Alessan - if you haven’t already, you need to see the photos. Broad daylight, bright sunlight, fluorescent red jacket, contrasting wall of house.
Despite Palestinian sympathies I may have, I am not using this incident to colour my view of the rest of the Israeli military, or certainly the Israeli people. I think and hope that it is a one off abomination.
I also think that you - as an Israeli - should consider not finding ways to excuse it. Sometimes even the people we support or the people we trust commit horrors. I think that’s happened in this case. Were I an Israeli, I would want to acknowledge this for the horror that it was, seek an official enquiry, and distance myself and the rest of my people from such a thing.
Because as you will surely tell us, this is not - and should not - be a normal thing in Israeli military procedures. I think it cheapens your position to try and justify something like this.
So it was “natural selection in action” when Gandhi was assassinated? Martin Luther King, Jr.? Jesus of Nazareth? Stick your neck out for what you believe in, you deserve death?
After seeing this link, I question whether the driver saw her. It seems like you have pretty limited visibility in an armored bulldozer. Did the bulldozer driver run her over on purpose? Or was it an accident? Or did he drive forward knowing she was there but assumed she’d get out of the way?
Israel doesn’t have soverignity over the area, it has control of it though. Any type of rule is governed by the parts of the Geneva Convention concerning occupied territory.
Lemur866, look at the photo’s in the link istara provided, any assertation that the driver couldn’t see her is laughable.
** I blame Sharon’s policies for starting and continuing this vicious cycle**
The intifada started before Sharon was Prime Minister. The Palestinians started for 3 stated reasons:
They didn’t like the deal they were getting in the “Oslo” negotiations.
They said they were offended when Ariel Sharon walked near the Al Aqsa Mosque (aka Temple Mount).
They said that killing Jews was a good way to stop Israel, as it had worked for Hezbollah in south Lebanon.
You really ought to know something before you start blaming people. Sharon was elected by an angry Israeli electorate as a response to the intifada. The strategy of the intifada seems to be to lose the war on television. The Europeans fall for it, the Israelis don’t. A few Americans do.
Rachel Corrie
The photos show that the bulldozer blade was 10 or so feet high, and so it was unlikely that the driver could see her. There are more photos at the electronic intifada that give a better sense of proportion.
In the picture that shows the bulldozer and Rachel after she was hurt, there was no mound for Rachel to stand on for her to peek over the top of the bulldozer blade.
There is no photograph of the incident itself.
The ISM people had only one megaphone in the photos, being held by Rachel before she was hurt, so once she was down, there was no way for them to talk to the driver. The indymedia story near the bottom says there was another megaphone in use to tell the driver to stop. We don’t know what languages the various individuals used or what the driver understood.
This New York Times story says Rachel dropped to her knees when the bulldozer came close. The link to indymedia says she fell down.
Despite all these conflicting and ambiguous facts, the indymedia page says that “Photos Shows Rachel Corey Was Murdered!”. No wonder so many people don’t trust indymedia.
None of this proves that the driver wasn’t a complete idiot, or a vicious thug, of course. For driver safety in a war zone, one would think that the driver would be equipped with a radio. After all, the driver could be fired upon.
Rachel was given ample warrning by the IDF. She was told not to be in that area, she was told not to get in the way of the military or that tank, and surely she must have know that standing in front of a tank could lead to death or personal injury. The tank driver was given an order to distroy that building and faces criminal charges should he disobey. Rachel acted stupidly and died as a result. It was nobel of her to stick her neck out, and I respect her for that. But this situation could have and should have been handled better by her and her fellow protesters.
With respect to other cases where tanks killed civilians in buildings: they were given ample warning to get out (unlike the people in Israeli cafe’s), the IDF goes through great lengths to avoid civilian deaths and loses a lot of soldiers as a result. I believe they are dealing with dangerous militants, and those militants choose to hide in civilian areas, and must bare some of the responsibility.
Here’s a photo of the bulldozer the IDF uses- note the very limited visibility (due to bulletproofing) and massive size. On top of that witnesses say that she fell over backwards in front of it, which most likely means the driver wouldn’t have seen her getting run over.
I’m curious to hear your opinion on ‘the right course of action.’ What should the IDF have done, what should the driver have done, and what should Rachel have done? Not to tie your hands, but I’d like to include the possibility that the building is a weapons/bomb factory or something of that sort, not just any ol’ house in Palestine. I respect that most feel this is murder because the Israelis shouldn’t be there in the first place.
