Rachel Aliene Corrie (April 10, 1979 – March 16, 2003) was an American nonviolence activist and diarist.[1][2] She was a member of the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM)[3] and was active throughout the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. In 2003, she was in Rafah, a city in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli military was demolishing Palestinian houses at the height of the Second Intifada. While protesting the demolitions as they were being carried out, she was killed by an Israeli armored bulldozer that crushed her.[4][2][5][6]
Corrie was born in Olympia, Washington, the United States in 1979. After graduating from Capital High School, she went on to attend Evergreen State College. She took a year off from her studies to work as a volunteer in the Washington State Conservation Corps, where she spent three years making weekly visits to mental patients. While at Evergreen State College, she became a "committed peace activist", arranging peace events through a local group called "Olympians for Peace and Solidarity". She later joined the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) organization in order to protest the policies of the Israeli army in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Corrie went to Gaza as part of her college's senior-year independent-study proposal to connect Olympia and Rafah with each other as sister cities.[7] While in Rafah on March 16, 2003, she joined other ISM activists in efforts to nonviolently prevent Israel's demolition of Palestinian property,[2][8][9] where she was killed by an Israeli bulldozer that crushed her.
Physicians present and fellow ISM activists stated that Corrie had been wearing a high-visibility vest and was deliberately driven over, while the Israeli army said that it was an accident because the bulldozer operator did not see her.[10][11][12][13] Following the incident, an Israeli military investigation concluded that Corrie's death was the result of an accident and that the bulldozer operator had limited visibility. The ruling attracted criticism from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B'Tselem, and Yesh Din.[14][15][16] HRW stated that the ruling represented a pattern of impunity for Israeli forces.[14]
In 2005, Corrie's parents filed a civil lawsuit, charging the Israeli state with not conducting a full and credible investigation into the case and therefore holding responsibility for her death.[17] They contended that either she had been intentionally killed or the Israeli soldiers on scene had acted with reckless neglect.[5] They sued for a symbolic US$1 in damages. However, an Israeli court rejected their suit in August 2012 and upheld the results of the military's investigation, ruling that the Israeli government was not responsible for Corrie's death,[5] again attracting criticism from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and various activists.[14][15][16] An appeal against this ruling was heard on May 21, 2014, but was ultimately rejected by the Supreme Court of Israel on February 14, 2015.[18]
Early life
Corrie was born on April 10, 1979, and raised in Olympia, Washington, United States. She was the youngest of three children of Craig Corrie, an insurance executive, and Cindy Corrie. Cindy describes their family as "average Americans—politically liberal, economically conservative, middle class".[19][20][21]
After graduating from Capital High School, Corrie went on to attend The Evergreen State College, also in Olympia, where she took a number of arts courses. She took a year off from her studies to work as a volunteer in the Washington State Conservation Corps. According to the ISM, she spent three years making weekly visits to mental patients.[21]
While at Evergreen State College she became a "committed peace activist"[2] arranging peace events through a local pro-ISM group called "Olympians for Peace and Solidarity". She later joined the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) organisation in order to protest the policies of the Israeli army in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.[2] In her senior year, she "proposed an independent-study program in which she would travel to Gaza, join the ISM team, and initiate a 'sister city' project between Olympia and Rafah".[22] Before leaving, she also organized a pen-pal program between children in Olympia and Rafah.[23]
Activities in the Palestinian territories
See also: House demolition in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and Gaza Strip smuggling tunnels
Rachel Corrie stands before Israeli military's Caterpillar D9 bulldozers
In the Gaza Strip
While in Rafah, Corrie stood in front of armored bulldozers, in an alleged attempt to impede house demolitions which were being carried out.[24] These military operations were criticized as "collective punishment" by some human rights groups.[25] Israel authorities said that demolitions were necessary because "Palestinian gunmen used the structures as cover to shoot at their troops patrolling in the area, or to conceal arms-smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border."[2] Corrie was a member of a group of about eight activists from outside of the Palestinian territories who tried to prevent the Israeli army's activities by acting as human shields.[25]
On Corrie's first night there, she and two other ISM members set up camp inside Block J, which the ISM described as "a densely populated neighborhood along the Pink Line and frequent target of gunfire from an Israeli watchtower". By situating themselves visibly between the Palestinians and the Israeli snipers manning the watchtowers they hoped to discourage shooting by displaying banners stating that they were "internationals". When Israeli soldiers fired warning shots, Corrie and her colleagues dismantled their tent and left the area.[22]
Qishta, a Palestinian who worked as an interpreter, noted: "Late January and February was a very crazy time. There were house demolitions taking place all over the border strip and the activists had no time to do anything else."[22] Qishta also stated of the ISM activists: "They were not only brave; they were crazy."[22] The safety of the protestors was frequently jeopardized by these confrontations— a British participant was wounded by shrapnel while retrieving the body of a Palestinian man killed by a sniper, and an Irish ISM activist had a close encounter with an armored bulldozer.[22]
