ISRAEL: Abortion of justice in Israel.

 ISRAEL: ‘Corrie case, incomparable to Israel crimes against Palestinians’

The case of American activist Rachel Corrie’s death is little compared to the “tragedy and heartbreak” that the Israeli regime makes thousands and thousands of Palestinians suffer on a daily basis, says an analyst.

The comment comes as an Israeli court has ruled that Rachel Corrie, who was crushed by an Israeli bulldozer during a protest in 2003, was not unlawfully killed.

The Israeli judge, Oded Gershon said the military was not at fault for the death of the pro-Palestinian activist and there was no “negligence on the part of the bulldozer driver.”

"I reject the suit," the judge at Haifa district court said. "There is no justification” to entail compensation.

Rachel was 23 when she was crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer on March 16, 2003 while attempting to intervene in the demolition of a Palestinian home in the Gaza Strip.

Rachel Corrie  
REAL Footage of death

Rachel Corrie death

eyewitness attacks 'implausible' Israeli verdict

  

Rachel Corrie death

 Israel ruling 'bad day for umanity', says motherm

Billy Bragg

The Lonesome Death of Rachel Corrie

'Rachel Corrie verdict 

a clear example of Israel's rights violations'

However, other activists, who were at the scene on the day of the incident, said she had been clearly visible to the driver.

Press TV has conducted an interview with Adie Mormech, a Gaza-based human rights activist, to further discuss the issue.

The program also offers the opinions of Sameh Habeeb with the Palestinian Return Center and editor of Culture Wars Magazine, Eugene Michael Jones.

What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Do you think that the Corries expected even to get justice in the Israeli court?

Mormech: I think Cindy Corrie said it herself that she knew that this was not the end of the story. I think that she has seen quite close up the dramatic and explicit ways in which Israel will never ever grant any kind of legal justice to anybody supporting Palestinians, let alone the Palestinians themselves.

This is not just a substandard system; it’s a system that is blatantly slanted against anybody actually seeking justice in the region. Imagine this case with Rachel Corrie, everybody saw it around the world.

There is even photos and videos showing that this bulldozer was coming from 20, 30 meters away. She was standing there with a florescent jacket on. It was a clear day, on clear ground and you are telling me the bulldozer driver is not going to see her standing there when she’s screaming on a mega phone and even the photos you can see through the windscreen of it.

Press TV: Let me just jump in here you know you said at the beginning that they said that this wouldn’t be the end and that they would take it even to the Supreme Court but will it make a difference-- that’s my whole point. If Israel as we have seen that they basically seemed to do whatever they want and in the Corries’ case, Rachel’s case we saw as far as the verdict-- taking it to the Supreme Court, what do you think exactly it would do?

Mormech: I think it actually does have a great effect of putting a huge amount of light not just on certain cases like the Rachel Corrie case that was well publicized, comparatively speaking, although even she as a human rights activist was demonized in some areas of Western media that have a very pro-Israeli slant.

This will help because many people now understand the Rachel Corrie case. More and more people are understanding what’s happening to Palestinians.

Unfortunately the Arab World and Palestinians have been demonized to such an extent that it takes the death of a westerner who has been there supporting or for example the flotilla massacre where 9 Turkish and one American civilian were killed, again human rights workers as well as [21-year-old British photojournalist] Tom Hurndall who was killed shortly after Rachel, this does put a huge spot light on what Israel’s general policies are.

I remember on the [Gaza Freedom Flotilla] Mavi Marmara someone said if this is what Israel does when the world’s watching what has it been doing to Palestinians when we’ve been looking away?

And I think this is exactly true of the Rachel Corrie case and she like so many other activists would want to put a light on all of the thousands and thousands of Palestinians who have no justice, no chance of any kind of court hearings that are going to give them anything in response to murder, to man slaughter, to house demolitions. 

And there has only been one case of a man who was held to man slaughter for example and he was actually a Bedouin and he was the guy that killed Tom Hurndall and he was a Druze and again there is an entire system of impunity as far as the Israeli army is concerned, as far as settlers are concerned and far as discrimination against Palestinians in Israel that is systematic and institutionalized is concerned.

Press TV: Your take on this because we know things that are happening inside for example occupied territories and even having an American being killed. If it was happening in another country as far as the outrage that the US government would show with some of their citizens being killed especially if it’s a country that they’re not supporting.

