Still no Justice for Rachel Corrie (Cry Me a River Alert!)

Seattle PI, via Palestine Chronicle ^ | January 23, 2004 | Wendly Smith

[PeaceCorpsGuy]

Still No Justice for Rachel Corrie - Smith --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Friday, January 23 2004 @ 12:57 PM EST

"It is an insult to the human heart to have to force government officials to do their jobs properly while digesting the fact your child has been brutally killed .."

By WENDY SMITH

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?

According to the Hurndall family, the only reason the soldier who shot him has been charged is because of pressure applied by the family. Hurndall's father is an attorney. He went to Rafah shortly after the shooting and compiled an extensive dossier of eyewitness affidavits, forensics reports, photographs and other relevant information. This dossier was put before the British foreign secretary in a way that made it very difficult to ignore. Ultimately, the British government went to bat for Hurndall, an unarmed British civilian killed by an Israeli soldier under the impression that he could shoot with impunity.

Indeed, the soldier had good reason to believe this. More than 2,000 unarmed Palestinian civilians, many of them children, have been killed in the occupied territories since the current intifada began in September 2000. Only 10 Israeli soldiers have been indicted and none has been convicted. A culture of impunity permeates the Israeli military, which is well known for its non-investigations of itself. For this reason, the Hurndall family would like to see the investigation of his death extend all the way up the chain of command.

Corrie's parents are not lawyers. In addition, they were told by members of the Washington state congressional delegation and State Department officials that if they quietly played along, justice for their daughter would ultimately be achieved. So far, all that has emerged is a non-credible Israeli military report claiming that 1) Corrie was not run over by a bulldozer and 2) even if she had been, the driver could not have seen her. These statements are contradicted respectively by the autopsy report and multiple eyewitness reports.

It is an insult to the human heart to have to force government officials to do their jobs properly while digesting the fact your child has been brutally killed.

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.

About the author: Wendy Smith of Seattle is an activist with the Seattle Palestine Solidarity Committee.

Source: The Seattle PI

[Montfort]

The really arrogant thing about this girl is the implicit notion that "those Israelis might not care about killing lowly Palestinians, but they will be reluctant to kill someone truly important, like me. I am a white American, and therefore I am special and protected, no matter what I do. If the Israelis kill me, there will be hell to pay. Just imagine the world outrage if anything happens to me. No, I am pretty safe because of who I am.

Of course, it never occurred to her that sh could get right in front of a tank and the driver might not see her at all. The driver never got to see her and perceive her special status and importance in the world.

[weegee]

Do you think that someone deliberately chose that name under a profile designed to resemble you purely to discredit you on FR?

You may be elligible for a tin foil award.

[wizardoz]

Apparently if someone of a different ideological background is killed just for his ideas (opposing occupation, house demolishment) he/she deserves to be bulldozed?

Wow, I've never heard volunteering to be a human shield for people who've dedicated themselves to completing the Nazi dream of a Jew-free world referred to as merely a "different ideological background" before. Cool! Is teaching your teenager to blow himself up, taking as many Jewish civilians with him as possible, just another shade of blue on your color spectrum? That's so open-minded of you! In fact, you're so open-minded, your brains might just fall right out! And you may trip on them! And land in front of the bulldozer you were trying to block! And then I'm supposed to feel bad for you! Alrighty then!

[scouse]

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.

The kids at Waco never even got the pretty speeches.

[wizardoz]

You noticed the Palestinian civilian thing, eh? Yeah, unless they are cops employed by the PA, they are "civilians." What do you call a Palestinian with an AK 47 and a suicide bomber belt on? A civilian. What do you call it when he blows himself up? "Another death in the struggle against occupation." What do you call it when another of 'em shoots at the IDF and they shoot back and kill him? "A civilian killed in a clash with the IDF." And if one of his buddies snatches up the AK 47 and runs with it, he becomes an "unarmed civilian blah blah blah."

[wizardoz]

That's funny, Gaza looks like it's in Israel on MY map. Oh, you must be looking at the Palestinian map, on which there is NO Israel... anywhere.

[wizardoz]

The really arrogant thing about this girl is the implicit notion that "those Israelis might not care about killing lowly Palestinians, but they will be reluctant to kill someone truly important, like me. I am a white American, and therefore I am special and protected, no matter what I do. If the Israelis kill me, there will be hell to pay. Just imagine the world outrage if anything happens to me. No, I am pretty safe because of who I am."

You are 100% right on that one.

[Blennos]

We in the West better get used to the fact that we are in a religious war,one which began over 1000 years ago. This war has chronic and acute phases: the chronic representing the normal animosity between Islam and West, the acute, hot war phase, occurring when Islam feels it has the upper hand in some area and attacks.

Israel is part of our Western civilization and is on the front lines of this war. Very determined people want to exterminate all vestiges of the non-islamic west.

While we can debate endlessly the minutiae of the foolish death of one foolish girl, we must never forget the fact that people are trying to kill us.

Either the West will have the courage and stamina to fight back or we will perish. Our display of vacillation and weakness only serves to encourage our enemy.

