Rachel Corrie facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Rachel Corrie
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Rachel Aliene Corrie
April 10, 1979 Olympia, Washington, U.S.
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| Died | March 16, 2003 (aged 23) Rafah, Gaza Strip
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| Alma mater | Evergreen State College |
Rachel Aliene Corrie (April 10, 1979 – March 16, 2003) was an American activist and diarist. A member of the pro-Palestinian group International Solidarity Movement (ISM), she was killed in a southern Gaza Strip combat zone during the height of the Second Intifada under contested circumstances.
She had gone to Gaza as part of her college senior-year independent-study proposal to connect her home town and Rafah as sister cities. While there, she had joined other ISM activists in efforts to prevent the Israeli demolition of Palestinian property. According to the Israeli authorities the demolitions were carried out to eliminate weapons-smuggling tunnels. According to human rights groups the demolitions were used as collective punishment.
Early life
Corrie was born on April 10, 1979, and raised in Olympia, Washington, United States. She was the youngest of three children of Craig Corrie, an insurance executive, and Cindy Corrie. Cindy describes their family as "average Americans—politically liberal, economically conservative, middle class".
After graduating from Capital High School, Corrie went on to attend The Evergreen State College, also in Olympia, where she took a number of arts courses. She took a year off from her studies to work as a volunteer in the Washington State Conservation Corps. According to the ISM, she spent three years making weekly visits to mental patients.
While at Evergreen State College she became a "committed peace activist" arranging peace events through a local pro-ISM group called "Olympians for Peace and Solidarity". She later joined the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) organisation in order to protest the policies of the Israeli army in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In her senior year, she "proposed an independent-study program in which she would travel to Gaza, join the ISM team, and initiate a 'sister city' project between Olympia and Rafah". Before leaving, she also organized a pen-pal program between children in Olympia and Rafah.
Activities in the Palestinian territories
While in Rafah, Corrie stood in front of armored bulldozers, in an alleged attempt to impede house demolitions which were being carried out. Demolitions were a common tactic employed along the security road near the border between Israel and Egypt at Rafah to uncover explosive devices and destroy tunnels used by terrorists to smuggle weapons from Egypt to Gaza. These military operations were criticized as "collective punishment" by some human rights groups. Israel authorities said that demolitions were necessary because "Palestinian gunmen used the structures as cover to shoot at their troops patrolling in the area, or to conceal arms-smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border." Corrie was a member of a group of about eight activists from outside of the Palestinian territories who tried to prevent the Israeli army's activities by acting as human shields.
On Corrie's first night there, she and two other ISM members set up camp inside Block J, which the ISM described as "a densely populated neighborhood along the Pink Line and frequent target of gunfire from an Israeli watchtower". By situating themselves visibly between the Palestinians and the Israeli snipers manning the watchtowers they hoped to discourage shooting by displaying banners stating that they were "internationals". When Israeli soldiers fired warning shots, Corrie and her colleagues dismantled their tent and left the area.
Palestinian militants expressed concern that the "internationals" staying in tents between the Israeli watchtowers and the residential neighborhoods would get caught in crossfire, while other residents were concerned that the activists might be spies. To overcome this suspicion Corrie learned a few words of Arabic and participated in a mock trial denouncing the "crimes of the Bush Administration". While the ISM members were eventually provided with food and housing, a letter was circulated in Rafah that cast suspicion on them. "Who are they? Why are they here? Who asked them to come here?" On the morning of Corrie's death they planned to counteract the letter's effects. According to one of them, "We all had a feeling that our role was too passive. We talked about how to engage the Israeli military."
Water well protecting efforts
According to a January 2003 article by Gordon Murray, a fellow ISM activist, in the last month of her life Corrie "spent a lot of time at the Canada Well helping protect Rafah municipal workers" who were trying to repair damage to the well done by Israeli bulldozers. Canada Well was built in 1999 with CIDA funding. It, along with El Iskan Well, had supplied more than 50% of Rafah's water before the damage. The city had been under "strict rationing (only a few hours of running water on alternate days)" since. Murray writes that ISM activists were maintaining a presence there since "Israeli snipers and tanks routinely shot at civilian workers trying to repair the wells." In one of her reports, Corrie wrote that despite her group's having received permission from the Israeli District Command Office and the fact that they were carrying "banners and megaphones the activists and workers were fired upon several times over a period of about one hour. One of the bullets came within two metres of three internationals and a municipal water worker close enough to spray bits of debris in their faces as it landed at their feet."
