I am Rachel Corrie

April 3, 2006
Gordon Murray
Seven Oaks

Three years ago, on March 16, 2003, the voice of 23 year-old Rachel Corrie from Olympia, Washington was silenced forever by an Israeli Army bulldozer while she was trying to protect a Palestinian house from demolition. Last year, Rachel’s words and vision were brought to life by an award-winning London play based on her writings called My Name is Rachel Corrie. Then this month, Rachel was silenced again when the New York production of the play scheduled to open March 22 was “postponed” indefinitely due to political pressure.

I never met Rachel Corrie but I saw the truth of her words with my own eyes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) in 2003. During four weeks with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), my partner Carel and I witnessed the brutal occupation that Rachel described with eloquent outrage in her emails: whole blocks of Palestinian houses destroyed by the Israeli military, the frequent shelling and invasions into densely populated residential areas by Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles, school rooms and children’s bedrooms riddled with bullet holes inside and out, agricultural fields, olive trees and greenhouses destroyed by military bulldozers, the inescapable poverty and growing malnutrition caused by a systematic destruction of the Palestinian economy, and, perhaps most surprising of all, the generosity, kindness and determination of ordinary Palestinians to live their lives with dignity despite being trapped in a large open-air prison.

We arrived in Rafah, at the south end of the Gaza Strip, the day after Rachel was crushed there by a Caterpillar armoured bulldozer. Posters of Rachel blanketed Rafah and the graffiti told her story: “Rachel was an American citizen with Palestinian blood.” Everyone killed by the Israeli occupation is considered a shaheed or martyr to the Palestinian cause and people want to pay their respects to the family. Hundreds of local residents came to express their condolences — everyone from the Mayor of Rafah to the local Girl Guides to the Rafah street repair crew in their bulldozer (which seemed a toy compared to the massive two-story-high Israeli armoured killing machines). For one surreal night we became part of a surrogate family for someone who we had never met so that the people of Rafah could mourn their loss and the world’s.

But Rachel was not the only person killed in Rafah on March 16, 2003 by the Israeli army. Although her death caused headlines around the world, no one outside Rafah heard about the death of Samir, shot on his porch by an Israeli sniper when he went outside after dinner to have a cigarette. He was a city street cleaner who supported his entire family in a region with more than 60% unemployment. While Rachel’s shaheed ceremony took place in large municipal tents with hundreds of chairs, Samir’s was at his very modest house with a few family and friends. His elderly father and his sister were in a numb state of shock and despair. Samir has become just another forgotten statistic among the 3000 Palestinian civilians killed by Israeli occupation forces since September 2000.

Kids are everywhere in Rafah - and many people told us about the special affinity Rachel had with the Rafah’s children. Unfortunately, the Israeli military also seems to pay special attention to them - in Rafah alone, the Israeli occupation forces have killed more than 100 children since September 2000. Almost half the Palestinian civilians they have killed in Rafah are under the age of 18, as reported in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. These include four kids ages 10-14 killed by an Israeli tank shell fired at a peaceful march in May 2004 and the infamous case of 13-year-old schoolgirl Iman al-Hams, who had at least 17 bullets pumped into her from close range by an Israeli platoon commander to “confirm the kill” (the officer was acquitted of “misuse of a firearm”).

Israel’s so-called disengagement from the Gaza Strip has not ended the carnage - a few weeks ago, on March 6, 2006, an Israeli Air Force missile killed three children (one only 11 years-old) and injured six more while assassinating two “suspected militants” in a crowded Gaza City street.

It is widely known that Rachel was killed while trying to stop a bulldozer from destroying a Palestinian house. But how many people know the brutal facts behind her courageous stand? According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the Israeli military has completely destroyed more than 1500 houses in Rafah since September 2000 and damaged more than 2000 others. Many of these are multi-family dwellings, with the result that more than 15,000 people (80% of them already refugees) have been made homeless again in Rafah in the last five years.

Destruction on this scale is hard for North Americans to visualize - it is equivalent to rendering homeless an entire town or a city neighbourhood. Investigations by several human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have concluded that the Israeli army’s extensive and systematic destruction of Palestinian homes in Rafah constitute “war crimes.”

