Be interesting to see how this plays out -
Saw her family on Democracy Now. Her sister wrote from her letters and memos. She appeared to be a caring person ,who wanted the Palestinians to get some kind of justice.
We went to the same college. I think I was a senior when she was a freshmen.
Personally, I found her foolish and very typical of the ‘trustafarian’ ideas at the school.
That doesn’t mean I thought she should be crushed under a bulldozer though.
according to this Wall Street Journal opinion piece:
“Corrie not only backed terrorism; she also hated America. An Associated Press photo shows Corrie, her face contorted with hate, burning a U.S. flag at a pro-Saddam rally last month”
“Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old terrorism advocate from Olympia, Wash., died in a bulldozer accident yesterday. Corrie was at fault in the accident, which occurred when she stood or crouched in front of an Israeli Defense Forces bulldozer in Gaza. The bulldozers were part of an operation [clearing tunnels] from which Palestinian terrorists smuggle in weapons and explosives.”
That’s what the WSJ opinion page looks like? Damn.
Read the rest of the page. They are not an authority to me.
…Wow… Those people are douches. Straight up douches.
Good page. Thanks for the new bookmark.
The thing is, the Israelis WERE trying to close a tunnel that was used to smuggle weapons. And the bulldozer driver didn’t intentionally try to kill her - have you ever seen a D-9 Cat? The blade alone is 12 feet high. There was no way the driver could even see her. As I understand it, what was happening is that protestors would stand in front of the bulldozers, the dozers would slowly move forweard, and the protestors would eventually scramble out of the way - essentially a game of chicken. But Corrie got her foot trapped in the rubble and couldn’t move, and the dozer operator couldn’t see her, so she was crushed.
Anyway, Rachel Corrie was, in my opinion, the kind of person the KGB used to call a ‘useful idiot’. Back in the cold war, there were all kinds of peace activists that were essentially being manipulated by the Soviets. The KGB would feed money them through front organizations, feed them propaganda they swallowed hook, line, and sinker. They’d bring them on ‘fact finding’ missions to the Soviet Union and march them through Potempkin villages. They’d send them home all teary-eyed with wonder at the glory that was the modern Soviet State, then continue to fund and support their attempts to undermine U.S. policy.
I’m sure Rachel Corrie was sincere. She was just fed a lot of bullshit by a lot of bad people who then used her as propaganda against her own country.
I worked for a CAT dealership for a bit over five years. At least once a year we’d have to lock-down because of protestors.
Somehow it’s CAT’s fault. According to them. Knowingly provided the means.
I think a lot of the problem is that people don’t realize the size of the machine involved in this incident. When you say “bulldozer,” most people think of the only thing they’ve ever seen – the machines used in highway construction or land clearing. As noted by Sam Stone, those are rather small compared to the DC-9.
RSSchen, they tried protesting a few years ago at NC State’s brickyard. While I didn’t attend, I can’t imagine they made any friends – CAT is one of the mechanical engineering department’s biggest sponsors.
Israelis said they were after a tunnel. They have bulldozed hundreds of houses. This one was differerent. Sure. Special case her own fault. If they quit bulldozing houses to build settlements ,she would be alive. She was a kid ,just beginning. No threat except to time schedules.
Rachel Corrie was killed in Rafah, an area of widespread tunnel activity.
The review of the play on NYONE wasn’t impressed with the play.
If she hadn’t been standing in front of a freakin’ bulldozer she’d still be alive, too. I’m no fan of Israeli policies towards the Palestinians, and it’s a shame this young woman got killed, but the fault was entirely her own.
I can definitely respect Rachel Corrie’s passion, she had a strong cause she believed in and actually travelled thousands of miles to try and do something about it.
I do think it is foolish to get in the way of people working with huge construction/demolition equipment. It’s not safe and, it’s pretty easy to be killed in an injury.
I tend to look negatively at people with Corrie’s viewpoint in the Israel-Palestine conflict simply because I think anyone who looks at it from one side of the issue is just contributing to making things worse. I think the international community needs to view it as a conflict with two sides, both of which have valid issues and complaints, and both of which have done some unsavory things in the past and continue to do unsavory things into the future.
Furthermore, every reliable account of the story I’ve heard indeed confirms that the Israelis were there sealing up tunnels used to smuggle weapons, not bulldozing houses. The house Corrie was “protecting” was not destroyed that day, that doesn’t appear to have been the objective. I do believe the house was damaged and demolished later after it suffered structural damage.
I also dislike the popularization of the picture in the linked article in the OP. That was not the picture taken immediately prior to Corrie’s death, she was not standing in front of the bulldozer, even her fellow peace-activists say that she was sitting, not standing. Furthermore, she was sitting behind a mound of dirt and that makes it impossible for the driver to see her, she put herself into an incredibly stupid and dangerous position. There’s also dispute over whether or not she was crushed by the bulldozer. The Israeli investigation into the matter says she was killed by fallen debris, not by actually being run over by the dozer itself.
In the wake of the Corrie death Israel has started a new policy of arresting anyone who tries to get in the way of Israeli demolition teams, which is probably what they should have always done; it’s a legitimate act in the interests of public safety.