And our tax dollars paid for the driver who murdered her and the machine he used to accomplish it. And I'm damn sick and tired of that. And if it had been the other way around, you better believe there'd have been investigations and accountability up the ying-yang.

[Muddleoftheroad]

4. The stories that won't end

Next, we'll see "new" stories about events from the 1800s.

[Blitz]

5. Obsession

It's not just a perfume anymore.

[JohnLocke]

6. Gives new meaning to the phrase "ad nauseum"

[drdon326]

7. Not to worry....

i've already e-mail THIS thread to cindy....

[e-mail]

[Resistance]

8. I know, isn't it awful?

The Israeli military murdered a young unarmed peace activist in cold blood, yet all these progressive voices continue to complain about the lack of justice for the victim and her family.

How terrible.

Really, what is wrong with these people who are so obsessed with justice and concern for innocent victims of Israeli aggression?

[drdon326]

9. And we're off !!

Saint Rachel was nothing but a terrorist supporter.

[JohnLocke]

15. The International Solidarity Movement supports terrorism

Yes, this is not the first time I've posted it. But I still want a rebuttal.

The International Solidarity Movement supports terrorism

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) has harbored known terrorists and openly advocated violence and the destruction of Israel. ISM spokesman Raphael Cohen was asked at a May 2003 press conference to define “occupation.” His response: “The Zionist presence in Palestine” (David Bedein. "Support unit for terror," Jerusalem Post, June 25, 2003).
When asked to express his view of peace, he answered, “a one state solution,” by which he meant the creation of a Palestinian state in place of Israel.
On ISM's web site, the Internet directory is called “traveltopalestine.” Their site also located Ben Gurion Airport in “Palestine.” It includes an information packet for volunteers that features a country guide to “Palestine.” The guide lists the landmass of “Palestine” as “26,323 km2 = 10,162 miles2” – the size of the entire State of Israel, plus the West Bank and Gaza. The country guide describes the geographic boundaries of “Palestine” as extending from Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea, and from Lebanon to Aqaba; that is, again incorporating all of Israel.
The ISM does not hide its incitement to violence. Its web site states that it recognizes “the Palestinian right to resist Israeli violence and occupation via legitimate armed struggle.” Cohen admits that, on April 25, 2003, he hosted a group of 15 people at his apartment. Included in that group were Asif Mohammad Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif, British nationals. They subsequently participated in various activities planned by the ISM. Five days later, the two carried out a suicide bombing in a popular pub next to the American Embassy in Tel Aviv that is frequented by Embassy personnel. Hanif and Sharif entered Israel under the guise of “peace activists” and “alternative tourism” – perhaps a reference to the ISM-precursor “Alternative Tourist Group” (Andrew Friedman, "The ‘Neutral’ Partisans," The Review, July 2003). ISM denies responsibility for the actions of the British bombers.

More here.

