Rachel Corrie Memorial

Please see the website for full details.
http://norcalism.org/events.htm

All the comments (except one) seem to have disappeared so I am re-posting mine. There is substantial evidence that the International Solidarity Movement was recklessly negligent if not worse in getting Rachel Corrie killed.

Rachel Corrie (1979-2003) was killed in an accident with an Israeli bulldozer in front of which the International Solidarity Movement (also known as the Palestine Solidarity Movement in the United States) had encouraged her to kneel. There are some very disturbing things that would-be peace activists should know before involving themselves with the Palestine Solidarity Movement.

(1) The International Solidarity Movement and Hamas are on record as stating openly that they had a motive for wanting Rachel Corrie dead.
o http://www.standwithus.com/news_post.asp?NPI=85 "Recently, the Director of the Solidarity Movement, George Rishmawi, explained to the San Francisco Chronicle that the recruitment of American student volunteers is useful to the Palestinian Movement because "if some of these foreign volunteers get shot or even killed, then the international media will sit up and take notice.""
o Joseph Smith, who was present when Corrie died and whose highest priority was apparently to take pictures, said "The spirit that she died for is worth a life. This idea of resistance, this spirit of resisting this brutal occupying force, is worth anything. And many, many, many Palestinians give their lives for it all the time. So the life of one international, I feel, is more than worth the spirit of resisting oppression." (http://www.freepalestinecampaign.org/Stranger article.htm, a source friendly to the Palestine Solidarity Movement. If he really feels that way, incidentally, why didn't he kneel in front of the bulldozer? Why was it worth Rachel's life but not his own?)
o A Hamas terrorist said openly that Rachel was worth more dead than alive. "'Her death serves me more than it served her,' said one activist at a Hamas funeral yesterday. '...Her death will bring more attention than the other 2,000 martyrs.'" "Making of a Martyr" by Sandra Jordan, Guardian Newspapers (http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/3-22-2003-37821.asp.

When you are more useful to your friends dead than you are alive, it is time to find new friends— quickly.

(2) Several ISM activists testified vigorously about their eyewitness accounts of Rachel's death but not one of them, by their own accounts, lifted a finger to pull her out of the slowly-moving bulldozer's path.
o Per "Making of a Martyr" by Sandra Jordan, Guardian Newspapers (http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/3-22-2003-37821.asp, "Her British friend and fellow activist, Tom Dale, 18, from Lichfield in Staffordshire, said he saw her die. First, he said, there was fear on her face as she realised that her defiant gesture was going wrong. Joe Smith, 21, who went to college with Corrie, said that, although they acknowledged the danger, they saw death as a 'small, unlikely, potential risk'."
o "Dale watched as she knelt down in front of the bulldozer, perhaps 20 metres away, something the activists had done repeatedly that day as they had in the past. 'The bulldozer went towards her, very slowly, she was fully in clear view, straight in front of them.'"
o He testifies that the bulldozer was moving very slowly— plenty of time for him or another man to pull her out of its path when it became clear that (for whatever reason) it was not going to stop. Not one of the ISM activists even claims to have tried.
o "A traumatised Smith raised his camera and took photographs: Rachel standing in front of the bulldozer; then her bloodied body being pulled from the freshly turned soil; being cradled in the arms of her friends."
o Why was his first priority to raise his camera and take pictures instead of trying to get Rachel out of the bulldozer's path?
o "'If only they'd had a video camera,' one Palestinian journalist lamented. 'A film of the Israelis killing an American in cold blood would have ended the intifada.'"
o The Palestinian journalist's primary lament is that they didn't have a video camera— and not that someone didn't pull Rachel out of the bulldozer's path.
o ISM member Tom Dale's testimony, from the ISM's own Web site (http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2003/03/17/the-closest-eye-witness-account-on-the-murder-of-rachel-corrie/ highlighting and bracketed comments are mine) says that he was standing only 10 meters, only ten long paces, from Rachel when it happened but he does not even claim to have tried to get her out of the bulldozer's path when it became clear that something was going horribly wrong with her act of civil disobedience.
o "Many of you will [have] heard varying accounts of the death of Rachel Corrie, maybe others will have heard nothing of it. Regardless, I was 10 metres away when it happened 2 days ago, and this is the way it went. …The bulldozer drove toward Rachel slowly, gathering earth in its scoop as it went." [If the bulldozer was demolishing houses, why bother to scoop up earth? Why not just drive through the houses?]
o Dale also testifies that Rachel died in the ambulance of massive brain hemorrhaging but http://www.voicesofpalestine.org/outrageous/rachelcorrie.asp says, "Palestinian doctors try to save the life of Rachel Corrie at the Najar hospital in the southern Gaza town of Rafah." Somebody somewhere is not getting their story straight.

(3) At least one of the ISM's pictures may be a photomanipulated fake

The ISM posted a picture of Rachel Corrie in a bright red jacket confronting a giant bulldozer with a man named "Nick" nearby in a white T shirt. There are some strange things about this photograph.
o The sun is obviously coming from behind the bulldozer, as shown by the shadow of its hydraulic piston on the back of the bulldozer blade. Rachel, however, casts a shadow to her left (the bulldozer's right) instead of behind her (the direction indicated by the shadow on the back of the bulldozer blade). The bulldozer casts no shadow at all to its right (Rachel's left), and neither does the man next to her.
o The man appears to have been cut and pasted into the picture; he has no feet and he is standing almost as if he is kicking a soccer ball— a very odd pose indeed.
o Furthermore, the Electronic Intifada reports, "Picture taken between 3:00-4:00PM, 16 March 2003, Rafah, Occupied Gaza. Rachel Corrie (L) and Nick (R) oppose the potential destruction of this home (to the west of the Doctor's home where Rachel was killed). The shadow to Rachel's left is shorter than her height, which is not consistent with late afternoon in mid-winter.
o The same picture shows, incidentally, that the huge bulldozer blade would have prevented the driver from seeing a person who was standing (let alone kneeling) directly in front of it. ISM's own photographic evidence— if accepted as genuine and not a photomanipulated fraud— therefore gives the lie to the Palestine Solidarity Movement's statement that the driver saw Rachel and ran over her anyway. If it is a photomanipulated fraud, then ISM/PSM is guilty of perjury in the court of public opinion and should be judged accordingly.

While the picture should be examined by an expert, we must conclude, on the basis of the evidence shown here:

The ISM Lied and Rachel Died