- 10 aug 2011
Iran to name street after Rachel Corrie
The City Council of Tehran has announced that a street in the Iranian capital will be named after the American activist, Rachel Corrie.
During a session on Tuesday, the council ratified a proposal to name a street after the activist, who is viewed by many as an epitome of resistance against Israel, Fars news agency reported.
According to the proposal, the 27th street of Tehran's municipal District Six will be named after Rachel Corrie.
Corrie, a 23-year-old American activist from Olympia, Washington, and a member of the International Solidarity Movement, was crushed to death in the Gaza Strip by an Israeli bulldozer on March 16, 2003, when she intervened to prevent a Palestinian home from demolition.
The Israeli Army claimed her death was due to the bulldozer driver's restricted angle of view. Eyewitnesses, however, say there was nothing to obscure the driver's view.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/193197.html
19 mar 2012, 17:45 , Respect -
Maria 17 nov 2011
Rachel - An American Conscience (Rachel Corrie)
(93:33) Rachel - An American Conscience (Rachel Corrie)
The late Rachel Corrie (1979 - 2003) was articulate, straightforward and resolute. Her castigation of Israel's military occupation of the Palestinian people and the Israeli Government's disregard for the safety of Israelis and Palestinians rang with clarity. Through peace activism she ascertained the facts on the ground. She called it as she saw it.
The documentary, "Rachel Corrie: An American Conscience," chronicles her humanitarian work with the International Solidarity Movement in Rafah, Gaza Strip, just prior to her murder in March 2003. While Corrie stood in front of a Palestinian home to prevent its demolition, an Israeli soldier in a Caterpillar D-9 bulldozer crushed her.
Director Yahya Barakat, a professor in the Mass Media and TV Department at Al-Quds University in Jerusalem, edited 80 hours of film footage from Gaza, the West Bank and Olympia, Washington for two years.
He created a cinematic collage of international voices; people who work for peace and who support the Palestinians in their daily life activities. Through interviews, Barakat presents a collective chastisement of the military occupation, the U.S. and Israeli Governments, as well as U.S. mainstream media.
19 mar 2012, 17:46 , Respect -
Maria 19 mrt 2012
PressTV - Death anniversary of Rachel Corrie marked in Gaza
(2:42) PressTV - Death anniversary of Rachel Corrie marked in Gaza 1 x viewed
14 apr 2012, 09:28 , Respect -
Maria 11 apr 2012
Verdict in Corrie Lawsuit Postponed
The announcement of a verdict in the civil lawsuit against the State of Israel for the killing of peace activist Rachel Corrie, which was scheduled for late April, has been postponed due to delays in the filing of closing arguments. A new verdict date has not yet been scheduled by the court, but is likely to be months away.
Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American peace activist and human rights defender from Olympia, Washington, was crushed to death on March 16, 2003, by an Israeli military Caterpillar D9-R bulldozer while nonviolently protesting the demolition of Palestinian civilian homes in Rafah, Gaza.
The lawsuit, filed in 2005 by attorney Hussein abu Hussein on behalf of the Corrie family, charges the State of Israel with responsibility for Rachel's killing. Oral testimony in the case began March 10, 2010. There have since been 15 court hearings at which 23 witnesses testified, producing more than 2,000 pages of court transcripts. While all witnesses for the Corrie family testified openly, including four activists from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) who were at the site where Rachel was killed, most government witnesses were identified only by their initials, and several testified behind a screen.
Each hearing was attended by officials from the American Embassy, numerous observers from local and international legal and human rights organizations, and members of the Corrie family.
The last court hearing was July 10, 2011. At that time, Judge Oded Gershon set the schedule for both sides to present written summations and closing arguments and announced he would render a verdict April 23, 2012. Multiple delays in the summation process resulted in the postponement.
Scheduling updates will be posted to the Rachel Corrie Foundation website as soon as additional information is available.
Please visit the Trial Update page of the Rachel Corrie Foundation website for updates, last minute changes to the court schedule, and related trial information.
http://www.imemc.org/article/63294 22 aug 2012, 10:16 , Respect -
Maria 22 aug 2012
Verdict In Rachel Corrie Case To Be Announced August 28
The Rachel Corrie Foundation issued a release stating that the verdict in the civil lawsuit filed by the family of American peace activist, Rachel Corrie, killed by Israel in 2003, will be announced on August 28, 2012.
The court session will be held at District Court in Haifa, at 9:00 a.m. the foundation said.
Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American from Olympia, Washington, was crushed to death March 16, 2003, by an Israeli military Caterpillar D9-R bulldozer while nonviolently protesting demolition of Palestinian civilian homes in Rafah, Gaza.
The lawsuit, filed in 2005 on behalf of the Corrie family by attorney Hussein abu Hussein, charges the State of Israel with responsibility for Rachel's killing and failure to conduct a full and credible investigation in the case.
Rachel’s father, Craig Corrie, stated that the lawsuit against Israel for killing his daughter “is just a small step in our family’s nearly decade-long search for truth and justice”.
“The mounting evidence presented before the court underscores a broken system of accountability, tolerated by the United States in spite of its conclusion that the Israeli army investigation was not thorough, credible or transparent”, Craig added.
Oral testimony in the case began March 10, 2010. There have been 15 court hearings since with 23 witnesses testifying. The trial has exposed serious chain-of-command failures in relation to civilian killings and indiscriminate destruction of civilian property at the hands of the Israeli military in southern Gaza, the Rachel Corrie Foundation said.
The Foundation added that “This trial is an attempt to hold accountable not only those who failed to protect Rachel's life but also the flawed system of military investigations which is neither impartial nor thorough," said Hussein abu Hussein, the family's attorney. "Under international law, Israel is obligated to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians from the dangers of military operations. The Israeli military flagrantly violated this principle in the killing of Rachel Corrie and it must be held accountable”.
The foundation further reported that Judge Oded Greshon will be reading the verdict that is expected to be brief, and added that the Corrie family will be holding a press conference following the court session.
The press conference will be held at the Colony Hotel, close to the court building in Haifa.
Action Alert:
http://www.imemc.org/article/64103 24 aug 2012, 16:52 , Respect -
Maria 24 aug 2012
U.S.: Israeli probe into activist Corrie’s death wasn’t ‘credible’
Israel’s investigation into the death of American activist Rachel Corrie by an Israeli bulldozer nine years ago was not satisfactory, and wasn’t as thorough, credible or transparent as it should have been, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro told the Corrie family this week.
The bereaved family – parents Craig and Cindy, and sister Sarah – are in Israel awaiting the verdict in the civil suit they had filed two years ago against the State of Israel over their daughter’s death. The ruling by the Haifa District Court is expected on Tuesday.
The U.S. government’s position is not new to the Corries, but their attorneys said that hearing it only a few days before the verdict was “important and encouraging,” because it signals to the Corrie family that the U.S. government will continue to demand a full accounting from Israel about their daughter’s killing, regardless of how Judge Oded Gershon rules.
Rachel Corrie joined in 2002 a group of International Solidarity Movement activists who had been living among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, in areas that were subject to Israel occupation forces incursions and attacks.
The activists had demonstrated in Rafah against the systematic destruction of Palestinian homes for what the IDF called operational purposes.
Corrie was crushed to death on the afternoon of March 16, 2003, by an IOF Caterpillar bulldozer, when she and her friends were standing in front of it to prevent the demolition of two Palestinian homes.
The IOF claimed that Corrie’s death was an accident, and closed the file after three weeks.
In 2005, after the military prosecutor closed the file, the family filed a civil suit against the Israeli government, accusing it of being responsible for Corrie’s death and for not conducting a full and credible investigation.
The state responded that the IOF bulldozer driver had never seen Corrie, that she should not have been in a battle zone, and that the Military Police investigation had not found any violations of the law!
http://fwd4.me/189C 28 aug 2012, 08:53 , Respect -
Maria 27 aug 2012
Rachel Corrie death: struggle for justice culminates in Israeli court
Rachel Corrie in an interview with Saudi Arabian television on 14 March 2003, two days before she was killed.
Nine years after she was killed protesting in the Gaza Strip, the verdict in a lawsuit brought by her family is about to be heard.
Her blonde hair, megaphone and orange fluorescent jacket with reflective stripes made 23-year-old Rachel Corrie easily identifiable as an international activist on the overcast spring afternoon in 2003 when she tried to stop an advancing Israeli military bulldozer.
The young American's intention was to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home in Rafah refugee camp, close to the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Scores of homes had already been crushed; Corrie was one of eight American and British volunteers acting as human shields for local families.
"She was standing on top of a pile of earth," said fellow activist and eyewitness Richard Purssell, from Brighton, at the time. "The driver cannot have failed to see her. As the blade pushed the pile, the earth rose up. Rachel slid down the pile. It looks as if her foot got caught. The driver didn't slow down; he just ran over her. Then he reversed the bulldozer back over her again."
The question of whether the driver of the Caterpillar D9R bulldozer saw the young woman in the orange jacket, and drove deliberately at and over her, has been at the centre of the Corrie family's decade-long battle for accountability and justice.