At Rutgers in the spring of 2003, the New Jersey Solidarity Movement hung a large banner painted in Palestinian colors in the Student Center that read "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free." This is a Hamas slogan popular both among Palestinians and within the ISM. The poetry of the Hamas slogan may come out as mere doggerel in English translation, but the Movement's intention of destroying Israel is made clear, as is -- for those who know that this is a Hamas slogan -- the implied endorsement of the Hamas program.
…
In a widely publicized incident that made many doubt the ISM's claims that it does not collaborate with terrorists, Susan Barclay, an ISM organizer later deported by Israel, attempted to hide Islamic Jihad terrorist Shadi Sukiya in the ISM office in Jenin while the IDF searched the building for him. An ISM spokesman claimed that Barclay had no way of knowing who the man was -- although that would hardly justify her attempt to prevent a search of the ISM offices by an officer of the law who was searching for an identified terrorist. The spokesman went on to say that he was not certain how he would behave if he were himself given the opportunity to shelter a known terrorist from the police.
Tom Wallace, 43, who has traveled from Boston to work as the ISM's spokesperson in Jenin, says the ISMers in Jenin had no idea who Sukiya was when they took him in that morning, and that they were only trying to help a man in distress. And if, in the future, someone who the ISM knows to be a terrorist shows up at the office door requesting assistance? "He's still someone who's hurt and needs help," Tom says, adding that ISM members in Jenin are now debating this very question. "Honestly, I don't know the answer." One year earlier, ISM volunteers went to great lengths to enter the Arafat compound for the purpose of acting as human shields for Arafat and for the terrorists that the ISM volunteer writing this journal entry proudly refers to as the "Ze'evi Five" in honor of the Israeli Cabinet minister whom they murdered.
Here Tamara, a 25-year-old mother from the Los Angeles area who belongs to "Los Angeles Jews for a Just Peace" and who traveled to Israel to work as an ISM volunteer, reports on a lecture from a "calm, well-spoken" Hamas representative who told the audience of International Solidarity Movement volunteers that he does not endorse suicide bombings: “We had the chance to meet with, Dr. Ghazi Hamed Hamed, a representative from Hamas. He is by far one of the most interesting and surprising people I have met here. Calm, well spoken, and very upfront. He spoke frankly, and gave us a picture of Hamas that we would never imagine in the West. He told is about the organizing they do for those in need, the construction of schools and social service organizations. They also have a women's group, "some people misunderstand us. We do not discriminate against women and there is nothing to prevent them from being leaders." He also said that although he supports the Palestinian right (as detailed in international law) to armed resistance, he does not personally support suicide bombings. However he reminded us that many people feel that is the only way they can fight against the occupation.”

More http://home.comcast.net/~jat.action/ISM_essay.htm|here>.

[Resistance]

16. what a load of crap

the ISM does not support terror. The only reason right-wingnut crap like this is being passed around is because the Right wants the ISM to be smeared, after the IDF recklessly murdered some ISM peace workers.

Murdering peace activists is despicable, and the attempts by the Right to smear and discredit the peace groups which these activists belonged to is also despicable.

[liberalhistorian]

48. It is, indeed, a load of shit and

I'm getting really tired of all of the misinformation and misrepresentation in that regard. Those responsible for such deliberately misleading propaganda would do the Bushistas proud.

[Resistance]

49. I wonder

What does the U.S. have to lose by investigating Rachel's death? What could possibly prevent them from taking a closer look at the incident?

Rachel was one of their own citizens - and the U.S. authorities are totally ignoring her and her family! This is outrageous!

[liberalhistorian]

50. What's preventing them

is the unusually tight U.S.-Israeli relationship and the fact that we give them gazillions of dollars a year in aid, which they then spend on the very soldiers and weapons responsible for incidents such as this one.

They don't want to open up that Pandora's Box, and since Israel is our only "ally" in the ME, they don't want to jeopardize that relationship and they don't want the American people to realize what's really going on and what they're actually paying for over there either.

[Darranar]

17. You've gotten one before...

You replied to my reply to the first one, but not to the second (in this thread) so I'll repost it here:

As for article #2, I found a few things interesting:

In radical-left speak, resistance is a code word for terrorism. Read how the leader of Hamas uses the term:

An Arabic satellite TV channel financed by the Qatari government broadcast a live talk show called "Open Dialogue" earlier today, featuring the Pediatrician of Death, Dr. Abd-al-Aziz al-Rantisi, and the Palestinian Authority's Information Minister, Nabil Amr-who once again made it clear that they do not consider the wholesale murder of Jews to be terrorism. At 19:15 GMT, PA Information Minister Nabil Amr joins the discussion via satellite from Ramallah. Asked about Mahmud Abbas' speech in the Al-Aqabah summit, Amr says: "As regards the word terrorism, I do not know why when the Palestinians denounce the word terrorism, certain people think that this means resistance. There is no text anywhere that says that the Palestinian people's resistance is terrorism, which we denounce. President Yasir Arafat said this in Geneva 15 years ago. This is part of our policy. Yes, we denounce terrorism. Anyone who says that denouncing terrorism means denouncing resistance is doing an injustice to legitimate resistance and is in effect labeling it with terrorism. Therefore, the statement that was read in Al-Aqabah is based on a commitment that the PLO made in Geneva, after which the Palestinian-US dialogue started in Tunis."


