Peace activist stirs idealism, controversy
By Christian Hill
McClatchy Newspapers
OLYMPIA, Wash. - Cindy Corrie never imagined losing one of her children, nor did she believe she would survive such a loss.
Then on March 16, 2003, the unthinkable happened. Her 23-year-old daughter, Rachel, was crushed beneath an Israeli bulldozer as she stood defending the home of two Palestinian families in Rafah, Gaza.
Cindy, 59, and her husband, Craig, made up their minds then to keep their daughter’s words and message alive, despite their loss.
“In fact, within the hour, we did start making decisions,” Cindy Corrie said, “and one was because Rachel’s words (in diaries and e-mails) had had such an impact on us, that those words needed to be available to people. She had worked on that. That was something she wanted to see happen.”
Rachel Corrie’s voice can still be heard four years after her death, with last week’s opening of the controversial play “My Name is Rachel Corrie” in Seattle.
And her voice continues to resonate, in her hometown of Olympia, Wash., and elsewhere.
For some, it’s a message of peace, a calling for nonviolent protest to right what’s wrong in the world.
For others, it’s a sad tale of a misguided youth who paid for her naivete about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with her life. Still others associate Corrie with the Palestinian extremists working to destroy the Jewish state.
It may be too soon to consider Corrie’s legacy, but her death affected a lot of people in ways they are still dealing with.
At the time of her death, Corrie’s parents were enjoying their newfound life as empty-nesters by traveling and hiking. Then, virtually overnight, they became the public face for many Americans of a bitter struggle in the world’s geopolitical hot spot. Corrie died a few days before the commencement of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
After Rachel’s death, her message of peace became theirs when Craig and Cindy visited Gaza, a narrow strip of land on the southeast Mediterranean that has been alternately controlled by Egypt and Israel since 1948. A 1994 accord provided for gradual transition to self-rule.
“When can you stop working for a 6-year-old child that just pets a rabbit while her whole home is being surrounded by the military? … That child deserves a future as does a child in Tel Aviv riding on a bus. I think we’re working for both of those children,” Craig Corrie said.
Her parents started the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice to fight oppression and advance human rights. The nonprofit foundation moved from the Corrie home to the third-floor of a downtown Olympia office building in December. The foundation listed its net assets as $23,573 at the end of 2005, according to its IRS return.
The Corries were invited to 40 talks last year, and still are overwhelmed by the public response.
“Right from the beginning, we were awestruck by some of the very personal responses from different places right after Rachel was killed, and it continues,” said Craig Corrie, 60.
The Corries continue to lobby for a U.S. investigation into their daughter’s death. An inquiry by the Israeli military cleared its forces of any wrongdoing.
The Israeli report characterized as “illegal, irresponsible and dangerous” the behavior exhibited by Corrie and other members of the International Solidarity Movement, which describes itself on its Web site as a “Palestinian-led movement committed to resisting the Israeli occupation … using nonviolent, direct-action methods.” The report said the bulldozer was clearing land to search for explosives and not to demolish the Palestinian home, although eyewitnesses dispute that claim.
The Corries contend that the Israeli inquiry was anything but the “thorough, credible and transparent investigation” that former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon promised President Bush.
The Israel Defense Forces did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.
A resolution sponsored by U.S. Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash., calling for a U.S. investigation into Corrie’s death never advanced out of committee, and Baird acknowledged there’s little chance of its being successfully resurrected given the U.S. government’s ardent support for Israel.
The Corries sued Caterpillar, the manufacturer of the armored D9 bulldozer that ran over their daughter, for compensatory and punitive damages. They allege the company “was aiding and abetting violations of international law by providing the IDF with the bulldozers used to destroy (Palestinian) homes.”
The U.S. District Court in Seattle dismissed the lawsuit in November 2005, but the Corries appealed the decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The appeal awaits oral argument.
Members of the International Solidarity Movement were forced to leave Gaza although they continue to support the Palestinians. Israel changed its entry requirements so those entering must declare they have no association with the International Solidarity Movement or any other group that aims to disrupt Israeli military operations. The change occurred after the death of Corrie and Tom Hurndall, another International Solidarity Movement volunteer, who was fatally shot by an Israeli soldier.
“Her death triggered a greater interest in who she was and why on earth she was there,” said Andrew Lyons, a former International Solidarity Movement media coordinator, in an e-mail from Morocco. “If she hadn’t had so much writing, I doubt the story would have continued as long as it has. Her death did obviously cause the wider spread of her writing.”
Lyons also is president of the Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project, which is close to securing a formal tie between Olympia and the town in Gaza where Corrie died, an idea originally proposed by Corrie and carried on by family, friends and community members after her death.
“We feel it was just a natural evolution of Rachel’s dream,” said John Harvey, the association’s treasurer.
The Olympia City Council is scheduled to consider the proposal next month.
Others express doubt that Corrie’s legacy will be lasting or positive.
Joel Dotterer was based 10 miles from Rafah, arriving there six months after Corrie’s death as a member of a multinational force monitoring a peace agreement between the Egyptians and Israelis.
In conversations with several of the Egyptians and Israelis, he was struck by their opinion of her death. “She was a pawn. She was in over her head,” he said, relating the gist of their comments about her. “She may have had good intentions, but all she was was good press.”
He acknowledged that he didn’t discuss her death with Palestinians because he wasn’t allowed in Gaza.
In a sarcastic op-ed article published in The Jerusalem Post and reprinted in the Wall Street Journal on the first anniversary of Corrie’s death in 2004, Ruhama Shattan, an Israeli translator and writer, thanked Corrie for “showing the way to all those who seek peace in the Middle East.”
“Unfortunately, Corrie’s peace … means not peaceful coexistence but the elimination of the state of Israel, and death to those they call `the usurping Jews, the sons of apes and pigs,’” Shattan wrote.
The Corries are no stranger to such criticism.
“I would ask if the people that are making those kinds of accusations, if they have been there to see for themselves,” Cindy Corrie said. “What’s motivating their criticism?”
It’s clear the deeds, words and death of Rachel Corrie stir passionate opinions, but Craig Corrie hopes there’s a next step.
“I hope her legacy will be one of becoming involved,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be involved in Israel-Palestine. … But I think there’s just lots of places around the world and around our individual communities that cry out for taking some initiative and some responsibility.”