On Tuesday that struggle is set to culminate when an Israeli court gives its verdict in a civil lawsuit that the family have brought against the state of Israel.
An Israeli Defence Forces investigation has already found that its forces were not to blame and that the bulldozer driver had not seen the activist. No charges were brought and the case was closed. The IDF report concluded: "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." Corrie and other International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activists were accused by the investigators of "illegal, irresponsible and dangerous" behaviour.
But witness accounts gathered in Rafah in the aftermath of Corrie's death on 16 March 2003 suggest little doubt as to what happened. According to Tom Dale, from Lichfield in Staffordshire: "the bulldozer went towards her very slowly, she was fully in clear view, straight in front of them".
Corrie tried to scramble on top of the earth being pushed into a mound by the bulldozer blades. "Unfortunately she couldn't keep her grip there and she started to slip down. You could see she was in serious trouble, there was panic in her face as she was turning around. All the activists there were screaming, running towards the bulldozer, trying to get them to stop. But they just kept on going," Dale said. The incident lasted around six or seven seconds.
Corrie was taken by a Red Crescent ambulance to the Najar hospital, arriving at the emergency room at 5.05pm. She was still alive – just. At 5.20pm she was declared dead. It was, the Israeli military said later that day, a "very regrettable accident".
Rachel Corrie had arrived in the Holy Land on January 22, a young woman brimming with idealism, anger at injustice, and a determination to make a difference, however small.
She had volunteered for the ISM, an organisation of pro-Palestinian activists who engage in direct action against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.
After two days of training workshops, Corrie headed for Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. In early 2003, Israeli troops, tanks and armoured vehicles were a daily presence in Rafah and other cities. Snipers were stationed in watchtowers; helicopters and military planes buzzed in the skies.
The second intifada, or Palestinian uprising, had begun more than two years before, and suicide bombers were being regularly despatched from Gaza and the West Bank to cause death and destruction in Israel.
Death and destruction was also a feature of life in Gaza. Corrie was shocked by what she saw. "No amount of reading, attendance at conferences, documentary viewing and word of mouth could have prepared me for the reality of the situation here. You just cannot imagine it unless you see it," she wrote in one of her many emails to family and friends at home in Olympia, Washington state, on 7 February.
Three weeks later, she told her mother, Cindy, in an email: "I'm witnessing this chronic, insidious genocide and I'm really scared, and questioning my fundamental belief in the goodness of human nature. This has to stop. I think it's a good idea for all of us to drop everything and devote our lives to making it stop... Disbelief and horror is what I feel."
Corrie and other ISM activists in Rafah were mainly engaged in trying to obstruct house demolitions being carried out by the IDF, which said the targeted homes were suspected of sheltering militants or concealing the entrances to tunnels dug under the border with Egypt to facilitate the smuggling of weapons and explosives. The activists said the demolitions were collective punishment for the actions of a minority of militants.
The presence of international activists was a nuisance for the IDF, but the military was not to be deterred. "During war there are no civilians," an IDF training officer later told Haifa district court during a hearing into the Corrie family's civil lawsuit, implying that militants, Palestinian civilians and international activists were all legitimate targets.
A Israeli military spokesman described ISM activists as "a group of protesters who were acting very irresponsibly, putting everyone in danger — the Palestinians, themselves and our forces — by intentionally placing themselves in a combat zone."
But Corrie's death caused an outcry far greater than that of any Palestinian. According to the Observer, nine Palestinians, including a girl, 4, and 90-year-old man, were killed on the same day. But inevitably the death of young American woman made headlines around the world and caused serious diplomatic reverberations.
The next day, Israel's then prime minister, Ariel Sharon, promised US president George W Bush that Israel would conduct a "thorough, credible and transparent" investigation into the incident.
Corrie's body was taken by the Israeli authorities to the National Centre of Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv, where an autopsy was conducted. No report was published but, according to Human Rights Watch, the conclusion was that death was caused by "pressure on the chest ... with fractures of the ribs and vertebrae ... and tear wounds in the right lung with haemorrhaging of the pleural cavities".
The Corrie family was not satisfied with the IDF report. Seven years after their daughter's death, in March 2010, they launched a civil case against the state of Israel, accusing its military of either unlawfully or intentionally killing Corrie or of gross negligence. It was, said the family, "absolutely our last resort".
Sporadic hearings dragged on for 18 months. The court heard testimony from four ISM activists who witnessed the incident, but a Gaza doctor who examined Corrie's wounds was refused an entry permit to Israel to give evidence.
The driver of the bulldozer, whose identity has not been made public, testified from behind a screen for "security reasons". He repeatedly insisted that the first time he saw the activist was when she was already dying: "I didn't see her before the incident. I saw people pulling the body out from under the earth."
When the hearings ended in July last year, Corrie's mother Cindy said the family was "at this moment in much the same place as we were when they began – up against a wall of Israeli officials determined to protect the state at all costs, including at the expense of truth."
Last week, back in Israel for the verdict in the civil lawsuit, Cindy told the Guardian the ruling would be "a milestone" in the family's long battle for justice and accountability. "The lawsuit is only one part of what we've done. There has still been no 'thorough, credible and transparent' investigation into Rachel's death. Whatever happens, this is not the end."
http://fwd4.me/18KK 28 aug 2012, 09:04 , Respect -
Maria 28 aug 2012
Bulldozing the Special Relationship
The Rachel Corrie verdict should be a wakeup call to America.
Only the most naive observers would be surprised by the verdict from an Israeli court on the civil case brought by the parents of Rachel Corrie, the American activist killed in 2003 at the hands of the Israeli military. The court ruled this week that Israel was not responsible for the death of the 23-year-old student, referring to it as a "regrettable accident" that Corrie herself could have prevented by staying out of the area. But while this latest official Israeli whitewashing is not unexpected, it does raise important questions about the nature of the U.S.-Israel relationship and how far Israel can go in dealing so cavalierly with inconvenient Americans -- and, indeed, with the United States.
Corrie's story has become a case study of the impunity with which the Israeli political and legal system treats its adversaries. She was in southern Gaza during the Second Intifada with the International Solidarity Movement, an organization that stages nonviolent protests against the Israeli occupation and was then engaged in a campaign to protect Palestinian wells and homes from destruction. She was killed when she was run over by an Israeli bulldozer as she was trying to protect the home of a Gazan pharmacist, Samir Nasrallah.
The official Israeli investigation claims that the whole thing was a dreadful accident and that she had been killed by a blow to the head by a hard object, "probably a slab of concrete which was moved or slid down."
Israel's official autopsy of her death has never been released, but Human Rights Watch says the report concluded she was killed by blows to her chest, fractures of her ribs and vertebrae, and tears in her right lung.
Such injuries are consistent with the damage that might be caused to a person by a bulldozer -- contradicting Israel's version of the story.
The Israeli investigation added that she had placed herself and others in danger by being in a combat zone and that she was essentially responsible for her own death. This claim was echoed by the court, and its ruling was blasted out to the public by Ofir Gendelman, spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who tweeted that because the "tragic accident took place during 'combat activities in war' … the state is therefore not responsible."
The U.S. government has gone on record with its dissatisfaction with the official Israeli narrative, on which the court verdict was almost entirely based. "For seven years, we have pressed the government of Israel at the highest levels to conduct a thorough, transparent, and credible investigation of the circumstances of her death," U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro recently complained. However, he added, Israel considers "this case closed."
The only thing unusual about this whitewash is that the victim is an American. Israeli courts and investigations have a longstanding history of either covering up abuses against Palestinians, foreign activists, and journalists in the occupied Palestinian territories, or imposing only symbolic and pro forma penalties on military personnel found to have engaged in misconduct.
And unfortunately, the U.S. government has proved itself willing to offer little more than highly attenuated criticisms of Israeli actions when they result in the death of Americans perceived to be siding with Palestinians.
Another such incident was the killing of Turkish-American Furkan Dogan, who was shot five times by Israeli troops during the storming of the Mavi Marmara during the Gaza flotilla raid on May 31, 2010.
Again, the United States expressed official concern but did nothing to hold Israel accountable or ensure that Israel held its forces accountable.
In both of these instances, as well as others, unarmed U.S. citizens were killed by Israeli forces and subsequently accused by Israel and its supporters of being responsible for their own deaths -- in effect, of being terrorism-supporting malefactors who deserved what they got. And in both of these cases, the American reaction has been limited to expressions of concern -- pro forma in the case of Dogan and stronger but still purely rhetorical in the case of Corrie.
The sad reality is that there is a limited reserve of sympathy for the likes of Dogan and Corrie in American society, and especially American political life. Israel and its supporters have succeeded in painting them as supporters of terrorism and interloping troublemakers. As a result, these killings get nothing like the traction they ought to in U.S. public and policy discourse.
The Corrie verdict, of course, will not change that. Even if there were more of an outcry about the killing of unarmed American activists by Israeli forces, the U.S.-Israel "special relationship" is so deep-rooted that it still probably wouldn't be enough to change matters. After all, the relationship has persisted despite far greater strains in the past.
