From Occupied Palestine

'Let me fight my monsters'
KATHARINE VINER
Guardian, 8 April 2005

Two years ago Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American protester, was killed by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza. Since then she has become a potent symbol for both sides of the conflict. But who was the real Rachel? KATHARINE VINER, who has edited her writings for a new play, on an ordinary woman with an extraordinary passion

Families seek truth over Israeli deaths
CHRIS McGREAL
Guardian, 20 October 2003

The family of a British peace activist shot in the head by an Israeli soldier is considering applying to the courts for permission to turn off his life support machine.

Doctors in Britain have told Tom Hurndall's family that he does not feel a thing. But his family find that hard to believe as they watch the twisting body and contorted face of the 22-year-old who is in a "vegetative state" after being shot in April.

Mother Jones smears Rachel Corrie
PHAN NGUYEN
Counterpunch, 20 September 2003

Mother Jones demonstrated how low it could set its standards for investigative journalism when it hired Newsweek reporter Joshua Hammer to surf the web and write a 7000-word feature story on Rachel Corrie and the International Solidarity Movement ("The Death of Rachel Corrie", Mother Jones, Sept/Oct 2003). It appears that fact-checking and verification was not a priority in the production of this article. Before I had even finished reading the Hammer's smear job I had already discovered that the writer had no shame in culling information from indiscriminate websurfing. Take, for instance, Hammer's description of a memorial service held for Corrie in Rafah soon after she was killed:

We have a long and dishonourable tradition of smearing the dead
ROBERT FISK
Independent, 23 August 2003

Across the marble floor of the Shrine of the Imam Hussein in Kerbala scampers Suheil with his plastic bag of metal. He points first to a red stain on the flagstones. "This was a red smoke grenade that the Americans fired," he tells me. "And that was another grenade mark." The Shia worshippers are kneeling amid these burn marks, eyes glistening at the gold fa

Freedom Summer
ADAM SHAPIRO
The Nation, 17 July 2003

Amman -- The International Solidarity Movement's second Freedom Summer has begun, and much has changed since our last: the war on Iraq, which focused all eyes on the region; the much-hyped road map; full-blown construction on what Palestinians have come to call the Apartheid Wall. Sadly, though, much remains the same: the continuing deterioration of the lives of Palestinians, with poverty and health crises in a crescendo.

Army decides to close file on death of U.S. peace activist
AMOS HAREL
Ha'aretz, 27 June 2003

The Military Advocate General, Major General Menahem Finkelstein, has decided to close the file on the death of American peace activist Rachel Corrie, who died after being crushed by an army bulldozer in the Gaza Strip in March.

Dignity and solidarity
EDWARD SAID
Al-Ahram Weekly, 26 June 2003

In early May I was in Seattle lecturing for a few days. While there I had dinner one night with Rachel Corrie's parents and sister, who were still reeling from the shock of their daughter's murder on 16 March in Gaza by an Israeli bulldozer. Mr Corrie told me that he had himself driven bulldozers, although the one that killed his daughter deliberately because she was trying valiantly to protect a Palestinian home in Rafah from demolition was a 60 ton behemoth especially designed by Caterpillar for house demolitions, a far bigger machine than anything he had ever seen or driven. Two things struck me about my brief visit with the Corries. One was the story they told about their return to the US with their daughter's body. They had immediately sought out their US senators, Patty Murray and Mary Cantwell, both Democrats, told them their story and received the expected expressions of shock, outrage, anger and promises of investigations. After both women returned to Washington, the Corries never heard from them again, and the promised investigation simply didn't materialise. As expected, the Israeli lobby had explained the realities to them, and both women simply begged off. An American citizen willfully murdered by the soldiers of a client state of the US without so much as an official peep or even the de rigeur investigation that had been promised her family.

The Bush administration and congress join the cover-up in the murder of Rachel Corrie
STEPHEN ZUNES
Foreign Policy in Focus, 29 March 2003

There has been a real fear in recent months that the right-wing government of Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon might take advantage of the international focus on the U.S. invasion of Iraq to increase its repression in the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Few people realized, however, that one of the first casualties would be a young American.

Israel and the Occupied Territories: International rights groups decry increased harassment of monitors
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, 27 May 2003

Amnesty International, the Euro-Mediterranean Network for Human Rights (EMNHR), Human Rights Watch (HRW), the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation against Torture (OMCT) are deeply concerned about the increase of Israeli restrictions against human rights and humanitarian workers.

On rescuing Private Lynch and forgetting Rachel Corrie
Israeli army got away with murder - now all activists are at risk
NAOMI KLEIN
Guardian, 22 May 2003

Jessica Lynch and Rachel Corrie could have passed for sisters. Two all-American blondes, two destinies for ever changed in a Middle East war zone. Private Jessica Lynch, the soldier, was born in Palestine, West Virginia. Rachel Corrie, the activist, died in Israeli-occupied Palestine.