Corrie's emails from Gaza to her mother
Rachel Corrie sent a series of emails to her mother while she was in Gaza, four of which were later published by The Guardian. In January 2008, Norton published a book titled Let Me Stand Alone by Corrie, which included the e-mails along with some of her other writings. Yale Professor David Bromwich said that Corrie left "letters of great interest". The play My Name is Rachel Corrie and the cantata The Skies are Weeping were based on Corrie's letters.
Reactions
Corrie's death sparked controversy and led to international media coverage.
Corrie's parents reaction
Corrie's father, Craig Corrie has said "I know there's stuff you can't see out of the double glass windows." But he has denied that as a valid excuse, saying "you're responsible for knowing what's in front of your blade... It's a no brainer that this was gross negligence". He added that "they had three months to figure out how to deal with the activists that were there."
Political reactions
In March 2003, U.S. Representative Brian Baird introduced a resolution in the U.S. Congress calling on the U.S. government to "undertake a full, fair, and expeditious investigation" into Corrie's death. The House of Representatives took no action on the resolution. The Corrie family joined Representative Baird in calling for a U.S. investigation.
Yasser Arafat, the first President of the Palestinian Authority, offered his condolences and gave the "blessings of the Palestinian people" to Corrie, promising to name a street in Gaza after her. According to Cindy Corrie, Arafat told Craig Corrie that Rachel Corrie "is your daughter but she is also the daughter of all Palestinians. She is ours too now."
On March 21, 2003, the U.S. Green Party called for an investigation of the "murder of American Peace Activist Rachel Corrie by Israeli Forces".
In August 2012, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro stated that the Israeli investigation was not satisfactory, and was not as thorough, credible or transparent as it should have been. Shapiro said further that the government of the United States is unsatisfied with the IDF's closure of its official investigation into Corrie's death.
Human rights organizations
Amnesty International called for an independent inquiry, with Christine Bustany, their advocacy director for the Middle East, saying, "U.S.-made bulldozers have been 'weaponized' and their transfer to Israel must be suspended."
In 2005, Human Rights Watch published a report raising questions about the impartiality and professionalism of the IDF investigation. Some of the problems that the report mentioned were the investigators' lack of preparation, the "hostile," "inappropriate," and "mostly accusatory" questions they asked witnesses, the failure to ask witnesses to draw maps or to identify locations of events on maps, and their lack of interest in reconciling soldiers' testimonies with those of other eyewitnesses.
NGO Monitor, an Israeli group, strongly criticized other NGOs and said the verdict reflects all of the facts and circumstances surrounding the incident. Its president, Gerald Steinberg said, "Corrie's death was entirely unnecessary, and the leaders of the ISM bear much culpability for her death."
A Catholic Worker house was named in her honor in Des Moines, Iowa.
Media
The Observer suggested that because Corrie was American her death attracted more attention than the deaths of Palestinians under similar circumstances: "On the night of Corrie's death, nine Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip, among them a four-year-old girl and a man aged 90. A total of 220 people have died in Rafah since the beginning of the intifada. Palestinians know the death of one American receives more attention than the killing of hundreds of Muslims."
American journalist Charlie Wolf referred to Corrie as "scum" on his show on British radio station talkSPORT. Media regulator Ofcom ruled that this "seriously ill-judged" remark was in breach of the "Generally Accepted Standards" of Broadcasting.
Activities of Corrie's parents
Since their daughter's death, Corrie's parents, Cindy and Craig, have spent time trying to "promote peace and raise awareness about the plight of Palestinians", and continue what they believe to be her work. The Corries have worked to set up the "Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice" and launched projects in memory of their daughter. They have also advanced investigation into the incident and asked the U.S. Congress and various courts for redress.
Corrie's parents have visited the region several times since their daughter's death and have twice visited Gaza. Following their daughter's death, they visited Gaza and Israel, seeing the place where she died, and meeting ISM members and Palestinians whom she had known. They also visited Ramallah in the West Bank, where Arafat met them and presented them with a plaque in memory of their daughter. On March 28, 2008, they addressed a demonstration in Ramallah at which Craig Corrie said: "This village has become a symbol of nonviolent resistance. I call for solidarity with the people of Palestine in resisting the conditions imposed by the Israeli occupation to prevent the establishment of their state."
