23 year old ISM activist Rachel CorrieWhen she sat down in the dirt
In front of your machine
A lovely woman dressed in red
You in military green
If you had met her in Jerusalem
You might have asked her on a date
But here you were in Gaza
Rolling towards the gate
As your foot went to the floor
Did you recall her eyes
Did her gaze remind you
That you've become what you despise
As you rolled on towards this woman
And ignored all the shouts to stop
Did you feel a shred of doubt
As you watched her body drop
And as your Caterpillar tracks
Upon her body pressed
With twenty tons of deadly force
Crushed the bones within her chest
Could you feel the contours of her face
As you took her life away
Did you serve your country well
On that cool spring day
And when you went back across the Green Line
Back to the open shore
Did you think that this was just another day
In a dirty war
And when you looked out on the water
Did you feel an empty void
Or was it just one more life you've taken
One more home destroyed
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DAVID BEDEIN, DIRECTOR
SAM VENIS, STAFF ASSISTANT
ISRAEL RESOURCE NEWS AGENCY & THE CENTER FOR NEAR EAST POLICY RESEARCH
BEIT AGRON INTERNATIONAL PRESS CENTER
JERUSALEM 94581 ISRAEL
TEL. 02 623 6368
WWW.ISRAELBEHINDTHESCENES.COM
On March 16, 2003, Rachel Corrie was killed while protesting the Israeli military’s presence in Gaza, when she was run over by a bulldozer that did not see her. Corrie, a member of the International Solidarity Movement, (ISM), traveled to Israel with other members to the UNRWA Rafah refugee camp.
Along with her peers, she protested the presence of Israeli tractors, some of which were involved with home demolitions of terrorists, and which were also involved in detecting Hamas’ weapons tunnels as well.
Corrie's presence in an active war zone put herself in danger of crossfire. When she crouched in front of an armored bulldozer at dusk, the risk became massively multiplied.
What has hardly been reported was what her fellow demonstrator, Joe Smith told our news agency on the day after he saw the tragedy: "When the bulldozer started to dig in the dirt pile, the pile started to move, and she could have rolled sideways quickly or fallen backwards to avoid being hit. But Corrie leaned forward to climb to the top of the dirt pile. The bulldozer's digging drew her downward, and its driver could not see her anymore. So without lifting the scoop, he turned backward and she was already underneath the blade.”
Clearly, Smith's comments contradict claims made by the Corrie family and the ISM that the tractor driver could clearly see Corrie which would strongly suggest premeditated murder rather than a mere accident.
Though Smith and other of Corrie's friends told the media that nobody at the time of her death had a camera, the ISM immediately distributed a picture of the scene upon the news of her death. The ISM claimed this photo, depicting her holding a megaphone in broad daylight, was taken minutes before the incident. However, the ISM also immediately distributed a second photograph, which depicted Corrie's body on the ground immediately after she was hit The picture was clearly taken at dusk since there is a different color bulldozer and the scenery was changed.
However, since the incident in March 2003, Corrie’s death has been transformed into a symbol of Israeli brutality. Her life has been translated into a one-woman off Broadway
dramatic production that has circled the globe, there are websites dedicated to her cause, and her name was even borrowed for one of the ships in the recent flotilla to Israel. Corrie, a young Christian American woman killed in a freak accident, became a martyr for the plight of the Palestinian people.
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