A Letter to the Corries: Your Daughter was Exploited, Don’t Blame Israel
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Cindy and Craig Corrie, parents of Rachel Corrie, at an "end the occupation" rally at the U.S. Capitol, June 10, 2007.
Photo Credit: Carol Moore
An Israeli court has ruled (an English summary of the decision is here) that the death of Rachel Corrie in 2003 was accidental.
Here is the judge’s description of the actual event that caused her death:
When the decedent saw the pile of dirt moving towards her, she did not move, as any reasonable person would have. She began to climb the pile of dirt. Therefore, both because the pile of dirt continued to move as a result of the pushing of the bulldozer, and because the dirt was loose, the decedent was trapped in the pile of dirt and fell.At this stage, the decedent’s legs were buried in the pile of dirt, and when her colleagues saw from where they stood that the decedent was trapped in the pile of dirt, they ran towards the bulldozer and gestured towards its operator and yelled at him to stop. By the time the bulldozer’s operator and his commander noticed the decedent’s colleagues and stopped the bulldozer, a significant portion of the decedent’s body was already covered in dirt.
The decedent’s entire body was not covered in dirt. In fact, when the bulldozer backed up, the decedent’s body was seen to free itself from the pile of dirt and the decedent was still alive.
The decedent was evacuated to the hospital [in Gaza] and after 20 minutes, her death was declared.
——– Dear Craig and Cindy Corrie,
As a parent, I can’t imagine an experience that could compare with the loss of a child. I know that if it happened to me I would be desolated. I thought about the possibility constantly during the period of the Second Intifada, when my son volunteered to serve in a special counter-terror unit and traveled around Israel on a daily basis to try to intercept terrorists — many of them sent by the same Hamas organization that your daughter defended — on their way to kill Israelis.
Some of these succeeded despite the efforts of my son and his comrades, and hundreds of Israelis, many of them children with parents like you and me, were burned to death, penetrated by nails and ball bearings, or had their lungs destroyed by blast.
I thank God that my son survived, that the bullets, grenades and mortar shells that were deliberately aimed at him missed. Other Israelis, soldiers and civilians, were not so lucky.
You’ve worked hard to place blame on Israel and the IDF for your daughter’s death. That’s understandable, because if Israel wasn’t responsible, who was? I can only suppose that you struggle to keep from blaming yourselves.
You [Cindy] told the Guardian,
It felt a little unnerving … At first we hoped it wouldn’t happen. But Rachel was 23 years old, and was very much making her own decisions, as we thought she should. We had always supported our kids in whatever steps they wanted to take. Some people say: ‘Why did you let her go?’ That was not ever something I felt was my role.
You’re right. I didn’t tell my son not to do what he did, either.
So whose fault is it? The court said that the immediate responsibility lay with Rachel:
The decedent put herself in a dangerous situation. She stood in front of a large bulldozer in a location where the bulldozer’s operator could not see her. Even when she saw the pile of dirt moving towards her and endangering her, she did not remove herself from the situation, as any reasonable person would have.
But if I had to blame someone for making this terrible event happen, it would not be the bulldozer operator, the IDF or Israel, which is in a life-and-death struggle with its enemies. I would blame the ISM, which specializes in brainwashing Western young people, sending them into a war zone and placing them in harm’s way — in full knowledge that the Palestinian cause will benefit if one of them is injured or killed.
Rachel made a choice and took a side in a conflict that she did not fully understand. She had a right to do that, but to a certain extent she was manipulated and exploited. She chose the wrong side, and she paid a terrible price.
You have chosen to honor her memory by taking her side. As I said, it’s understandable, but it doesn’t validate the ideology that got her killed in order to further its goals of still more death and destruction.
Originally published at FresnoZionism.org.
tell a friendAbout the Author: Vic Rosenthal created FresnoZionism.org to provide a forum for publishing and discussing issues about Israel and the Mideast conflict, especially where there is a local connection. Rosenthal believes that America’s interests are best served by supporting the democratic state of Israel, the front line in the struggle between Western civilization and radical Islam. The viewpoint is not intended to be liberal or conservative — just pro-Israel.
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Like Pat Tillman’s 2004 friendly-fire death, the nature of Yoni Netanyahu’s 1976 death at Entebbe was covered up the IDF. Yoni and Pat Tillman were eerily similar characters, both driven by a sense of integrity, honesty and conviction. As was Rachel Corrie, who was Pat Tillman’s hero.
In his mother’s book, “Boots on the Ground by Dusk,” Mary Tillman wrote: “I remember picking up the article [about Rachel Corrie’s death] from the same spot more than a year ago [in 2003] and asking Pat, “Who’s this?” “That’s my hero,” Pat said. “She was a stud; she had a lot of guts.”.
It’s ironic that while Rachel was a hero to Pat Tillman, she is viewed with contempt by Yoni’s family. Iddo Netanyahu said that he feels "that there is an inherent incompatibility in the joining together, in one evening, of a play based on my brother Yoni's letters [“To Pay the Price”] with the play 'My Name Is Rachel Corrie.”.
[For more, see the June 2010 post, “That’s My Hero”: Pat Tillman, Rachel Corrie, and Yoni Netanyahu, posted at the feralfirefighter blog].