Take the June 8, 1967, Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, which left 34 American sailors dead. It has successfully been chalked up as an accident -- or an "unfortunate" occurrence -- for which there is, therefore, no plausible remedy. The incident quickly faded from the collective national memory, and efforts to raise questions about the attack have proved completely ineffective for more than 40 years.
These incidents may have not been able to dent the "special relationship," but the calculation may change if Israel is perceived as having dragged Washington into a full-fledged regional war. And that is the possibility currently looming on the horizon: If an Israeli first strike on Iran's nuclear facilities leads the United States to enter a conflict that most U.S. citizens and policymakers regard as premature and unwise, it could finally force the re-evaluation of the U.S.-Israel relationship that Corrie's death was never able to.
Ironically, the very depth of the special relationship is what makes such a scenario plausible. It would be extremely difficult for the United States to allow Israel to muddle through alone if Israel faced a powerful and effective Iranian response -- and extremely easy for Washington to find itself in over its head after entering the conflict. It's conceivable that the same set of political imperatives that would force America's hand in such a contingency would be severely undermined, or even undone, if things went dreadfully badly in the war.
But it really will take something as dramatic as a war to shake the zone of impunity that hovers around Israeli misconduct toward American activists, and even toward the United States itself. As things stand, the United States has an ally and a client in the Middle East with a level of discretion that is unusual -- if not unparalleled -- in U.S. history. And there is, as of yet, no real space to debate that reality in the American policy conversation. The Rachel Corrie verdict ought to provide an opportunity for that -- but the unfortunate reality is that it will be wasted.
Rachel Corrie ruling 'deeply troubling', says her family
(6:27) Cindy Corrie speaks to Al Jazeera
American activist's family vows to appeal against Israeli court's ruling that her death was a 'regrettable accident'
The death of pro-Palestinian activist Rachel Corrie was a "regrettable accident" for which the state of Israel was not responsible, a judge has ruled, dismissing a civil lawsuit brought by the family.
The young American had "put herself in a dangerous situation" and her death was not caused by the negligence of the Israeli state or army, said Judge Oded Gershon at Haifa district court.
The 62-page ruling found no fault in the internal Israeli military investigation which cleared the driver of the bulldozer which crushed Corrie to death in March 2003. The judge said the driver could not have seen the activist from the cab of the bulldozer.
(1:18) Rachel Corrie death: Israeli ruling 'bad day for humanity', says mother 1 x viewed
Corrie could have saved herself by moving out of the zone of danger "as any reasonable person would have done", he said. The area was a combat zone, and the US government had warned its citizens not to go there.
International activists were intent on obstructing the actions of the Israeli military and acting as human shields "to protect terrorists".
Corrie was killed on 16 March 2003, crushed under an Israeli military bulldozer while trying to obstruct the demolition of a Palestinian home in Rafah, on the Gaza-Egypt border.
The lawsuit, filed by Corrie's parents, Cindy and Craig, of Olympia, Washington state, accused the Israeli military of either unlawfully or intentionally killing Rachel or of gross negligence. The family had claimed a symbolic $1 (63p) in damages and legal expenses.
The judge said no damages were liable, but the family's court costs would be waived.
(0:52) Israels Rachel Corrie Verdict Court Rebuffs Case of Slain U.S. Activist
The family was "deeply saddened and deeply troubled" by the ruling, Cindy Corrie said at a press conference after the ruling. "I believe this was a bad day, not only for our family, but for human rights, humanity, the rule of law and also for the country of Israel."
The state had, she said, employed a "well-heeled system" to protect its soldiers and provide them with immunity. "As a family, we've had to push for answers, accountability and justice."
Rachel's sister, Sarah Corrie Simpson, said: "I believe without doubt that my sister was seen as the driver approached her." She hoped that the driver would one day "have the courage" to tell the truth.
The US government believed the military investigation was flawed, she added. Last week, the US ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, told the Corrie family that Washington remained dissatisfied with the the inquiry. Hussein Abu Hussein, the family's lawyer, said: "This verdict is yet another example of where impunity has prevailed over accountability and fairness. Rachel Corrie was killed while non-violently protesting home demolitions and injustice in Gaza, and today, this court has given its stamp of approval to flawed and illegal practices that failed to protect civilian life.
"We knew from the beginning that we had an uphill battle to get truthful answers and justice, but we are convinced that this verdict distorts the strong evidence presented in court, and contradicts fundamental principles of international law with regard to protection of human rights defenders. In denying justice in Rachel Corrie's killing, this verdict speaks to the systemic failure to hold the Israeli military accountable for continuing violations of basic human rights."
The family would appeal against the ruling to Israel's supreme court, he added.
(6:38) Rachel Corrie's family react to Israeli verdict
Also speaking after the ruling, the state's attorney said the Israeli soldiers at the scene of Corrie's death did "everything they could" to prevent harm being caused to any person.
In a statement, the Israeli justice ministry said: "The death of Rachel Corrie is without a doubt a tragic accident. As the verdict states, the driver of the bulldozer and his commander had a very limited field of vision, such that they had no possibility of seeing Ms Corrie and thus are exonerated of any blame for negligence …
"The security forces … were compelled to carry out 'levelling' work against explosive devices that posed a tangible danger to life and limb, and were not in any form posing a threat to Palestinian homes. The work was done while exercising maximum caution and prudence, and without the ability to foresee harming anyone."
According to Bill Van Esveld of Human Rights Watch, the verdict "sets a dangerous precedent in its claim that there was no liability for Corrie's death because the Israeli forces involved were conducting a 'combat operation' … The idea that there can be no fault for killing civilians in a combat operation flatly contradicts Israel's international legal obligations to spare civilians from harm during armed conflict, and to credibly investigate and punish violations by its forces."
The judge's statement that the military inquiry into Corrie's death had been without fault was "hard to reconcile with the facts", he said. "Military investigators repeatedly failed to take statements from witnesses, to follow up with the witness's lawyer, and to re-interview witnesses to clarify discrepancies."
Huwaida Arraf, a co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement, the activist organisation for which Corrie volunteered, said after the ruling: "The judge's ruling today is outrageous in so many ways, not least of which is the criticising of Rachel and the maligning of the International Solidarity Movement in an effort to place blame on all but those who killed Rachel and worked to cover it up. These are the same institutions that continue to injure and kill thousands of innocent Palestinians with no accountability. Not only does today's verdict mean that there is no justice for Rachel Corrie, but it also means that no human rights defender is safe from Israeli state violence."
At the time of Corrie's death at the height of the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising, house demolitions were common, part of an increasing cycle of violence from both sides. Palestinian suicide bombers were causing death and destruction with terrifying frequency; the Israeli military was using its mighty force and weaponry to crush the uprising.
The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) said the houses it targeted with bulldozers and shells harboured militants or weapons, or were being used to conceal arms smuggling tunnels under the border. Human rights groups said the demolitions were collective punishment. Between 2000 and 2004, the Israeli military demolished around 1,700 homes in Rafah, leaving about 17,000 people homeless, according to the Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem.
Corrie was one of a group of around eight international activists acting as human shields against the demolitions. According to witness statements made at the time and evidence given in court, she clambered atop a pile of earth in the path of an advancing Caterpillar bulldozer. Fellow activists said she was clearly within the line of sight of the bulldozer driver.
The day after Corrie's death, Israel's then prime minister, Ariel Sharon, promised US president George W Bush that Israel would conduct a "thorough, credible and transparent" investigation into the incident.
Within a month, the IDF had completed an internal inquiry, led by its chief of staff. It concluded that its forces were not to blame, that the driver of the bulldozer had not seen the activist, that no charges would be brought and the case was closed.
The Corries launched their civil lawsuit against the state of Israel as an "absolutely last resort". The case opened at Haifa district court in March 2010.
Among those giving evidence was the driver of the bulldozer, who testified anonymously from behind a screen for "security reasons". He repeatedly insisted that the first time he saw the activist was when she was already dying. He said: "I didn't see her before the incident. I saw people pulling the body out from under the earth."
The hearings ended in July last year.
http://fwd4.me/18MW
Palestinian factions denounce Corrie verdict
Palestinian leaders and factions on Tuesday slammed an Israeli court's decision which rejected accusations of negligence over the 2003 killing of American activist Rachel Corrie.
An Israeli court had cleared Israel's military of any blame for the death of Corrie, who was crushed by an army bulldozer while trying to stop the demolition of a home in Rafah in southern Gaza.
The PLO executive committee deplored what it described as "a miscarriage of justice."
"Despite the testimonies of eyewitnesses, the audio-visual evidence and the overwhelming proof that Rachel was deliberately murdered, the Israeli court insists on victimizing her again in her tragic death," senior PLO official Hanan Ashrawi said in a statement.
"This proves that once again the occupation has distorted the legal and judicial systems in Israel and that the lack of accountability for its violence and violations has generated a culture of hate and impunity," she added.
Ashrawi said Israel's practice of blaming the victim now applied to international activists and all victims of Israeli violence, and not just Palestinians.