Palestinian militants expressed concern that the "internationals" staying in tents between the Israeli watchtowers and the residential neighborhoods would get caught in crossfire, while other residents were concerned that the activists might be spies. To overcome this suspicion Corrie learned a few words of Arabic and participated in a mock trial denouncing the "crimes of the Bush Administration".[22] While the ISM members were eventually provided with food and housing, a letter was circulated in Rafah that cast suspicion on them. "Who are they? Why are they here? Who asked them to come here?"[22] On the morning of Corrie's death they planned to counteract the letter's effects. According to one of them, "We all had a feeling that our role was too passive. We talked about how to engage the Israeli military."[22]
Water-well protecting efforts
According to a January 2003 article by Gordon Murray, a fellow ISM activist, in the last month of her life Corrie "spent a lot of time at the Canada Well helping protect Rafah municipal workers" who were trying to repair damage to the well done by Israeli bulldozers. Canada Well was built in 1999 with CIDA funding. It, along with El Iskan Well, had supplied more than 50% of Rafah's water before the damage. The city had been under "strict rationing (only a few hours of running water on alternate days)" since. Murray writes that ISM activists were maintaining a presence there since "Israeli snipers and tanks routinely shot at civilian workers trying to repair the wells." In one of her reports, Corrie wrote that despite her group's having received permission from the Israeli District Command Office and the fact that they were carrying "banners and megaphones the activists and workers were fired upon several times over a period of about one hour. One of the bullets came within two metres of three internationals and a municipal water worker close enough to spray bits of debris in their faces as it landed at their feet."[26]
Burning an American flag while protesting the Iraq War
While in Gaza, Corrie took part in a demonstration as part of the February 15, 2003 anti-war protest against the invasion of Iraq. She was photographed burning a makeshift U.S. flag.[22][27]
After her death the ISM released a statement quoting Corrie's parents on the widely circulated picture of the incident:
In the words of Rachel's parents: "The act, while we may disagree with it, must be put into context. Rachel was partaking in a demonstration in Gaza opposing the War on Iraq. She was working with children who drew two pictures, one of the American flag, and one of the Israeli flag, for burning. Rachel said that she could not bring herself to burn the picture of the Israeli flag with the Star of David on it, but under such circumstances, in protest over a drive towards war and her government's foreign policy that was responsible for much of the devastation that she was witness to in Gaza, she felt it OK to burn the picture of her own flag. We have seen photographs of memorials held in Gaza after Rachel's death in which Palestinian children and adults honor our daughter by carrying a mock coffin draped with the American flag. We have been told that our flag has never been treated so respectfully in Gaza in recent years. We believe Rachel brought a different face of the United States to the Palestinian people, a face of compassion. It is this image of Rachel with the American flag that we hope will be remembered most.[28]
Corrie's emails to her mother
I look forward to seeing more and more people willing to resist the direction the world is moving in, a direction where our personal experiences are irrelevant, that we are defective, that our communities are not important, that we are powerless, that our future is determined, and that the highest level of humanity is expressed through what we choose to buy at the mall
— Rachel Corrie, email[29]
Rachel Corrie sent a series of emails to her mother while she was in Gaza, four of which were later published by The Guardian.[30] In January 2008, Norton published a book titled Let Me Stand Alone by Corrie, which included the e-mails along with some of her other writings.[31][32][33] Yale Professor David Bromwich said that Corrie left "letters of great interest".[34] The play My Name Is Rachel Corrie[18] and the cantata The Skies Are Weeping were based on Corrie's letters.
Death and subsequent controversy
Caterpillar D9R armored bulldozer
Corrie after she was mortally injured by the Israeli bulldozer
On March 16, 2003, the IDF was engaged in an operation involving the demolition of Palestinian houses in Rafah.[1] Corrie was part of a group of three British and four American ISM activists attempting to disrupt the IDF operation. Corrie placed herself in the path of a Caterpillar D9R armored bulldozer in the area and was run over by the bulldozer and fatally injured. After she was injured she was taken by a Red Crescent ambulance to the Palestinian Najar hospital, arriving at the emergency room at 5:05 pm, still alive but in critical condition. At 5:20 pm she was declared dead.[35]
The events surrounding Corrie's death are disputed. Fellow ISM activists said that the soldier operating the bulldozer deliberately ran Corrie over while she was acting as a human shield to prevent the demolition of the home of local pharmacist Samir Nasrallah.[6][22][36] They said she was between the bulldozer and a wall near Nasrallah's home, in which ISM activists had spent the night several times.[22] An IDF officer testified in court that her death was accidental because the bulldozer operator did not see Corrie due to the vehicle's obstructed view, and that on that day they were only clearing vegetation and rubble from houses that were previously demolished, and that no new houses were slated for demolition.[37]
The major points of dispute are whether the bulldozer operator saw Corrie and whether her injuries were caused by being crushed under the blade or by the mound of debris the bulldozer was pushing. An IDF spokesman has acknowledged that Israeli army regulations normally require that the operators of the armored personnel carriers (APCs) that accompany bulldozers are responsible for directing the operators towards their targets because the Caterpillar D9 bulldozers have a restricted field of vision with several blind spots.[38][39]
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