The Cult of Rachel Corrie!!

Rachel Aliene Corrie (April 10, 1979 – March 16, 2003) was an American member of the International Solidarity Movement & a left-wing terror advocate who suffered a major deficit of common sense on March 16, 2003, when this 24-year-old Student got herself killed as she stood in front of an Israel Defence Forces bulldozer conducting anti-terror operations in Gaza. This operation was engaged in destroying tunnels used for weapons smuggling in a bid to boost security for Israeli Citizenry.   The army was searching for explosives in the border zone when Corrie was "struck as she stood behind a mound of earth that was created by an engineering vehicle operating in the area and she was hidden from the view of the vehicle's operator who continued with his work. Corrie was struck by dirt and a slab of concrete resulting in her death ... The finding of the operational investigations shows that Rachel Corrie was not run over by an engineering vehicle but rather was struck by a hard object, most probably a slab of concrete which was moved or slid down while the mound of earth which she was standing behind was moved," (The Guardian, April 14, 2003). 

Her death was ruled an accident by the Israeli Coroner, who proved that she was hidden from view of the driver by a large dirt mound & that in the cab of his Caterpillar with regulation ear protection,  he would have been oblivious to the whole sorry incident.  Just last Sunday, Israel's Defense Ministry said in a statement that it regretted "the incident in which Rachel Corrie was mistakenly hurt."

Within the coming week, her parents will be proceeding with a civil suit in Israel's courts against the IDF, Craig and Cindy Corrie, who have spent years trying to sue all & sundry are seeking an "apology" and the chance to "look their daughter's killer in the eye". Corrie's parents and her rabid supporters dispute the IDF's claim that her suicidal behaviour & consequent death was an accident.

On June 26, 2003, the Jerusalem Post quoted an Israeli military spokesman as saying that Corrie had not been run over and that the driver had not seen her:

"The driver at no point saw or heard Corrie. She was standing behind debris which obstructed the view of the driver and the driver had a very limited field of vision due to the protective cage he was working in... The driver and his commanders were interrogated extensively over a long period of time with the use of polygraph tests and video evidence. They had no knowledge that she was standing in the path of the tractor. An autopsy of Corrie's body revealed that the cause of death was from falling debris and not from the tractor physically rolling over her. It was a tragic accident that never should have happened."

"The International Solidarity Movement, to which Corrie belonged, was directly responsible for illegal behavior and conduct in the area of Corrie's death and their actions directly led to this tragedy." An IDF spokesman said “there is nothing wrong with legitimate protests. But this was simply dangerous and irresponsible. This is a combat zone. We are really sorry about what happened.”

In fact, these terror supporting activists claim she was killed deliberately & have adopted Corrie as a symbol of what they consider Israel's harsh repression of protest to "occupation". Wikipedia says that "After flying to Israel on January 22, 2003, Rachel Corrie underwent a two-day training course at ISM West Bank headquarters, before heading to Rafah to participate in ISM demonstrations.  During her training, Corrie studied tactics of "direct action."    Need I say more ..... Rachel, like thousands of other foreign 'activist's', recklessly chose to risk her life in a conflict zone where she could be harmed by soldiers who themselves are often under assault, or violent threat. I will only mention Gilad Shalit in passing here!

The Corries have suffered a setback in their quest as an Israeli judge has declined one of their key requests. The driver and his commander, who are expected to testify in the family's civil trial against the Israeli government in the coming weeks will be screened from view during testimony. Their identities have not been made public.  This is a good decision,  as I imagine the driver has suffered prolonged nightmares as a result of the media attention & international furore over the past seven & a half years,  when after all he was just 'doing his job'. 

The family has petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn the decision ~ they say seeing the bulldozer driver and his commander face-to-face would help them "feel more compassion".  ?!?!?!?!?!?   They have also tried unsuccessfully to sue Caterpillar Inc., the U.S. company that manufactured the bulldozer. They claimed the company was liable for aiding and abetting "human rights violations". The Corries have lobbied U.S. officials to pressure Israel to re-open the investigation into Rachel's death.   And if the Supreme Court doesn't rule in their favour, the Corries say the will resume lobbying U.S. officials.

Rachel Corrie appears to have been duped by ISM. In published e-mails to her family, she claimed that she was “in the midst of a genocide which I am also indirectly supporting, and for which my government is largely responsible.”  Subsequent propoganda has ignored or minimized the role of the International Solidarity Movement, which recruited Corrie to be a “human shield” in Gaza. 