How the leader of Hamas is a radical leftist is beyond me.

In the Through-the-Looking-Glass rhetoric of Hamas and of the ISM, terrorism is what the American Army does in Afghanistan and Iraq, while resistance is what Hamas does when it straps a suicide bomb to a seventeen-year-old girl and points her toward an Israeli bus.

The ISM, of course, thinks and believes the same things as Hamas. They are both vile radical leftists.

In an interview with the New York Post , Charlotte Kates leader of New Jersey Solidarity and organizer of the National Conference scheduled for Rutgers on October 10-12, told the interviewer that "peaceful resistance is the fest's guiding principle." Yet she noted that she, as well as the sponsoring organization, the New Jersey Solidarity Movement -- an offshoot of International Solidarity -- supports Palestinian homicide bombers. "Palestinian resistance in all its forms has been a very powerful tool of justice," said Kates, 23, a Rutgers law student. "All forms, from armed struggle to mass protest." And does Israel have a right to exist? Kates's answer, "Israel is an apartheid, colonial settler state. I do not believe apartheid, colonial settler states have a right to exist."

Where does she say that she supports suicide bombers? How do the statements of one member of one offshoot of the organization prove anything? Especially when one considers this, later in the article:

For example, when Charlotte Kates, leader of New Jersey Solidarity, gave numerous interviews to the press in the summer of 2003 in which she endorsed suicide bombing, other movement leaders claimed that she was not part of the ISM, and she herself claimed to have left the ISM and joined al Awda instead.

Earlier in the article:

The decision to quit the International Solidarity Movement in favor of Al Awda was taken by New Jersey Solidarity leaders Charlotte Kates and Summer Sharaf, either because they held more radical views than other ISM members or because they wanted to express their views more frankly.

And:

To illustrate how complex and fluid the organization of the Solidarity Movement is, in July of 2003 New Jersey Solidarity broke with the International Solidarity Movement.

There are numerous parts of the article that consist of the usual attacks on the Left: "anti-american", "anti-semitic", etc. The article attacks them because they acknowledge that the US is inciting terrorism and extremism through its devestating foreign policy. It exxagerates certain ISM statements and declares that they mean the most extreme thing they could possibly mean, while not giving any evidence to support this. The article is a propaganda piece and nothing more.

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

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[JohnLocke]

20. Dude...you're hilarious.

Wonder what Jim Sagle thinks of your parody?

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

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[number6]

26. the same old crap...

:puke:

[liberalhistorian]

47. Really?

So I guess you consider an elderly Palestinian doctor and his family to be "terrorists" along with all the other Palestinian families displaced and left homeless because the illegal settlers obsessed with living on land they claim they had a right to because it was "given" to them THOUSANDS of years ago, never mind the fact that others had been living on it for hundreds of years, were demanding their land, their farms, their olive groves, their water supplies and resources, etc., not giving a damn who they displaced and left homeless and penniless, to be "terrorists."

NEWSFLASH: And this just in, well, it appears that not every single Palestinian is a terrorist and/or suicide bomber. That's right, in an amazing discovery, it can now be said that NOT EVERY SINGLE PALESTINIAN IS A TERRORIST AND/OR SUICIDE BOMBER, despite Israel's intense propaganda otherwise. Much like Shrub uses the term "terrorist" to label anyone and everyone he wants, so that people will be afraid and so that he can get away with, literally, murder, Israel has succesfully managed to propagandize to the point where EVERY Palestinian, especially those in the way of the settlers insatiable, greedy, selfish demands, is now labeled a "terrorist" and they can do with them what they want without recrimination. And anyone who tries to get justice for them is equally successfully labeled a "terrorist sympathizer."