"We must make sure that Rachel Corrie’s death is not a senseless incident," Ashrawi added.
Palestinians will continue to love and cherish Rachel and her sacrifice will always be a source of hope and a tribute to genuine humanity, she said.
'Impunity must end'
Mustafa Barghouti, the head of the Palestinian National Initiative, said the court's decision showed its complicity in war crimes committed against Palestinians and peace activists.
Describing the decision as "unjust," Barghouti said Israeli leaders and army generals should be tried at the International Criminal Court.
He also called on the US, as Israel's financial and political backer, to take a stand against Israel's recklessness.
Gaza-based MP Jamal al-Khudari said conscience of humanity would remember Corrie's murder.
"Rachel came to Gaza after she knew the truth, she came in solidarity with people who are facing occupation, killing and destruction. She stood in the face of the Israeli bulldozers which were demolishing people's homes south of Rafah."
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights extended its condolences to Corrie's family, and condemned the continued impunity for her death.
"Israel's house demolitions are a violation of Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the targeting of civilian property. Rachel Corrie was within her rights protesting this illegal activity and should not have been attacked," PCHR said in a statement
"This decision by Israel's courts is just one of the many extending immunity to Israel’s forces, including another recent case where a soldier responsible for the death of two Palestinian women received a lesser sentence that did not reflect the gravity of his crime and only resulted in 45 days of imprisonment. This air of impunity can no longer exist."
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine also condemned the court's verdict.
DFLP politburo member Qais Abdul Karim said the decision proved the role of Israel's judiciary in serving the Israeli occupation.
"This verdict confirms again the complicity of the Israeli judiciary and its courts with the occupation's army in justifying their daily crimes committed against Palestinians and internationals," he said in a statement.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=515164
Israeli court rules U.S. activist Rachel Corrie was not killed unlawfully
Rachel Corrie standing before an IDF bulldozer in Rafah
Family of Corrie, who was crushed by an IDF bulldozer during a pro-Palestinian protest in Gaza in 2003, filed lawsuit in Haifa accusing Israel of intentionally killing their 23-year-old daughter.
An Israeli court rejected on Tuesday accusations of negligence over the 2003 killing of American activist Rachel Corrie, who was crushed by an Israeli army bulldozer during a pro-Palestinian demonstration in the Gaza Strip.
Corrie's family filed the lawsuit in the northern Israeli city of Haifa in 2005, accusing Israel of intentionally and unlawfully killing their 23-year-old daughter and failing to conduct a full and credible investigation.
In a lengthy ruling read out to the court, the judge said the state was not responsible for any "damages caused" as they had occurred during what he termed war-time actions. He called Corrie's death a "regrettable accident".
http://fwd4.me/18KJ
Israeli court says Rachel Corrie was not unlawfully killed
An Israeli court rejected on Tuesday accusations of negligence over the 2003 killing of American activist Rachel Corrie, who was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer in the Gaza Strip.
Corrie's family filed the lawsuit in the northern Israeli city of Haifa in 2005, accusing Israel of intentionally and unlawfully killing their 23-year-old daughter and failing to conduct a full and credible investigation.
In a lengthy ruling read out to the court, the judge said the state was not responsible for any "damages caused" as they had occurred during what he termed war-time actions. He called Corrie's death a "regrettable accident".
A spokeswoman for the Corrie family told Ma'an in May that the investigation by Israeli military police into Rachel's death had been "careless and shoddy," as well as emotionally taxing for the family.
Israeli soldiers had signed testimonies about the events and then couldn't remember them in court, Stacy Sullivan told Ma'an.
The driver of the bulldozer that killed Rachel did not remember her name in court, or the date of the incident, Sullivan said, adding that he only knew that he had killed an American, or Westerner.
Four eyewitnesses from the International Solidarity Movement testified that Rachel was visible to soldiers in the bulldozer as it approached. According to the US State Department, a thorough, credible, and transparent investigation was never conducted.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=515049
TWITTER
joseph dana
Sarah, Craig, and Cindy Corrie in court awaiting the verdict in Rachel's case.
Verdict in Rachel Corrie trial does not look good.
death was accident says judge
Israeli judge in Rachel Corrie case: state not responsible for any damage. plea denied
Israel might want to consider changing its name to 'impunity' after this verdict in the Rachel Corrie case.
No one should surprised by this verdict. Even the US ambassador to Israel said the Rachel Corrie trial has been horribly mismanaged
Israel has been arguing for years that Palestinians and their supporters must adopt non-violence. This is exactly what Rachel Corrie did
Israeli judge argues that the state of Israel is not liable for what occurred during "combatant activities"
Big loser in Rachel Corrie Verdict: Israeli society, who don't even realise they are watching the destruction of their legal institutions
State and army absolved of responsibility killing
all claims of negligence dismissed. family will not have to pay costs of case
Harriet Sherwood At Haifa court for Rachel Corrie verdict. Saw parents this morning - they seem pretty calm. No one betting on result
verdict due at 9am Israel time.
Corrie family amid scrum of cameramen (yes, all men). Courtroom packed
Family of Rachel Corrie anxiously awaits verdict in case against Israeli gov over her death
verdict has 62 pages. judge will read summary
death was accident says judge
state not responsible for any damage says judge Rachel Corrie. plea denied
Rachel Corrie judge says there was no fault in military investigation which cleared IDF of responsibility for RC's death
Judge says Rachel responsible 4 own death”
Rachel was in closed military zone, says judge. bulldozer driver did not see her.
'deceased cd have saved herself by moving away. no negligence by state of army. negligence of deceased is what caused death'
all claims of negligence dismissed. family will not have to pay costs of case
29 aug 2012, 13:20 , Respect -
Maria 29 aug 2012
Rachel Corrie verdict highlights impunity for Israeli military
Amnesty International condemns an Israeli court’s verdict that the government of Israel bears no responsibility in the death of Rachel Corrie, saying the verdict continues the pattern of impunity for Israeli military violations against civilians and human rights defenders in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).
The verdict shields Israeli military personnel from accountability and ignores deep flaws in the Israeli military’s internal investigation of Corrie’s death.
“Rachel Corrie was a peaceful American protester who was killed while attempting to protect a Palestinian home from the crushing force of an Israeli military bulldozer,” said Sanjeev Bery, Middle East and North Africa advocacy director for Amnesty International USA.
“More than nine years after Corrie’s death, the Israeli authorities still have not delivered on promises to conduct a 'thorough, credible and transparent' investigation. Instead, an Israeli court has upheld the flawed military investigation and issued a verdict that once again shields the Israeli military from any accountability."
The verdict, issued by Judge Oded Gershon in the Haifa District Court, maintains that the Israeli military is not responsible for "damages caused" because the D9 Caterpillar bulldozer was engaged in a combat operation in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on 16 March, 2003.
International humanitarian law prohibits the destruction of property unless required by imperative military necessity, and requires that in any military operation, constant care is taken to protect civilians.
“Rachel Corrie was clearly identifiable as a civilian, as she was wearing a fluorescent orange vest when she was killed,” said Bery.
“She and other non-violent activists had been peacefully demonstrating against the demolitions for hours when the Israeli military bulldozer ran over her.”
By upholding the flawed Israeli military investigation, completed within one month of Rachel Corrie’s death in 2003, the verdict seems to have ignored substantial evidence presented to the court, including by eyewitnesses. The full military investigation has never been made public, but US government officials have stated that they do not believe the investigation was 'thorough, credible and transparent.'
Amnesty International has made similar criticisms of Israel’s system of military investigations for many years. For example, the organization has monitored the investigations carried out by IDF commanders and the Israeli military police into violations during Operation "Cast Lead", launched by Israeli forces on 27 December 2008, in which hundreds of unarmed civilians in the Gaza Strip were killed.
Israel’s military investigations have lacked independence, impartiality, transparency, appropriate expertise and sufficient investigatory powers. The failure of both Israel and the Hamas de facto administration to conduct credible investigations into violations committed during the conflict led Amnesty International to call for the Gaza situation to be referred to the International Criminal Court.
Palestinian civilians from the OPT are killed or injured by the Israeli military all too frequently, but they face significant barriers in accessing Israeli civil courts, which means that Israeli civil courts rarely examine the killings of civilians in the OPT, particularly those in Gaza. Steep court fees required of claimants before the case can begin are beyond the means of most Palestinians. As part of Israel’s continuing closure of the Gaza Strip, the Israeli authorities deny Palestinian victims or witnesses from Gaza permission to enter Israel to testify in court, lawyers from Gaza cannot represent clients before Israeli courts, and Israeli lawyers cannot enter Gaza to meet with clients.
Amnesty International has repeatedly condemned Israel’s policy of demolishing homes and other structures in the OPT, but demolitions are still routine in the occupied West Bank. More than 600 structures were demolished in 2011, resulting in the forcible eviction of almost 1,100 people. In the first seven months of 2012, the Israeli military demolished 327 structures in the West Bank, displacing 575 people, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
http://rx.hu/MpyM
Hamas condemns the acquittal of Corrie’s murderers
Hamas Movement condemned the Israeli court's decision to acquit the Israeli occupation army of killing American activist Rachel Corrie.
