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From the Wikipedia account of the incident in which she was killed, one fact sticks out at me. The driver of the bulldozer was Russian. That alone is insufficient, but I’ve known some Russians, and their world view generally can be summed up pretty easily. “The Israeli/American/EU response to this or that is inadequate, because they’re trying to be fair and just. Instead, kill a few of the rioters/activists/demonstrators/footpads as an example, and the rest will run away scared. That’s how we do it in Russia.” I have no idea whether the driver was just trying to do his job and mistakenly believe she had run away when in fact she was pinned beneath some rubble, or if he subscribed to this approach. But it’s possible that he did, and he very well might have deliberately run over her, and then prevaricated about looking behind him for a moment. Again, being Russian is not enough to convict the man. But it’s enough to raise a few questions.

This does not constitute a sudden qualm of sympathy for Rachel Corrie. She was a damned idiot trying to act “heroic” using Israeli soldiers as a prop because she was sure they would not hurt her, and it turned out just this once that she was mistaken. I invite any of these ISM activists to pull that sort of stunt in Syria, Sri Lanka, or any other place in the world where barbaric responses to civilian protests are a given. Try being “heroic” over there.