The Nasrallahs, whose home Rachel Corrie allegedly believed she was preventing from destruction, toured with the Corries across the United States in June 2005. The aim of the trip was, with the cooperation of the Rebuilding Alliance, to raise funds to rebuild the Nasrallah home and other homes destroyed in Rafah.
In January 2011, Corrie's parents visited the MV Mavi Marmara in Turkey, together with the head of the IHH Bülent Yıldırım. Cindy Corrie called dead Mavi Marmara activists "martyrs" and compared them to her daughter.
Memorial events
Immediately after her death, posters and graffiti praising Corrie were posted in Rafah, with one graffiti tag reading, "Rachel was an American citizen with Palestinian blood." According to the ISM's official publications, the day after Corrie died, about thirty American and European ISM activists with 300 Palestinians began protests during the public memorial service over the spot where she was fatally injured in Rafah. Gordon Murray, an ISM activist who attended the memorial, states that the IDF sent a representative to the event who intimidated the mourners into dispersing, allegedly using non-lethal weapons.
In 2008, Corrie's parents commemorated the fifth anniversary of her death at an event held in the West Bank town of Nablus. About 150 Palestinians and foreigners joined them to dedicate a memorial to Corrie on one of the city's streets.
In 2011, Iran named a street in Tehran after Corrie.
Artistic tributes
In 2004, Alaska composer Philip Munger wrote a cantata about Corrie called The Skies are Weeping, which was scheduled to premiere on April 27 at the University of Alaska Anchorage, where Munger teaches. After objections to the upcoming performance were received, including from members of the Jewish community, a forum was held co-chaired by Munger and a local rabbi who claimed the work "romanticized terrorism". Munger later related that he had received threatening e-mails whose content he considered was "[just] short of what you'd take to the troopers", and that some of his students had received similar communications. The cantata was eventually performed at the Hackney Empire theatre in London, premiering on November 1, 2005.
In early 2005, My Name is Rachel Corrie, a play composed from Corrie's journals and emails from Gaza and compiled by actor Alan Rickman and journalist Katharine Viner, in a production directed by Rickman, was presented in London and later revived in October 2005. The play was to be transferred to the New York Theatre Workshop, but when it was postponed indefinitely, the British producers denounced the decision as censorship and withdrew the show. It finally opened Off-Broadway on October 15, 2006, for an initial run of 48 performances. In the same year, My Name is Rachel Corrie was shown at the Pleasance theatre as part of the Edinburgh (Fringe) Festival. The play has also been published as a paperback, and performed in ten countries, including Israel.
Singer Billy Bragg recounted Corrie's death in the song "The Lonesome Death of Rachel Corrie", composed to the tune of Bob Dylan's "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll". After being originally released as a free digital download, it was included on the album Fight Songs in 2011. Irish folk music/world music group Kíla included the instrumental "Rachel Corrie" on their 2015 album Suas Síos.
In 2003, Pittsburgh singer Mike Stout wrote and composed a song about Rachel Corrie, which was included with other anti-war songs in his album "War and Resistance".
Also in 2003, David Rovics wrote the song The Death of Rachel Corrie, included in the album "return".
MV Rachel Corrie
On March 30, 2010, an 1800-tonne vessel was bought at auction in Dundalk, Ireland, for €70,000 by the Free Gaza Movement. It was outfitted for use in a voyage to Gaza, named in honour of Rachel Corrie and launched May 12, 2010. It sailed to join a flotilla intended to break the blockade of the Gaza Strip. The flotilla was intercepted; however, the MV Rachel Corrie had not reached the other ships and continued towards Gaza by itself. Israeli navy officers addressed the ship as "Linda"—the vessel's name before it was renamed for Rachel Corrie. The ship was intercepted by the Israeli navy on Saturday, June 5, 2010, 23 miles off the coast, and diverted to the port of Ashdod. There the cargo was to be inspected and sent over land to Gaza.
Symbolic gravestone in Iran
On the twelfth anniversary of Corrie's death, a symbolic gravestone with her name was installed in the Tehran cemetery to honor her by the Commemoration of Martyrs of movement of the Islamic World's Staff. Near her symbolic gravestone are twelve other symbolic gravestones.
See also
In Spanish: Rachel Corrie para niños
- ISM casualties in Palestine and Israel
- List of peace activists