Blennos

[bluester]

You should check INTERNATIONAL LAW. Under coutrol (occupied territory) still doesn't make it Israeli land and possession. It's all temporary, which even reasonable Israelis acknowledge. Not that I would expect that here, obviously...Bye

[MizzouTigerRepublican]

The students in China were not advocating or siding with terrorists. That is the difference. She chose to support the PLO and that is what ended up being her downfall. Never the less the score is still....

Bulldozer 1
Communist Hippie 0

I have no sympathy for communist and terrorist sympathizers.

[sandbar]

>"It is an insult to the human heart to have to force >government officials to do their jobs properly while >digesting the fact your child has been brutally >killed .."

You should have taught your child to not throw herself under a bulldozer.

[rmlew]

Look up the term "occupied territory".
The West Bank and Gaza were not legitimately controled by a sovereign state prior to 1967. Thus Israel is not an occupying power.
The Golan Heights are occupied.

[Liberty Reigns]

http://www.peacejusticestudies.org/documents/pal_campaign.pdf

The Palestine Solidarity Global Campaign
Introduction:
The U.S-U.K led attack on Iraq has completely overshadowed the daily oppression of
Palestinians struggling to survive under the brutal Israeli occupation, which has deprived
them of the basic human rights since 1967. Israel™s occupation of the West Bank and
Gaza Strip violates international law and numerous UN Security Council resolutions.
In the Spring of 2001, after the United Nations refused to act on the recommendation of
Mary Robinson, then its High Commissioner of Human Rights to send international
observers to the Occupied Territories, a group of international activists joined
Palestinians to establish the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). Since then
hundreds of volunteers from around the world traveled to Palestine to document human
rights violations, accompany relief workers, prevent house demolitions and the uprooting
of trees and perform other tasks necessary for the survival of Palestinian communities
across the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The targeting of three ISM activists who were engaged in nonviolent direct action in the
past three weeks marks a dramatic escalation in a situation that was already desperate.
Furthermore, the corporate-owned media has for the most part ignored the killing of
Rachel Corrie and the shootings of Brian Avery and Tom Hurndall (who was left brain-
dead).
We must utilize the strength of the global peace and justice movement, which took to the
streets to try and prevent an attack on Iraq to end the Israeli occupation and act in
solidarity with the Palestinian people!
We must act now to ensure the official international observers are sent to the Occupied
Territories!
We must hold the Israeli government accountable for the targeting and killing of ISM
volunteers!
Below is an outline of a global campaign in solidarity with the people of Palestine and the
International Solidarity Movement. This campaign originated at the grassroots in
Olympia, Washington (USA), Rachel Corrie™s community.

[SJackson]

You should check INTERNATIONAL LAW. Under coutrol (occupied territory) still doesn't make it Israeli land and possession. It's all temporary, which even reasonable Israelis acknowledge. Not that I would expect that here, obviously...Bye

The West Bank and Gaza were last a part of the Ottoman Empire, they've been occupied by the Brits, Jordan and Egypt, and now Israel (in a sense, since no sovereign claims the territory). International Law in no way prohibits the IDF from operating there, any more than it did Jordan, Egypt or the UK. Particularly in the security zone established in the treaty with Egypt.

BTW, it doesn't prevent Jews from living there either, as they have for millenia, other than the near two decades of Jordanian and Egyptian control.

Facts are a *itch.

[SJackson]

The Golan Heights are occupied annexed and part of Israel. This should be off the table.

[skip2myloo]

Liberty - where do you stand on this article ??

Because of its origin, its clear that it is not objective.

Despite the complexity of the situation, I do not believe Israel targeted and then killed ISM voluteers intentionally, because it would serve no useful purpsoe for Israel.

[weegee]

Well maybe bluester can help us out by telling us just which Slovanians registered to forums under the name "bluester" are him and which are not:

There is bluester (Location: Ljubljana, Slovenia) on MusicMule.com.

That could be the same bluester recommending that eMule/eDonkey on slyck.com (google cache of said referal)

I found a user but was unable to view any details on the fileswapper "digitalinsurrection.com". Since the Slovenian bluester appears to be a file trader I'll put this match under that column.

I found "bluester" identified as Slovenian (with the title "ShareReactor Supervisor" in the forum on sharereactor.com (what looks to be another bootlegging site seeing as how one thread was on DVD ripping yet it also has political threads with some antiWOT rants from bluester).

Looks like he knows where DU is too:

(Google cached statement with DU link)"This pro-war "rally" was going on in Washington on the 26th of October while 100.000 people were marching against war."

It's plain to see that there is one file trader using the name "bluester" on many forums and that he has listed (at least twice) his home as being Slovenia. That his politics are identical to our "bluester" is supposed to be a coincidence.

Why is this troll still here?

[wizardoz]

That land is Israel. You like International Law? Like this: the UN created Israel. Get that? Your beloved UN created Israel. So if you're a big fan of International Law, you need to open your trap and swallow THAT.

[Liberty Reigns]

"Liberty - where do you stand on this article ??"

I posted it to confirm your observation about the Wendy Smith "propaganda" piece. I am of the opinion that Corrie made herself a martyr.

[Boot Hill]

veronica sez:   "These ISM characters are terrorim enablers, plain and simple."

You are being far too generous here. The ISM goes way beyond being merely terrorist "enablers", they ARE the terrorists. They have been caught red-handed acting as a distribution center for terrorist weapons and explosives and sheltering known and wanted terrorists.

--Boot Hill