My partner and I slept several nights in the house which Rachel was defending when she was killed - in hopes of stopping the bulldozer from returning. We quickly became friends with the Nassarallah family, who were forced to sleep in one room at the back of the house to avoid the heavy-calibre machine gun fire that sometimes pierced the front walls of the house. Rachel had often stayed at the house before she was killed and the oldest daughter was distraught by “sister” Rachel’s death only ten metres in front of her house. The house had once been in the middle of a residential neighbourhood but all the houses on three sides had been bulldozed by the Israeli army to enlarge another insatiable “security zone.”

During the last month of her life, Rachel also spent a lot of time at the Canada Well helping protect Rafah municipal workers who were trying to repair the massive damage done to two city wells by Israeli military bulldozers in January 2003. The Canada Well (built in 1999 with CIDA funding) and El Iskan Well had supplied more than 50% of Rafah’s water and the city was under strict rationing (only a few hours of running water on alternate days) because of the damage.

Israeli snipers and tanks routinely shot at civilian workers trying to repair the wells so ISM human rights activists kept a presence to help deter the military harassment. In her reports, Rachel documented Israeli bullets coming within a few feet of both the workers and the international activists - “close enough to spray bits of debris in their faces”.

What was Canada’s reaction to the illegal and outrageous destruction of the Canada Well that it had built only four years before? The Canadian government refused to officially protest or denounce the Israeli army actions even though such wanton and deliberate damage to vital civilian infrastructure is a “war crime.” Instead, Canada quietly agreed to help fund the estimated $450,000 repair costs.

The Israeli military’s egregious destruction spares nothing: hospitals, schools, apartment blocks, prisons, mosques, churches, water systems, greenhouses, sewage systems, vegetable fields, olive and fruit groves - we saw them all reduced to rubble and mud. More than 13% of Gaza’s agricultural land has been razed in the last five years, severely damaging the most important sector of the economy as well as individual families’ ability to feed themselves. A UNICEF study has found that child malnutrition in Gaza has reached levels only seen in sub- saharan Africa.

The Israeli army investigated Rachel’s killing and discovered (surprise!) that Rachel was to blame for her own death because of her “irresponsible”, “illegal” actions. Furthermore, the army report concluded that she was not run over by an Israeli bulldozer but killed by “a slab of concrete.” Presumably, one that she had irresponsibly dropped on herself. The report would be considered a comedic masterpiece if the circumstances were not so grave and tragic.

We spoke to the six ISM eyewitnesses, all of whom said that Rachel was run over not once but twice by the bulldozer which kept its blade pressed down as it reversed back over her, maximizing the damage. None of the witnesses were ever interviewed by Israeli army investigators.

Only a couple of days after her death, we were trying to hold a memorial action at the spot where Rachel had been run over. After an hour of being harassed by a tank that charged repeatedly toward the peaceful demonstrators, firing concussion grenades, tear gas, warning shots, and choking diesel smoke; the bulldozer that killed Rachel (identified by its army serial number - 949623) suddenly appeared at the memorial to further torment her friends. We did, however, manage to cover the tank with posters of Rachel and bunches of flowers.

One can imagine a Hollywood ending of the “Rachel Corrie Story.” After the tragedy and adversity, Rachel’s mother Cindy Corrie speaks to a room full of rich white guys in suits, also known as the US Congress. The suits look at one other uncomfortably as Cindy speaks and when she finishes there is a long awkward silence. Then finally one of the suits stands up and says “I am Rachel Corrie” and the rest follow one by one. Cut to family and friends hugging and crying and all the problems of Palestine are solved.

Back in the real world, the US Congress refuses to even vote on a bill calling for an independent and thorough investigation of Rachel’s death - it has been buried in committee for more than two years. Perhaps the suits are embarrassed that a US client state (which they give billions of dollars every year) killed a US citizen in cold blood and then covered it up so laughably. They want to keep Rachel silent for ever.

So it’s up to the rest of us.

Today I say “I am Rachel Corrie and I stand for peace and justice in Palestine!”