Corrie was crushed to death by an army bulldozer when she was trying to prevent demolition of Palestinian homes in Rafah on March 16, 2003.
An official source in the movement said: "We, in Hamas, strongly condemn this Zionist unjust decision acquitting the criminal killers ... we consider this acquittal an offense to be added to the series of racist crimes against the Palestinian people and the supporters of its just cause."
"It (the acquittal) represents a desperate attempt to discourage activists and supporters of the Palestinian people from continuing supporting them against the occupation policies and criminal plans", the source added.
The Islamic resistance movement also denounced the silence of the international community and United States regarding this acquittal, and called on human rights and humanitarian organizations to prosecute the Zionist war criminals for their persistent crimes against the Palestinian land and people.
http://fwd4.me/18OC 30 aug 2012, 08:34 , Respect -
Maria 30 aug 2012
Rachel Corrie congressman not surprised by verdict
Brian Baird
A retired 6-term congressman who represented slain activist Rachel Corrie's district said Thursday he was unsurprised by an Israeli court verdict to dismiss a civil suit filed by the family.
Democrat Brian Baird of Washington said the trial was undermined by Israel's failure to conduct a transparent investigation into the 2003 killing of his constituent in Gaza.
"The verdict was not a great surprise" because the outcome resulted from "a process that seemed designed to obfuscate the facts rather than clarify," the ex-lawmaker said in a telephone interview from Seattle.
"Sadly, as I've come to understand, this is standard operating procedure" for many complaints alleging Israeli military misconduct, he said. "The case was dismissed without proper consideration."
Baird, who served six terms in the US House of Representatives before retiring in 2010, was among the first officials to call for a US investigation into Corrie's death. No American inquiry was formed, but the former lawmaker has continued to support the family's fight for accountability in Israeli courts.
The suit by Cindy and Craig Corrie sought a symbolic $1 in damages for the death of their daughter, who was crushed to death by an armored bulldozer as she protested against home demolitions in Gaza. Their case accused Israel of intentional and unlawful killing and failing to investigate.
On Tuesday, a judge dismissed the suit and said Israel was not to blame for any "damages caused" as they occurred during wartime. He said Corrie's death was a "regrettable accident," and added that she "did not distance herself from the area, as any thinking person would have done."
Former President Jimmy Carter responded that the "killing of an American peace activist is unacceptable," and urged the US to use "all reasonable means to ensure that the rights of its citizens are protected overseas and that justice is done for the Corrie family."
Reactions to the verdict were muted in Washington. Israel enjoys considerable support from both major parties. Lawmakers are also preparing for a November presidential election.
The PLO general delegation to the US said it was "dismayed" by the Obama administration's silence.
"We strongly believe that the failure of US officials to support the Corries only sustains Israeli policies of harassment, intimidation, and coercion against American supporters of the Palestinian people," it said.
US position 'unchanged'
Baird too said he regretted that the case never became a top foreign policy priority.
"In the early days after Rachel's death, there was extraordinary compassion," he said, emphasizing that certain officials in the State Dept. had done an "outstanding job" in support of the family. However, he added, "There was not the same level of support from Congress."
Cindy Corrie, meanwhile, said the US ambassador to Israel, Daniel Shapiro, had informed the family this week that the US position on Israel's investigations remained unchanged. Shapiro was referring to remarks by a State Dept. official under the Bush administration who said Israel had failed to conduct a "thorough, credible and transparent" investigation, Corrie told reporters on a conference call.
State Dept. spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Tuesday she could not comment on a closed meeting and declined to give an official position on the verdict. But she said the US understood the family's disappointment. "We reiterate our condolences to the Corrie family on the tragic death of their daughter," she said.
Baird, the former congressman, recalled being unprepared in 2003 for the extent of the antagonism he would face from Israeli officials and lobbyists after he proposed an independent investigation into the killing.
"Representatives of the Israeli government resisted providing full information, and in some cases provided false information," he said of the responses to his requests for information.
In one instance, "I was personally and repeatedly told by representatives of Israel and representatives of AIPAC that the bulldozer driver was suffering from a deep depression and undergoing therapy. That was in direct contrast to the (future) hearing where he implied he had little recollection of the event."
"At that time I was not saying Israel was culpable, but it was necessary to ask for an investigation ... We had a responsibility if it was any country -- friendly or unfriendly."
Ultimately, he said, the Corrie verdict put a spotlight on the many barriers to justice faced by Palestinians.
"This is not a rare event for Palestinians. Those individuals often get far less official due process. I trust that the Corries' motivation is partly to highlight this fundamental characteristic for Palestinians," he said. "I admire tremendously the Corrie family for pursuing it."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=515558
Carter Center Calls to Hold Israel Accountable for Corrie's Death
The Carter Center to advance peace and health worldwide issued a press release on Wednesday, in which it called to hold Israel accountable for the killing of Rachel Corrie.
Corrie was an American activist who was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer while she was peacefully participating in a demonstration to prevent the demolishing of Palestinians homes in the Gaza Strip in 2003.
On August 28, the district court in Israel ruled the State of Israel not responsible for the 2003 killing of Corrie.
The release said that Israel’s policy of home demolitions has been widely criticized by human rights organizations as a form of collective punishment.
“It violates Israel’s obligations under the Geneva Conventions. The Corrie family sued the state of Israel for $1 in damages plus legal expenses,” it said.
US Ambassador to Israel, Daniel Shapiro, and human rights groups and have criticized Israel’s investigation of the case for a lack of thoroughness, transparency, and credibility.
“The killing of an American peace activist is unacceptable,” said former US President Jimmy Carter. “The court’s decision confirms a climate of impunity, which facilitates Israeli human rights violations against Palestinian civilians in the Occupied Territory.”
Approximately 94 percent of Israeli military investigations of soldiers suspected of violent criminal activity against Palestinians and their property end without indictments, according to the Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din.
Moreover, 91 percent of investigations into crimes committed by Israeli civilians against Palestinians in the Occupied Territory also end without indictment. In this case, the district court judge ruled that the driver’s of the bulldozer could not see her, despite the eyewitness’s testimony that was contradictory.
In response to the verdict, Rachel Corrie’s parents Cindy and Craig stated “We are deeply saddened and troubled by what we heard today in the court of Judge Oded Gershon. This was a bad day! Not only for us, but for human rights, for humanity, the rule of law, and the country of Israel…Rachel was a human being who deserved accountability, and we as her family deserve that too.”
In contrast, the family of James Miller, an Emmy Award-winning British filmmaker killed by Israeli forces in Rafah two months after Corrie’s death, ultimately received over $2 million in damages from the Israeli government. The government of the United Kingdom had threatened to seek the extradition of the Israeli soldiers in question.
“I hope that the US government will use all reasonable means to ensure that the rights of American citizens are protected overseas and that justice is done for the Corries family,” said Carter.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=20563
UN Expert: “The Rachel Corrie Verdict, a Defeat for Justice and Accountability, a Victory for Impunity”
Thursday 30th August, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Richard Falk, condemned this week's ruling by an Israeli judge blocking a civil suit filed by the family of a young American activist killed by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza, in 2003. This is his statement:
"On 28 August, the Haifa District Court in Israel dismissed a civil damages law suit initiated by the family of Rachel Corrie, a young American peace activist, who on March 16, 2003, was killed by an Israeli armed bulldozer in the Rafah region of Gaza. Judge Oded Gershon ruled that her death was 'a regrettable accident,' blaming the victim for her own death because 'any thinking person' would have stayed away. The judge's decision represents a defeat for justice and accountability, and a victory for impunity for the Israeli military.
Rachel Corrie was protesting the demolition of the home of the Nasrallah family in Rafah, where she had been a volunteer for the International Solidarity Movement. The court ignored the testimony of several eyewitnesses that, while non-violently protesting the demolition, Corrie was in the direct line of vision of the bulldozer driver and was wearing a bright florescent orange vest that made her clearly visible at the time of her gruesome death. Judge Gerson accepted the Israeli military's declaration that all of southern Gaza was 'a war zone,' in which security concerns were paramount and in which Israeli military commanders asserted that merely by being present, persons 'made themselves a target.'
The judge ruled that there were no grounds for imposing any penalty on Israel, exonerating both military and political officials, from those on the ground in Gaza driving the bulldozers and commanding the troops, to the highest levels of decision-making. In so doing, Judge Gershon seemed to endorse the view of a reportedly high-ranking officer who told the court that there are 'no civilians in war.'
Such a shocking rationale flies directly in the face of the Geneva Conventions, which impose on an occupying power an unconditional obligation to protect the civilian population. Additionally, by Article 10 of the Fourth Geneva Convention a humanitarian aid worker such as Rachel Corrie is specifically entitled to protection by occupying forces, and the house demolition itself seemed an unlawful encroachment on Article 147, which prohibits targeting civilian property, in this case a home belonging to a civilian pharmacist, his wife and children.