On the day she died, Corrie and other ISM recruits repeatedly obstructed Israeli military bulldozers working along the Gaza-Egyptian border. In this area the Israel Defence Forces frequently uncover tunnels used for weapons smuggling. Bulldozers raze buildings that hide the entrances or serve as cover for snipers, and detonate explosives planted by Palestinian terrorists. This hyperbole parallels the language of “human shields” in Iraq to protect Saddam Hussein’s regime. In fact, when Corrie was in Gaza, the current Palestinian terror war against Israel was in its 30th month. Of the approximately 1,700 Arabs who had died in the violence up to then, 53 percent were combatants, another 13 percent Palestinians killed by other Palestinians. But of the 650 Israeli dead, 78 percent were civilians. The side deliberately targeting non-combatants ~ a war crime, not what Corrie, echoing the International Solidarity Movement, called “resistance” ~ was the Palestinian!!

ISM claims to emulate peacemakers like Martin Luther King Jr. But according to NGO Monitor, a joint project of B’nai B’rith International and Jerusalem’s Institute for Contemporary Affairs scrutinizing non-governmental organizations, “the International Solidarity Movement’s blatant support for Palestinian incitement and rejectionism is the antithesis of a human rights organization.”   Before Corrie’s death, co-founders Adam Shapiro and his wife, Huwaida Arraf, characterized “suicide operations” as “noble” and wrote that non-violent opposition made a good public relations supplement to “armed struggle.” In one such “noble operation,” just 11 days before Rachel Corrie died, a Palestinian suicide bomber murdered 17 people riding a bus near Haifa. One was 14-year-old Abigail Litle, daughter of an American Baptist minister. Her death was not an accident but a crime. The death of Rachel Corrie was a tragedy, a tragedy rooted in activism manipulated by ISM to supplement terrorism.

The simple truth: ~ where she died was a closed military operations area. The ISM, group she was with, played "chicken" with IDF bulldozers .... imagine as I do that in a war zone playing "chicken" is not the smartest thing to do.  This accident was then hi-jacked and her story misrepresented since, and, as time has worn on,  so have the outrageous lies about her death also grown.  Corrie's parents, for their part, have for years been demanding "justice" in Israel's courts, while simultaneously standing up for the palestinian cause and bringing attention to what they regard as "Palestinian suffering."

  

Here's Rachel Corrie burning a mock American flag in Gaza at a Hamas Rally, her face contorted with rage. It's a photo that never seems to accompany sympathetic articles about this pro-Palestinian radical in the mainstream media.   Many of the articles about Rachel are not really about this young American girl who died in such tragic circumstances. They are instead about promoting a hate-filled and glaringly one-sided anti-semetic view of Israel.  The International Solidarity Movement (ISM), the group with which Corrie was affiliated, is routinely described as a “peace group” in the media. Their agenda or 'proposals for peace' are very simple ..... Wipe the Jewish State of Israel off the Map!!

According to the “media co-ordinator” of the ISM, Flo Rosovski, “‘Israel is an illegal entity that should not exist” while “Armed Struggle” is a palestinian “RIGHT”.   

This, at any rate clarifies the ISM’s idea of 'Peace'. 

 

 
Craig & Cindy Corrie travelled to Ramallah to accept a plaque from Yasser Arafat on behalf of their daughter whilst they get yet another hearing in an Israeli courtroom.   Israel's courts, for their part, appear to be bending over backwards to accommodate the Corries, which is ironic given Rachel Corrie's hatred of Israel, the Middle East's only democracy.

The hypocrisy of Rachel Corrie, her parents, and their devoted supporters; not to mention the anti-Israeli bias of the mainstream media in respect to its coverage of Rachel Corrie have had very deadly consequences ..... partly because of the efforts of Corrie’s fellow activists in the ISM, the Israeli army was unable to stop the flow of weapons through the tunnels near where she was demonstrating. Those weapons were later used to kill Israeli children in the town of Sderot in southern Israel, and elsewhere. 

Imagine parents whose daughter was murdered by Palestinian authorities getting a comparable level of justice in a court room in the West Bank or Gaza.

Tomorrow I will post part two to this blog .... 'The Forgotten Rachel's', detailing some Victims of 'palestinian' terror, which I suppose is what Rachel Corrie actually is. 

And yet the Cult of Rachel Corrie continues ....