Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Rachel Corrie


Regular readers of my blog will know that the Israelis break international law everyday in the bulldozing of people’s homes in Palestine. Rachel Corrie was a young American protesting against this crime in one specific incident in Gaza in 2003, by standing in front of a bulldozer, in plain sight, in a high visibility vest. She was mown down and killed. On Tuesday, an Israeli court ruled it was an accident she brought upon herself.
But read this extract from Tuesday’s Guardian about Israel’s chilling behaviour.
The death of Khalil al-Mughrabi two years before Corrie died was telling. The 11-year-old boy was playing football when he was shot dead in Rafah by an Israeli soldier. The respected Israeli human rights organisations, B'Tselem, wrote to the army demanding an investigation. Several months later, the judge advocate general's office wrote back saying that Khalil was killed by soldiers who had acted with "restraint and control" to disperse a riot in the area.
But the judge advocate general's office made the mistake of attaching a copy of its own confidential investigation, which came to a very different conclusion: that the riot had been much earlier in the day and the soldiers who shot the child should not have opened fire. In the report, the chief military prosecutor, Colonel Einat Ron, then spelled out alternative false scenarios that should be offered to B'Tselem. The official account was a lie and the army knew it.
The message to ordinary soldiers was clear: you have a free hand because the military will protect you to protect itself. It is that immunity from accountability that was the road to Corrie's death.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

When I read or watch news on this, I genuinely despair at how cruel human beings can be to one another. Utterly senseless and wrong. Shafia x

Sue Hepworth said...

Yes. I feel very strongly about it, that's why every so often I feel I must blog about it. And I refuse to buy any Israeli goods, as part of the Boycott, Divest, Sanction movement.