In this situation the continual silence by even the American media, the American government, you made a point that of course Rachel was an American activist; it got a little bit more attention than what is norm but still not on the level that it would usually get. What will it take?

Let’s go into transition as far as looking into American or Western media, what will it take to change the way the media reflects the situation on the ground in the Palestinian occupied territories?

Mormech: It’s got to start with people on the ground. It’s got to start with people putting pressure on-- there is a large support for Palestine all over the worlds now and there is a larger number of people who are finding other sources of information.

There is other TV media from abroad and as much as in America there is still a hell of a lot of work to do and you read the media there sometimes and you really are quite shocked and you think that some of it is almost levels of propaganda from, you know, the Stalin regime and lot’s of others.

It’s really quite worrying but ultimately it’s going to take pressure from people on the ground and not only that but it’s not just about the actual facts for example I didn’t see in a lot of American media during the period 2000-2004 when Rachel was there, there was over 1700 houses destroyed. 17,000 people made homeless and putting a lot of light on a lot of the Palestinians who lost their lives.

And of course the other aspect of American media is often the humanizing effect of Israeli victims compared to the victims who are Palestinian. You have a story of the background but you won’t get that from Palestinians and this is a general racial issue as well. The Arab world has been chosen because of all the oil in the Arab world as the lurgy, the roads to demonize at this moment cause that’s what fits Western policy at this moment in time.

It was many other peoples, all through history just because of a certain resource or a certain need for power and takeover of this particular area and this is endemic in the Palestinian cause. Palestinians will not be humanized and I think this is part of our job. For example a guy in the-- led the attack, he got sentenced to 45 days for shooting two people, a mother and her daughter.

And this was-- even the civilians were cited during this case, did the American media go into it but it’s not just American media, British media as well is horrific.

There is a wonderful study by the Glasgow media foundation that found there was four times more reporting and time allocated towards Israeli deaths than there was to Palestinian deaths and many people in a sort of experiment who were watching the media afterwards they didn’t know whether Israel was occupying Palestine or Palestine was occupying Israel.

Such is the lack of context that is supplied and I think this can only come from grassroots and it can only come from us and that means we pave the way with our independent media and we challenge the media.

I have to say there is a massive, massive attack dog of people who are constantly attacking the media. The moment they show anything positive about Palestine, or the moment even any international reports are discussed; there is a huge massive onslaught.

We ourselves have to put pressure on media as well and we can do it and it can work and it really means everybody watching this now getting off their backside and moving on this. Because if you create pressure groups, if you force it now and we can do this with access to the internet and we can all do this.

Then things gradually will change and the same goes for the boycotts, divestments and sanctions movement to put pressure on Israel itself and use that as an awareness tool that eventually means that the media will just look too crazy; it would be too crazy for them to try and forgive such a blatant and explicit murder like that of Rachel Corrie and the thousands of other Palestinians that have been killed.

Press TV: Mr. Mormech, you are an activist what do you think it will take to get more people involved in this situation and more activism. Would a situation like what has happened to Rachel Corrie actually serve to perhaps instill fear in those who want to be involved or not?

Mormech: From my experience not at all actually and if anything her example got so much more awareness going about the Palestinian issue and I think what it did is it raised the understanding of what Palestinians were going through. It made the Palestinian agony and tragedy and heartbreak that so many suffer every day more real.

This of course galvanizes people and Rachel was a huge inspiration and she’s really, really loved here in Gaza and they can see what she was doing in such a selfless act and frankly this is-- Cindy, Corrie’s mother actually said there was so many children in these houses that were being demolished.

We should all have been there; we should all have been behind that house; we should all have been standing up and saying no to this bulldozer. This is a huge crime. These are many many peoples’ houses and how on earth people can just sit there and frankly do nothing but just talk and just sort of say oh, well, yeah I’m with the Palestinians but actually not getting off their backsides and doing anything.

And really if there is one thing that Rachel taught so many people it’s action; it’s about getting a move on with this. It can win now. It’s just like in South Africa. The rise of the boycott divestment and sanction movements, the rise of internationals working together with people on the ground to create a global movement and a courageous movement to end it.

VG/HSN

 She has become 

a whore since she resided in Israel