When the American pro-Palestinian activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death on the tracks of an Israeli army bulldozer in 2003, there was international outrage, not simply because a young woman had been slain in this appalling manner, but that she died trying to protect homes in the Gaza Strip from being wantonly destroyed by the Israeli military. An investigation by the Israeli armed forces cleared the bulldozer driver of any guilt, finding that the soldier could not have seen Corrie. The refusal of successive Israeli governments to take any further action caused the dead activist's family to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, bringing a civil suit against the Israeli army. On Tuesday they discovered what many seasoned observers of Israel's suppression of the Palestinians had always suspected — that they had wasted every cent of their money. The murder of their daughter, said an Israeli judge, was “ a regrettable accident”, for which the Israeli state could in no way be held responsible. The judge went on to say that Corrie “had been protecting terrorists in a designated combat zone”. He added that soldiers were trying to keep people away from the bulldozing and that the young woman did not distance herself from the area, “as any thinking person would have done.” This part of the judgement soars off into the parallel universe, in which the majority of Israelis live, where similar brutality meted out to Jews by the Nazis is used by the Israelis on the Palestinians. However whereas Hitler's thugs have been rightly condemned, Israeli troops are lauded and protected for their crimes. What the judge got completely wrong was that “any thinking person” would be revolted by the callous destruction of the homes of Palestinians, deemed guilty of trying to defend their homeland. Indeed, if they had the same courage as Rachel Corrie and her fellow pro-Palestinian activists, who tried to form a human shield to protect the buildings, every thinking person would also have stood in front of the bulldozer in an attempt to stop the destruction from going ahead. The death of this American woman was as avoidable as the slaughter of 1,300 Palestinians, including 410 children and 104 women, during the 21-day bombardment of Gaza that began five years later in December 2008. But then what is one more death, even of a citizen of Israel's major partner and aid provider in the world, when measured against the savagery that marked the beginning of the Israeli state and the uncompromising force which has characterized its life since then ? The Corrie family have said that they are going to appeal to the Israeli supreme court, but in their hearts, they probably know that they have already seen the blunt reality of Israeli justice. After the verdict, in a dignified but heart-broken statement, Rachel's mother said that it was a bad day, not only for her family, but for human rights, for humanity, the rule of law and also for Israel. Her words will have struck home everywhere, except in the hardened hearts of those Israelis who believe that, when Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by the bulldozer, she got what was coming to her.
