Rachel Corrie's (Posthumous) Day in Court

An unusual trial begins in Israel this
week, and people around the world will be watching closely. It involves
the tragic death of a 23-year-old American student named Rachel Corrie.
On March 16, 2003, she was crushed to death by an Israeli military
bulldozer.

Corrie was volunteering with the group
International Solidarity Movement (ISM), which formed after Israel and
the United States rejected a proposal by then-United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson to place international
human rights monitors in the occupied territories. The ISM defines
itself as "a Palestinian-led movement committed to resisting the
Israeli occupation of Palestinian land using nonviolent, direct-action
methods and principles." Israel was building a large steel wall to
separate Rafah from Egypt, and was bulldozing homes and gardens to
create a "buffer zone." Corrie and seven other ISM activists responded
to a call on that March day to protect the home of the Nasrallah
family, which was being threatened with demolition by two of the
armored Israeli military bulldozers made by the U.S. company
Caterpillar.

Cindy Corrie, Rachel's mother, related
what happened: "The bulldozer proceeded toward Rachel. ... She was in
her orange jacket. When it kept coming, she rose on the mound, and the
eyewitnesses testified that her head rose above the top of the blade of
the bulldozer, so she could clearly be seen, but the bulldozer
continued and proceeded over her, and so that it was covering her body.
It stopped and then reversed, according to the eyewitness testimonies,
without lifting its blade, so backed over her once again.

"Her friends were screaming at the
bulldozer drivers through this to stop. They rushed to her, and she
said to them, 'I think my back is broken.' And those were her final
words."

Shortly after Rachel's death, the Corries
met with the Bush State Department. It was there that the idea of a
civil lawsuit was first presented, by Secretary of State Colin Powell's
own chief of staff, Lawrence B. Wilkerson. Craig Corrie, Rachel's
father, recalled: "He said: 'If it was my daughter, I'd sue them. I
don't care about money. I wouldn't care about anything. I would sue the
state of Israel.' " Ultimately, this is what the Corrie family did.

Just before heading to JFK Airport in New York to attend the trial,
Craig Corrie told me about the lawsuit: "We're accusing the state of
Israel of either intentionally killing Rachel or of gross negligence in
her killing seven years ago." The day after Rachel was killed, Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon promised President George W. Bush a
"thorough, credible and transparent investigation." Yet according to a
Human Rights Watch report from 2005, Israel's "investigations into
Corrie's killing ... fell far short of the transparency, impartiality,
and thoroughness required by international law."

The civil trial, Craig Corrie says, is not
about the monetary damages, but discovering information, and "like
[South African Archbishop] Desmond Tutu talks about, of mending the
tear in society." The Corries never speak solely about their daughter,
but about the plight of the Palestinians and the Israeli siege of Gaza.
According to the latest figures of the Israeli Committee Against House
Demolitions, 24,145 houses have been demolished in the occupied
territories since 1967, including the 4,247 that the United Nations
estimated were destroyed during Operation Cast Lead, the name Israel
gave to its military assault on Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009.

Of course, more than houses were destroyed
there. More than 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed. The
Corries also express concern about the psychological toll exacted on
Israeli soldiers. Craig Corrie said, "We lost Rachel, and that hurts
every day, but that bulldozer driver lost a lot of his humanity when he
crushed Rachel."

The trial begins during the same week that
Joe Biden makes his first trip to Israel as vice president. As chair of
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden sought answers on the
death of Rachel Corrie during the confirmation hearings for U.S.
Ambassador to Israel James Cunningham.

Biden knows the pain of losing a daughter.
His daughter was killed with his first wife in a car accident in 1972.
The Corries are calling on people around the world to stand with them
on March 16, the anniversary of Rachel's death, for truth,
accountability and justice, "to raise and highlight many of the
critical issues to which Rachel's case is linked."

Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.