But sorry, I and many others are immune to such propaganda, and we see what's really happening whether Israel likes it or not.

[Herschel]

10. Still no rest for Rachel Corrie

seems more appropriate. This disturbed woman put herself in harm's way. Let it be.

[Resistance]

11. No

what is disturbing is that she was murdered in cold blood, yet her country won't even investigate the incident. Some patriots we've got for politicians - how brave of them to ignore the murder of it's citizens.

[GabysPoppy]

27. Let's do it again

Peace Activists in the Middle East: Out of Their Depth

http://www.jerusalemdiaries.com/article/83

Maybe the fact that a peace organization was found defending terrorists twice in a two-week period will factor into the inquiry called by several Washington state congressional representatives into the circumstances of Rachel Corrie's death. But don't be surprised if the revelation that two Kalashnikovs and a handgun were found along with a terrorist in the Jenin ISM office will hardly feature in the search for the truth about Rachel Corrie.

snip

The congressional inquiry called for by Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA) will have to sort it all out, but the inconsistencies in the eyewitness testimonies raise doubts about the simplistic conclusions already being drawn.

By all accounts, Rachel Corrie was one of a group of protestors attempting to disrupt the work of two IDF bulldozers leveling ground to detonate explosives in an area rife with terrorist activity. The bulldozers moved to a different area to avoid the protestors, and Corrie became separated from the group. Some of the agitators stood with a banner, while Corrie picked up a bullhorn and yelled slogans at the driver encased in the small cabin of the dozer. This went on for several hours on the afternoon of March 16. It's the kind of activity favored by the young pro-Palestinian types who make up the ISM.

There wasn't enough action for Corrie. According to a fellow Evergreen State College student, Joseph Smith, 21, who was at the site, Corrie dropped her bullhorn and sat down in front of one of the bulldozers. She fully expected that the driver would stop just in front of her. "We were horribly surprised," Smith told me by phone from Rafah the day after the incident. "They had been careful not to hurt us. They'd always stopped before," he said.

As the dozer plowed forward heaping up a pile of dirt and sand, Corrie scrambled up the pile to sit on the top. Smith says she lost her footing as the bulldozer made the earth move beneath her feet. She got pulled down, he says. "The driver lost sight of her and continued forward. Then, without lifting the blade he reversed and Rachel was underneath the mid-section of the dozer, she wasn't run over by the tread."

Capt. Jacob Dellal of the IDF spokespersons office confirms what Smith says about the driver: he lost sight of Rachel. Inside the cab some 6' off the ground, visibility is very restricted. The protestors should have known that and kept within the driver's line of sight to avoid getting hurt, Dellal asserts.

snip

Read the rest of the article if you choose to be Judge, Jury and Eyewitness all rolled into one.

[Name removed]

28. Deleted message

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[Forkboy]

12. You again

(it's fun talking like Dr Doom!)

You guys sure seem bothered whenever her name is mentioned.You all just pile on...some might think it's obsession of your own.

[Muddleoftheroad]

13. The same could said

For any posting in this thread.

[Forkboy]

14. Yup

I noticed you posted in it as well.

[Muddleoftheroad]

29. Notice I said "any"

[liberalhistorian]

51. The only "rest" for her will come

when the true nature of her murder is discovered and when those responsible, such as the soldier who murdered her, are held responsible and accountable. But I ain't holding my breath on that one.

[number6]

25. keep Rachel Corries memory alive....

:kick: never forget !!

[newyorican]

41. actually...

I think some want all to just forget this event ever happened. We are supposed to only remember history when told to. :shrug:

[Resistance]

45. you think there is an effort to sweep it all under the rug?

whatever could have given you that impression?

</sarcasm>