This is a sad outcome, above all for the Corrie family that had initiated the case back in 2005, but also for the rule of law and the hope that an Israeli court would place limits on the violence of the state, particularly in relation to innocent and unarmed civilians in an occupied territory.
Israeli governmental institutions have consistently embraced impunity and non-accountability in responding to well-documented violations of international humanitarian law and in many cases Israel's own criminal law. It is impossible to separate the outcome here from a pattern of similar results exonerating military actions and the political leaders who ordered them, in Israeli investigations of the killing of Palestinian civilians during the Operation Cast Lead attack on Gaza or the commando assault in 2010 on Turkish ships filled with activists bringing humanitarian supplies to the blockaded people of Gaza.
The Corrie family has announced their intention to appeal this verdict to the Israel Supreme Court. But it becomes a mockery of justice to leave their application to the partisan mercies of the Israeli judicial system. Even the U.S. ambassador to Israel told the Corrie family that Israel's military investigation, which Judge Gerson had approved, was not 'thorough, credible, and transparent.' Has not the time finally arrived where the states parties to the Geneva Conventions should act to fulfill their duty under Article 1 'to respect and ensure respect' for the obligations of the treaty 'under all circumstances."
http://rx.hu/mFjp
On Lieberman, the Corries and Shiite extremists
By Khalid Amayreh in occupied Jerusalem
The Zionist-Stalinist foreign minister of the apartheid Israeli regime is asking President Muhammed Mursi of Egypt to commit political and moral suicide by visiting Israel and holding meetings with its leaders who are actually certified war criminals, who carry on their dirty hands tons of innocent Arab, including Egyptian, blood.
Lieberman is by no means a normal human being. Even his colleagues in the Knesset or Israeli parliament call him a thug in a politician's clothes. One Arab Knesset member referred to the fascist-minded minister as a "real thug disguised as a politician."
Lieberman has a long history of moral depravity and political gangsterism. About two decades ago, he physically assaulted a child, claiming the school kid beat his son. During the second intifada or Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation 2000-05), he urged the Israeli air-force to carry out sustained aerial bombing of Palestinian streets, grocery stores, banks, schools, and community center in order to force as many Palestinians as possible to leave their homes.
"Carry out the bombing while keeping the border crossings opened," he said during an Israeli cabinet session.
A few years later, he proposed that the Israeli government "dump" all Palestinian political and resistance prisoners into the Dead Sea.
In fact, Lieberman's morbid thoughts have a beginning but have no end. The man is simply a criminal, evil beast walking on two legs. In truth, had Lieberman been living in a country that respects itself, he probably would have found his way behind bars a long time ago.
But Israel is a racist entity par excellence; it is a country where "politicians" like Lieberman seek and find personal and ideological fulfillment.
And now the thuggish foreign minister has the audacity to invite President Mursi to have audience with nefarious child killers such as Shimon Peres, Benyamin Netanyahu and himself.
Has Lieberman forgotten that a visit by the elected leader of the most important Arab country would decapitate Mursi's political career once and for all? The visit would have disastrous moral ramifications for many years to come, so much so that Mursi and the Muslim Brothers would have a hard time looking any Egyptian, Arab or Muslim in the Eye as a result of the monumental shame and embarrassment the Islamist camp would suffer.
Indeed, the catastrophic legacy that such a visit would bequeath would keep the Islamists busy for half a century to fix the damage.
We know quite well that Mursi is not a naïve leader, and we know that the imminent president of the largest Arab country wouldn't even pay the slightest attention to Lieberman's inauspicious invitation.
In the final analysis, there is a gulf of blood and fire between Muslims and Israel. This gulf would have to be bridged before real peace can be achieved in the region.
The slate would have to be made thoroughly clean first, Mr. Evet, and you might even have to return home to Moldova before Muhammed Mursi could ever set foot in occupied Palestine.
The Corries face to face with Israeli racism
The family of Rachel Corrie, the young American peace activist who was crushed by an Israeli army bulldozer during a 2003 demonstration in the occupied Gaza Strip, has been facing a really unenviable situation, having to be affronted face to face with the brutal ugliness of Israeli Jewish racism.
An Israeli civil court in Haifa this week exonerated the Israeli occupation army in the murderous death of Rachel Corrie.
The decision, say observers who have been closely monitoring the Corrie case, underscores the ignominious subservience of the Israeli justice system to the Israeli military dictatorship.
It also affirms the enormity of the anti-gentile hatred infesting the collective Israeli psyche at a time when Israel is becoming more Talmudic (e.g. more fascist) and drastically less democratic.
In recent years, many rabbis of influence have made seriously scandalous statements denigrating even negating the humanity of non-Jews. For example, Ovadia Yosef, one of the most prominent and influential religious figures in Israel was quoted as saying that non-Jews were created by the Almighty for no reason other than serving Jews, the Master Race.
Another rabbi affiliated with the Nazi-like Chabad cult went as far as saying that according to the Talmud, it was perfectly permissible for a Jew to murder a gentile in order to harvest his or her organ if the Jew needed one.
The Corries deserve our sympathy and empathy. Their daughter has actually been murdered twice by the evil entity called Israel, which unfortunately controls the American political arena in no superficial manner: First time when the young activist was crushed by the American-manufactured bulldozer in 2003 and, second, this week by the racist Israeli court, which acquitted the murderers of any wrong doing.
We Palestinians are too familiar with the racist criminality of the Israeli justice system. Thousands upon thousands of Palestinian civilians, including children, were likewise murdered twice, first by the Nazi-like Israeli soldiers and settlers, and, second, by Zionist "judges," who believe that the very life of a gentile has no sanctity.
Three years before I was born in 1957, Israeli troops murdered my three uncles near the village of al-Burj, 24 kms south west of Hebron. Fifty eight years later, Israel is yet to even acknowledge the heinous crime let alone issue a simple mea culpa. When will Jews apologize for crimes committed by Jews against gentiles? Perhaps when kosher pigs would fly!!
Shiite extremists
In recent weeks, some ignorant Shiite extremists have been attacking and vilifying me personally for my principled stance in support of the Syrian revolution against the cultic, murderous and sectarian regime of Bashar el-Assad.
The media thugs, who are likely to be hired and paid by Hizbullah and/or the Iranian intelligence, have also been bad-mouthing prominent Muslim scholars, such as Sheikh Yousef al Qaradawi, as well as Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, calling Sunni Islamic groups "the Ikhwan of America." Qaradawi has been called the "NATO sheikh" and the Syrian freedom-fighters called "America's fighters."
The dark embrace between Iran and the Syrian regime, which is carrying out a real genocide against its own people, leaves no choice for honest people, irrespective of religion, culture and race, but to identify with the oppressed people of Syria.
Siding with the regime only spells moral depravity and bankruptcy. Indeed, identifying with Bashar el Assad's genocidal cult is tantamount to entering into an alliance with Hitler, Stalin and other mass murderers throughout history.
I hope and pray that these media thugs don't represent Shiites everywhere. Eventually, we have to draw a line of distinction between the Shiites of Muhammed and the Shiites of Iblis (the devil.) Unfortunately, in light of the hard evidence available, we have no choice but to consider the murderers of our people in Syria as the soldiers of Satan.
Needless to say, those who decapitate toddlers and children and rape women in Syria and then shout rather hysterically Hussein! Abbas! Mahdi! have lost not only their Islam, but their humanity as well.
Some of these fanatical ignoramuses try to hide behind the thin façade of the Palestine cause as well as anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism.
But this is exactly the ultimate insult to Palestinians and their enduring, just cause. Well, since when exterminating the Sunni Muslims of Syria, on the ground that they are no longer willing to tolerate the Alawite tyrant, was a sine qua non for liberating Palestine and combating American imperialism and Zionism?
The truth of the matter is that Shiite fanatics who embrace the evil regime of Assad are destroying all bridges with their Sunni Muslim brothers, which means that they only have themselves to harm.
Assad and his nefarious cultic regime will ultimately be consigned to the dustbin of history sooner or later. But history will document the fact that the bulk of Shiites, including Iran and Hizbullah, chose to side with the butcher of Damascus, purely for sectarian considerations. The Shiites will only have themselves to blame.
http://rx.hu/Z7TN
Resheq: Judaization policy will not succeed in changing facts
Izzat al-Resheq, Hamas political bureau member, confirmed that the Israeli policy of Judaization and falsification of history will not succeed in changing facts.
Resheq denounced the recent Israeli Judaization project at Umayyad palaces near al-Aqsa mosque and others. He stressed that such Judaization and falsification projects will not succeed to change Jerusalem's Arab and Islamic features.
On the other hand, he described the Israeli Central Court in Haifa's decision to exonerate the Israeli occupation army of the murder of American activist Rachel Corrie as a disgrace to the international human rights treaties.
He noted that the court's decision will not stop the human activists' supportive campaigns in solidarity with the Palestinian people and against the occupation's criminal policies.
http://rx.hu/5HG2
PLO office in US 'appalled' by Corrie verdict
The General Delegation of the PLO to the US said Wednesday it was "appalled" by the outcome of a civil trial seeking accountability for the killing of American peace activist Rachel Corrie.