I believe that Rachel put the driver in danger since by slowing his ‘progress’ she gave militants an opportunity to attack the bulldozer. She also put the IDF forces in danger because they would have to stay in that area longer. And she put Palestinians in danger by escalating this particular situation.
My opinion: The IDF is very busy right now spray-painting the front of the bulldozer blade, in Hebrew, Arabic, English, and French, “Caution, driver has limited visibility, do not stand in front of blade, risk of injury and/or death my result.”
She’s no different than the “human shields” who will die in the war with Iraq (if there are any left who haven’t scampered for cover) and deserves just as much sympathy. Zero.
>Five americans were killed last year at the bombing at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.<
Now, these students deserve to be mourned for as victims of the Palestinian terrorists.
I find the excuses for this horrific murder beyond pathetic.
As somone else already mentioned, if not not willing to distance yourself from actions such as this one you’re as blind as the most fanatical of the suicide bombers.
Murder is murder – doesn’t matter which side commits it.
Read the different accounts, saw the photos of the scene, and examined the dimensions of the bulldozer when compared with a person.
I can’t see how this could be anything other than an accident. As an army vet, I have experience working around machines of that size, and let me tell you, none of the safety precautions make working around machinery like that safe. They just make it less dangerous. You do not tred around heavy equipment without extensive safety briefings and precautions, and you do not stand in front of a bulldozer like that and assume the driver can see you. The people in that cab have a lot on their minds during the most serene situations. When they have to watch out for snipers and terrorists, the distractibility factor gets a lot higher. Corrie’s dash and stance in front of the bulldozer was foolhardy at best. I would not even go so far as to blame the driver for not seeing her.
I also question that an IDF man would run down an American/British/French citizen on purpose. They’re not ALL bloodthirsty killers, you know. And the PR nightmare would be unimaginable.
Please note that I do not share the sentiment that she deserved “zero sympathy”. If acting like an idiot were a deathworthy crime, than NOONE would make it out of junior high school. People who say that she deserved what she got should think back to the last time they drove their pickup truck back from the bar smashed out of their minds and ask themselves if they thought they deserved death.
And yet … I Googled Corrie’s name, read her e-mail accounts and I’m not very impressed. She came off totally unprepared for the situation she placed herself in. She lacked the skill, the training, and the motivation to handle that situation properly–if indeed, there was a proper way to handle it. She was not half as intelligent as she thought she was (“I tried to learn Arabic for ‘George Bush is a tool’”? Get real.).
Corrie had just enough smarts to get herself in too far over her head, and now her family and friends have to deal with the consequences of her actions. Perhaps her friends will realize that a war zone is no place for untrained college kids.
Just read the Chronicles syopsis. Now they are an anti-war liberal paper. But what the above links AFAIK left out was the fact that right before she was run over, she slipped and fell, and thus ended up under where the dozer was going. Thus, the dozer driver was going forward, and thought she was out of the way. I am sure she was seen by him- until she fell. But you know- even though they stop pretty fast, no one is that fast. And, she wasn’t the only person around. There were many distractions, more protestors, yelling on bullhorns, etc.
In other words- he did not deliberately run over her. His route would have barely missed her, had she not fell under the tracks. We call this an “accident”. Note the lack of even partially objective links. I mean “electronicintifada” for gods sake. The pictures are clearly not sequential.
Oh, and MC? Sorry, but that area is part of Isreal. Not “occupied”- unless you mean in the sense that all of Isreal is occupying “palestinian” land, and has no right to exist. :rolleyes: There is no “palestine”, thus Isreal cannot be “occupying” “palestinian land”.
I have to challenge the connection. Civil rights workers in Mississippi did not use the “same strategy” as Rachel Corrie and the current “human shields” in Iraq. Civil rights workers worked, by registering blacks to vote and informing them of their rights and helping them with their legal problems. They weren’t there just to get between the blacks and the Klan.
I don’t see any indication that Corrie was in the area to do anything productive, like building schools or rallying Palestinians to take nonviolent legal action (truth be told, their first case should be against their own leadership, not the Israelis). Likening Rachel Corrie to civil rights workers is a vague insult to the latter.