RACHEL Corrie, 23, from the state of Washington in the United States, was killed while trying to prevent an Israeli army bulldozer from destroying a Palestinian home at Rafah, Occupied Gaza Strip, on March 16, 2003.
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 So fanatical is the support for Israel among some Americans, they have said Rachel deserved to die. "She shouldn't have been where she was," is a common remark from those who seem to have an excuse for any Israeli outrage — even when Americans and other Westerners are the victims.
The Israeli response was predictable: "This is a regrettable accident," Israeli Defence Force spokesman Captain Jacob Dallal was reported as saying in Ha'aretz newspaper. "We are dealing with a group of protesters who were acting very irresponsibly, putting everyone in danger." With this trite statement, a callous murder is casually dismissed.
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Other foreigners who were with her said the driver of the bulldozer was aware that Rachel was there, and continued to destroy the house. Initially, he dropped sand and other heavy debris on her, they said. Then the bulldozer pushed her to the ground, where it proceeded to drive over her, fracturing her arms, legs and skull. She was transferred to al-Najar Hospital, where she died from her injuries. (Information from an emailed report from the Palestine Monitor.)
 
The confrontation between the ISM and the Israeli Army had been under way for two hours when Rachel was run over. Rachel and the other activists had clearly identified themselves as unarmed international peace activists throughout the confrontation. The Israeli Army are attempting to dishonour her memory by claiming that Rachel was killed accidentally when she ran in front of the bulldozer. Eyewitnesses to the murder insist that this is totally untrue. Rachel was sitting in the path of the bulldozer as it advanced towards her. When the bulldozer refused to stop or turn aside she climbed up on to the mound of dirt and rubble being gathered in front of it wearing a fluorescent jacket to look directly at the driver who kept on advancing. The bulldozer continued to advance so that she was pulled under the pile of dirt and rubble. After she had disappeared from view the driver kept advancing until the bulldozer was completely on top of her. The driver did not lift the bulldozer blade and so she was crushed beneath it. Then the driver backed off and the seven other ISM activists taking part in the action rushed to dig out her body. An ambulance rushed her to A-Najar hospital where she died. (Information from International Solidarity Movement media coordinator Michael Shaik in Beit Sahour.)
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 More than 50,000 Palestinians have been made homeless by Caterpillar bulldozers. CAT supplies equipment used by the Israeli military to destroy Palestinian homes, infrastructure, orchards, greenhouses, agricultural land filled with crops and sometimes lives, including American peace activist Rachel Corrie and Palestinian Suha Sweidan, who was nine months pregnant when she was killed in the middle of the night in a home demolition. While US taxpayers foot the bill, CAT profits from the wholesale destruction of Palestinian livelihoods.
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Dismantling the Fortresses of Fear
by Jeff Halper in YES! magazine, 2003
On March 17, a 23-year-old American college student died in the southern Gaza city of Rafah after trying to stop an Israeli-driven bulldozer from tearing down a Palestinian physician’s home. A few minutes after Rachel Corrie spoke with the driver to try to convince him to stop, and while she looked at him, he ran over her, then backed over her again.
 Rachel was not the first person killed as a result of Israel’s cruel policy of house demolitions. In March, Nuha Makadma Sweidan and her unborn child were also killed in Gaza when Israeli army sappers “accidentally” demolished their home when they blew up another home nearby. A few weeks before that, an elderly woman and a disabled man died under the rubble of their Gazan homes when the soldiers “failed to notice” them. Yet Rachel was the first American to be killed this way, and her death shocked the world as Palestinian deaths do not.
Among the ironies of her death was the fact that the bulldozer was American-made. The United States has long been Israel’s primary ally, and increasingly pursues the same strategies in its quest for security. Yet Rachel’s death suggests that these intertwined policies are a dead-end for both countries.
As an Israeli Jew who has traveled frequently to the United States, I believe that Israel and the United States share many features. They are both European-settler states that displaced an indigenous population. They both acted in their countries with a sense of Manifest Destiny, both motivated by the belief that their conquest and colonization were divinely blessed. They are both societies that believe themselves to have a special mission to the rest of humanity (to be “a light unto the nations,” to bring democracy to benighted countries). As the strongest power in the Middle East, Israel places its ability to impose its exclusive claim to the entire Land of Israel (including the Occupied Territories) on its military superiority. The United States, the strongest power in the world, asserts its hegemony over the planet through military force. Especially since September 11, both perceive themselves as besieged fortresses—Fortresses of Fear—alienated from a hostile outside world and threatened by it. Israelis often use the term “Fortress Israel” to describe our country. In the U.S., the image of a fortress is embedded in The Star Spangled Banner.
The house Rachel died protecting, Dr. Samir Nasrallah’s home, was demolished as part of Israel’s efforts to protect its fortress. Like dozens of other houses that have been bulldozed in that section of the dense refugee camp, Nasrallah’s lay within a wide “security strip” that Israel wants to create along the border with
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