The US mission in Washington "is appalled, though not surprised, by the verdict of Israeli Haifa district court to exonerate the Israeli armed forces in the case of Rachel Corrie," a statement said.
"The verdict shows the extent of impunity the Israeli judicial system is providing to those who commit crimes against Palestinians and international supporters."
The PLO mission also criticized the "silence" of the Obama administration and lawmakers.
"Rachel Corrie was an American citizen who supported the Palestinian people in their struggle against Israeli collective punishment policies of home demolition," the statement said.
The mission is "dismayed by the silence of US officials from the administration and Congress. We strongly believe that the failure of US officials to support the Corries only sustains Israeli policies of harassment, intimidation, and coercion against American supporters of the Palestinian people."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=515594 31 aug 2012, 09:51 , Respect -
Maria 31 aug 2012
AMNESTY Denounces Verdict In Rachel Corrie’s Case
AMNESTY International issued a statement, on Wednesday, denouncing the Israeli court ruling in the case of the murder of American Peace Activists, Rachel Corrie, in Rafah in 2003. The court ruled that the soldier, who crushed her to death with his bulldozer, was not at fault.
“The verdict continues the pattern of impunity for Israeli military violations against civilians and human rights defenders in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT)”, AMNESTY reported, “he verdict shields Israeli military personnel from accountability and ignores deep flaws in the Israeli military’s internal investigation of Corrie’s death.”
The verdict on Rachel’s murder case was read by the Israeli District Court in Haifa on Tuesday.
AMNESTY said that the full report of the Israeli investigation into the death of Rachel was never fully made public. U.S. officials also said that they do not believe the investigation was thorough and transparent.
Rachel Corrie was killed at age 23, on March 16, 2003; in Rafah in the southern part of the Gaza Strip while trying to prevent the army from demolishing a Palestinian home. She was in Rafah along with several activists of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM).
“Rachel Corrie was a peaceful American protester who was killed while attempting to protect a Palestinian home from the crushing force of an Israeli military bulldozer,” said Sanjeev Bery, Middle East and North Africa advocacy director for Amnesty International USA. – AMNESTY reported, “More than nine years after Corrie’s death, the Israeli authorities still have not delivered on promises to conduct a 'thorough, credible and transparent' investigation. Instead, an Israeli court has upheld the flawed military investigation and issued a verdict that once again shields the Israeli military from any accountability.”
Full AMNESTY Report
Rachel Corrie verdict highlights impunity for Israeli military
http://www.imemc.org/article/64160
Al-Mezan: acquittal of Corrie's murderers a green light for more crimes
Director of al-Mezan center for human rights, Issam Younis, considered the acquittal of murderers of American activist Rachel Corrie a new moral disgrace and a proof of the weakness of the Israeli legal system.
Rachel Corrie was killed in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip in 2003 after being run over by an Israeli military bulldozer while she was trying to prevent the demolition of Palestinian houses.
Issam Younis stated in a press release on Thursday that such crime should be considered as a war crime requiring the prosecution of those who committed the evil deed.
He added that the Israeli judiciary has been providing political, legal and security cover for the occupation crimes and granting Israeli soldiers immunity and helping them escape punishment.
The human rights activist said that such resolution represents a green light to move forward in committing more crimes, as long as the soldier is immune and above the law, stressing that justice in Corrie's case requires punishing those who ordered as well as those who committed the murder.
According to al-Mezan center director, the resolution is designed to deliver a message to the international peace activists that they are not immune from occupation crimes, even if it comes to murder. “It is a desperate attempt to stop the international solidarity with Palestinians,” he said.
Younis confirmed that the continued silence of the international community regarding the crimes committed in the Palestinian occupied territories encourages the occupation to ignore the rules of international law and to commit more crimes, which threatens international peace and security.
He further stressed that the international community is required to protect the Palestinian civilian and their properties in the occupied territories, and to ensure the respect of the rules of international law. This requires the prosecution of Israeli war criminals.
2 sep 2012, 08:34 , Respect -
Maria 1 sept 2012
Anti-wall marches held in solidarity with slain activist Rachel Corrie
Some anti-wall marches of the West Bank on Friday afternoon were dedicated to advocating the issue of slain peace activist Rachel Corrie who was crushed brutally to death by an Israeli military bulldozer in March 2003.
The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) as usual attacked these marches and others held in memory of Palestinian caricaturist Naji Al-Ali.
Many protestors sustained injuries from the fairing of tear gas grenades and rubber bullets. The IOF also used wastewater to disperse them.
In Bil'in village west of Ramallah city, protestors were attacked intensively as they reached near the segregation wall in Abu Leimun area.
The IOF also suppressed the peaceful march held in Kafr Qaddum village near Nablus and kidnapped a 16-year-old boy named Firas Jum'ah, a protestor from the village.
The marches against the wall and settlement held in Masarah and Nabi Saleh villages was also quelled by the troops and prevented from reaching the annexed Palestinian lands.
Several injuries were reported in these two marches especially two young men and one girl from Nabi Saleh village who suffered different wounds when Israeli soldiers showered their march with a barrage of bullets and tear gas grenades.
5 sep 2012, 10:57 , Respect -
Maria 5 sept 2012
Israel says “Rachel made me do it”
By Lawrence Davidson
Lawrence Davidson argues that behind the Israeli court ruling that Rachel Corrie, the US peace activist who was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer while trying to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home, lies a culture of pathological racism that considers all Palestinians and their allies as terrorists.
The death of Rachel Corrie
On 16 March 2003, the last day of her life, 23-year-old Rachel Corrie was in the Gaza town of Rafah standing in front of the Palestinian family home (not just a house) of Dr Samir Nasrallah. Dr Nasrallah was a local pharmacist and Corrie had been staying with his family while serving as part of an International Solidarity Movement (ISM) cadre seeking to disrupt the Israeli army’s on-going demolition of Palestinian homes. Between 2000 and 2004, the Israelis had destroyed enough homes in the Rafah area to leave some 1,700 people homeless.
The Israeli army claimed they did this because these homes were used as “terrorist hiding places”. The result, they claimed, was frequent gunfire at Israeli settlements and soldiers. Yet for the time that Corrie stayed with the Nasrallahs, everyone in the home had slept on the floor and away from the windows to avoid a constant barrage of gunfire from Israeli snipers.
On the day that Corrie died, she had interposed herself between the Nasrallah home and a very large “D9R” armoured Caterpillar bulldozer driven by an Israeli soldier. This was one of those infamous, made-in-the-USA machines sold to Israel by Caterpillar Inc. even though the company’s chief executive, Board of Directors and sales staff know that their product is used to destroy homes in ways that violate international law.
(2:06) Rachel Corrie death: eyewitness attacks 'implausible' Israeli verdict 2 x viewed stood 20 to 30 metres from Corrie, who was wearing a high visibility fluorescent orange jacket and was speaking through a megaphone calling for the bulldozer driver to stop or turn away. The tractor moved toward her and the home slowly, in an operation the Israeli army later described as the “clearing of vegetation and rubble” so as to remove “explosive devices”. As it approached, the driver lowered the blade and began accumulating a mound of dirt and debris as the machine went along.
(2:06) Rachel Corrie death: eyewitness attacks 'implausible' Israeli verdict 2 x viewed
When the bulldozer was close to the outer wall of the Nasrallah home, Corrie climbed on top of the accumulating debris. At that point she was so positioned that she could look directly into the driver’s cab, and the driver could look directly out at her, from no more that three or four metres. The machine kept coming. In the next few seconds, she lost her balance, fell backwards, and was run over twice by the bulldozer blade. The bulldozer driver later testified that he never saw Corrie until he noticed “people pulling the body our from under the earth”.
There was, of course, an internal military investigation of the incident, an investigation that then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon promised then President George W. Bush would be “thorough, credible and transparent”. Senior US officials, including the US ambassador to Israel, Daniel Shapiro, later observed that the military investigation was none of these things. The military exonerated both the driver of the bulldozer and his commander, saying that neither had seen Corrie and also they weren’t even trying to destroy the Nasrallah home that day.
The judgment followed a long-standing practice of the Israeli military, reconstructing scenarios after the fact in order to rationalize just about any action soldiers take against the Palestinians, no matter how criminal. In the Rafah area during the years that Corrie and other ISM volunteers worked there, the Israeli military was in the habit of targeting Palestinian children, killing some 400 of them, one-quarter of whom were under the age of 12. In almost all cases there was no penalty for committing these murders. The practice of granting immunity has also been followed by Israeli police and courts in the case of crimes committed by Israeli civilians, especially settlers, against Palestinians. To date, “91 per cent of investigations of such criminal acts committed by Israelis against Palestinians and their property are closed without indictments being served.”
The Corrie family civil suit
In 2005, frustrated by the apparent whitewash of their daughter’s murder, Corrie’s parents filed a civil suit in an Israeli court against the country’s Ministry of Defence. They hoped that the trial would provide the “credible and transparent” accounting that had so far been denied. Subsequently, fifteen court sessions were held in the city of Haifa and just 23 witnesses testified. Yet the whole thing dragged on for seven years – until 28 August 2012 when the presiding judge, Oded Gershon, finally issued his ruling.
“I reject the suit,” Gershon stated in his 62-page decision, claiming that Corrie and the other ISM activists had purposely chosen to enter a “daily combat region” where they acted “to protect terrorists”. The judge accepted the army’s claim that the bulldozer driver had not seen Corrie. In any case, according to the judge, she was acting irrationally. “Corrie could have simply gotten out of the way of the bulldozer as any reasonable person would have done,” but she did not, and so she was ultimately responsible for her own death. According to the Corrie family lawyer, Hussein Abu Hussein, Judge Gershon’s judgment was “so close to the state’s attorney’s version of events that it could have been written by him.”
The Judge’s mind-set is perhaps the most telling part of the judgment. In Gershon’s world, the Israeli army was not seeking to engage in a siege that was turning Gaza into the world’s largest outdoor prison while illegal Israeli settlements expanded. And, because that was not what was going on, any response by the people of Gaza could not be seen as legitimate acts of resistance or self-defence. No, the people of Gaza were at best supporters of terrorists or at worst terrorists themelves. That was the paradigm into which both the judge and all the Israeli army witnesses were locked. These witnesses spoke from behind a curtain, using aliases. This was done “for security reasons”. And, they all said basically the same thing: we did not see Rachel Corrie and even if we had we would not have seen a civilian.
Why? Because Israel is at war with the Palestinians and, as one testifying Israeli army officer (aka Yossi) put it, “during a war there are no civilians”. There are only terrorists and their allies [i.e. Corrie] and Israel does not prosecute its soldiers for waging “war” against them.
The resulting a priori immunity is not unique to Israel. Just days after the Corrie decision was announced, another decision, this time by the US Justice Department, was made public. The department ended its investigation into deaths occurring during CIA interrogations conducted using torture. No charges were brought against the torturers in these cases due to insufficient “admissible evidence”. That is, the evidence which the government itself would declassify so as to make it admissible was not sufficient to “sustain a conviction”. The American Civil Liberties Union called the decision “nothing short of a scandal… Continuing impunity threatens to undermine the universally recognized prohibition on torture and other abusive treatment.” How Israeli of the American Justice Department – or is the other way around?
Conclusion
If you come across an individual who condemns an entire category of people and is also willing to violently act on the basis of that belief, you might call him or her a pathological racist, or a pathological xenophobe, or a pathological paranoid chauvinist. But what happens when those same sick sentiments get institutionalized in powerful bureaucracies? When, say, all Arabs (be they Muslim or Christian) are suspect and subject to government surveillance, segregation, collective punishment and worse. What then do you call this? National security? All too often that is exactly what we call it. The “we” here includes almost all politicians, media newscasters, security personnel, talking head “experts” and the like. What it comes down to is that, in the name of “national security”, we can justify almost anything, including killing kids in Gaza and torturing people to death in some dungeon, the whereabout of which is classified, as well as running over a 23-year-old peace activist with a massive bulldozer.
That is certainly what the Corrie episode has shown to be the case in Israel. And it does not matter what is driving this obsessive stereotyping of the Palestinians as collective enemies by both individuals and entire government departments. The Israelis and their Zionist supporters can evoke the holocaust (and, for that matter, the Americans can talk about 9/11) until the end of time. The actions stemming from such ultimately racist perspectives are still thoroughly dehumanizing and criminal. Such is perpetual “war”.
10 sep 2012, 09:35 , Respect -
Maria 10 sept 2012
Rachel Corrie's Parents Talk About Trial Against the Israeli Army
On Tuesday 11 September 2012 at 8 PM, Cindy and Craig Corrie, the parents of martyred American peace activist Rachel Corrie, speak about their lawsuit against the Israeli army and their efforts to promote the work of their daughter in struggling for Palestinian rights and a just peace.
According to the Israeli court's verdict on the 28th August, Rachel's death was not caused by the negligence of the Israeli state or army and the civil lawsuit brought by the family was dismissed.
Activist Rachel Corrie was killed by an Israeli military bulldozer on 16 March 2003 when attempting to halt the demolition of Palestinian homes in Gaza's Rafah Refugee Camp.
Additional information about Rachel Corrie and the work of her family may be found on rachelcorriefoundation.org.
JOIN for the event!
The AIC is a joint Palestinian-Israeli activist organization engaged in dissemination of information, political advocacy and grassroots activism. The AICafè is a political and cultural café open on Tuesday and Saturday night from 7pm until 10pm. It is located in the Alternative Information Center in Beit Sahour, close to Suq Sha3ab (follow the sign to Jadal Center ).
We have a small library with novels, political books and magazines. We also have a number of Films in DVD copies and the AIC publications which are aimed to critically analyze both the Palestinian and Israeli societies as well as the conflict itself.
11 oct 2012, 09:49 , Respect -
Maria 10 oct 2012
Rachel Corrie's Parents Accept LennonOno Grant for Peace on Behalf of their Daughter
Lady Gaga, John Perkins, and Christopher Hitchens also Recognized
Rachel Corrie Foundation said in a press release that on behalf of peace activist Rachel Corrie, her parents Craig and Cindy Corrie today accepted the 2012 LennonOno Grant for Peace presented by Yoko Ono in Reykjavik, Iceland. Ono also presented grants to performing artist and activist Lady Gaga, author John Perkins (Tales of an Economic Hitman), and to the late author and journalist Christopher Hitchens (accepted by his widow Carol Blue Hitchens). At a ceremony in New York in September, three performers with the Russian band Pussy Riot, who remain imprisoned for their stand for freedom of speech and expression, also received the LennonOno award.
The October 9th event marks the birthdays of artist John Lennon and his son Sean.
Honoree Rachel Corrie was a 23-year-old American peace activist and human rights defender from Olympia, Washington, who was crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer March 16, 2003, as she stood nonviolently to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian family's home in Rafah, Gaza.
In the official announcement of the biennial award, IMAGINE PEACE notes the work of the Rachel Corrie Foundation to which the monetary grant prize has been given. "In the wake of her killing, the Rachel Corrie Foundation continues the work that Rachel Corrie began. The Foundation conducts programs that foster connections between people, that build understanding, respect, and appreciation for differences, and that promote cooperation within and between local and global communities. The Foundation encourages and supports grassroots efforts in pursuit of human rights and social, economic, and environmental justice, which they view as pre-requisites for world peace."
In August, a court in Haifa, Israel, dismissed the Corrie family's wrongful death civil lawsuit against the State of Israel for Rachel's killing. The verdict was widely condemned as setting dangerous precedent regarding protection of civilians, and putting at serious risk human rights defenders in war zones and armed conflict situations.
"Rachel would be greatly surprised and humbled by this recognition," Cindy Corrie said from Reykjavik, today. "Her hope would be that it could somehow contribute to bringing people together to work passionately for justice, and to do so with the utmost respect for the rights and lives of all human beings."
Rachel's father, Craig Corrie, added: "We are grateful that Ms. Ono has chosen to recognize our daughter in such a wonderful way. Rachel must be smiling somewhere to imagine her memory linked in any way with that of John Lennon. Perhaps they smile together."
Craig and Cindy Corrie continue the work that their daughter began through their personal advocacy and through the activity of the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice in Olympia, Washington. Visit www.rachelcorriefoundation.org for more information about the Foundation.
Yoko Ono, the Corries, and other LennonOno Grant for Peace recipients participated in the annual lighting of the IMAGINE PEACE TOWER on the island of Viðey in Iceland, 8pm local time, October 9. Ono urges people worldwide to join her in spirit as she lights the IMAGINE PEACE TOWER in honor of all activists - past, present, and future - and to let the power of light become a collective expression of the desire for peace and harmony on the planet.
For the LennonOno Grant for Peace 2012 announcement, and details about all award recipients, visit the IMAGINE PEACE website at www.imaginepeace.com.
18 oct 2012
Israeli Court ruling in Rachel Corrie case translated into English
On Tuesday, 28 August 2012, the Israeli Court ruled that Israel’s forces are not responsible for the death of U.S. peace activist Rachel Corrie, a decision that was strongly condemned by PCHR.
Today, an English translation of the ruling was published by the UK Human Rights Blog, stating that the bulldozer running over Rachel Corrie was a “very unfortunate accident and not a deliberate action.”
PCHR reiterates that this decision taking by Israel’s courts is one of the many extending immunity to Israel’s forces.
Israeli Court ruling in Rachel Corrie case translated into English
On Tuesday, 28 August 2012, the Israeli Court ruled that Israel’s forces are not responsible for the death of U.S. peace activist Rachel Corrie, a decision that was strongly condemned by PCHR.
Today, an English translation of the ruling was published by the UK Human Rights Blog, stating that the bulldozer running over Rachel Corrie was a “very unfortunate accident and not a deliberate action.”
PCHR reiterates that this decision taking by Israel’s courts is one of the many extending immunity to Israel’s forces.