Rachel Corrie: Media Issue Their Own Verdicts
August 28, 2012 15:09 by Simon Plosker
An Israeli court has ruled against a civil action taken by the family of International Solidarity Movement activist Rachel Corrie. According to an Israeli judge:
This was a very unfortunate accident and not an action undertaken with intent… The deceased put herself into a dangerous situation, standing in front of a large bulldozer in a place where the operator could not see her. She did not distance herself as a reasonable person would have done.
Corrie’s death, he said, was “the result of an accident she brought upon herself.”
Unsurprisingly, the verdict has made international news. The inappropriate headline of the day goes to the Daily Telegraph:
Contrary to the headline, it was not Israel absolving itself of all blame but the very credible and thorough Israeli legal system which had examined the case in great detail. There are plenty of times when Israeli judges have ruled against the state or the IDF and there is no reason to believe that the judge in this case did not come to his conclusions without prejudice.
This wasn’t enough, however, to stop Jon Snow, the UK Channel 4′s top news presenter from describing the verdict as “grim”:
Is Jon Snow expressing his distaste for the verdict? If so, perhaps he should stick to reporting the news rather than passing his own judgments.
Rachel Corrie even became part of a “cycle of violence” according to The Guardian. This part of Harriet Sherwood’s report stood out:
At the time – the height of the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising – house demolitions were common, part of an increasing cycle of violence from both sides. Palestinian suicide bombers were causing death and destruction with terrifying frequency; the Israeli military was using its mighty force and weaponry to crush the uprising.
So, according to The Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood, house demolitions to prevent Palestinian weapons smuggling fall into the same category as blowing up Israeli buses or cafes; Israeli measures to protect its civilian population are of the same moral equivalence as the Palestinian terrorism that deliberately targeted Israeli civilians; the death of Rachel Corrie in a tragic accident no different to the deaths of Israeli victims of terror.
And all of this as part of a “cycle of violence”.
This article is continued on Page 2
Jack
12:08 pm
Aug 29, 2012
Is this HonestReporting or the UK version? Why are you guys so obsessed with the British media? Zzzzzzzzzzzz
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Perry
3:06 pm
Aug 29, 2012
Alas Jack.
It is the British media that is so obsessed with reporting about Israel in a distorted manner.
I can assure you that as soon as the British media switches off its anti-Israel bias, HonestReporting will be able to turn its attention elsewhere.
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Dale Schaan
4:04 pm
Aug 29, 2012
I guess these reporters who cast aspersions on every defensive measure Israel must make to survive as a nation, or make it sound like Israel is covering up some evil miscarriage of justice in this case, along with the media owners who enable this sick propaganda can look at themselves in the mirror without vomiting, because their ideology of hatred and prejudice to the Jewish people blinds them to just how evil their words and actions are!
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m
4:24 pm
Aug 29, 2012
But ya know what Dale, Krama’s a bitch and what goes around comes around. At some point, justice will prevail.
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m
4:25 pm
Aug 29, 2012
Whoops ….. what I meant to write, of course , was….
But ya know what Dale, KARMA’S a bitch and what goes around comes around. At some point, justice will prevail.
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Mr. Light-Bright
4:52 pm
Aug 29, 2012
Rachel Corrie needed to spend time with the Christians(for example) in Gaza, but I have a inkling that that would be a place she would want to ignore.
Protesting against Israel in Gaza, is… difficult do to living with a poor conditions.
Protesting to keep Gaza it’s self socially/philosophically free… ehh… talk about a guaranteed death sentence.
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Isabelle
5:50 pm
Aug 29, 2012
Corrie verdict is correct and just. It is also surprisingly/refreshingly courageous as Israelis increasingly have not only yielded to international pressures, but appear to buy that they indeed might have become the world’s “biggest villain”. Even some British commentators concede that Israeli courts often have ruled for enemies. In fact, Israel’s legal & other bodies have bent over backwards to prove themselves impartial & more than humane, incl. erring against self-interest, security, even survival. Still, Israel can’t win for losing. The usual suspects who don’t like the verdict against Corrie would have used an opposite ruling as evidence of Israel’s own admission that she is a villain.
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Josephine Bacon
7:22 pm
Aug 29, 2012
I am sick of all these American McCarthyites who tar everyone on the left with the same brush. Not all leftists are antisemitic nor are all right-wingers. During WWII it was mainly leftists, especially Communists, who saved Jewish lives. Antisemitism is non-partisan. Unfortunately, there is a section of the left that is flagrantly antisemitic at the moment, especially in the UK, but this does not apply to all leftists, and especially not to Jews on the left.
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Gary Katz
7:54 pm
Aug 29, 2012
Good point, Josephine! Besides, one doesn’t become anti-Israeli or anti-Semitic because he is a Leftist, a Rightest, or a combination. Being Left/Right is political; anti-Semitism is more of a spiritual deficit.
M, I wasn’t sure what example you were seeking, internet invective against Israel or Leftist supporters of Israel. For the former, any comment section on an Israel article in the “Guardian” will provide more than you could stomach. For the latter, Netanyahu got just as many standing ovations from the Dems, when he spoke to Congress. Of course, Americans support Israel more evenly than in certain other countries…
My liberal friends admire & support Israel.
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Peter
9:57 am
Aug 30, 2012
Really, Josephine? Care to name a prominent left-leaning British newspaper that is not antisemitic? Care to name the left-leaning official opposition party in the UK whose shadow justice secretary (!!!) does not attend Hamas hatefests?
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Kal
7:32 pm
Aug 29, 2012
I think Isabelle has it exactly right. Anti-Israel feelings are a cancer in this world. To paraphrase an old ironic saying: “Anti-Israeliness is a world sickness that Israelis die from”.Rachel Corrie’s death was of course regrettable and sad. However there was no intent on the part of the Israeli operator of the bulldozer. He couldn’t even see Rachel. The real evil in this is the ugly attempt by some so-called intellectuals who are in reality moral imbeciles to equate Rachel Corrie with Anne Frank, as is suggested in a recent stageplay in London . Anne was killed because she was a Jewess, purposely and with malice. Rachel’s death was a very sad accident. She was not being hunted down.
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jeb stuart
11:45 pm
Aug 29, 2012
The period of which the Guardian mentions, was racked in Islamic on non=Muslim violnce. Heavan forbid the English shariah compliant news aganecies wever do anything say anything or report facts that might criticize Islam instead of the pseudo anti semtitism they try to portray as anti-Zionism. That was a period in which the BBC has admitted their reporters were intimidated by the Muslim West Bank mobs. And they still are.
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Dave
5:14 am
Aug 30, 2012
Hey Jack, maybe you should clarify what you mean by being obsessed with British media. Do HR readers have the right to comment? Do you not agree that the British media should be held to account for propagating lies? Perhaps you agree with the British media when they castigate Israel. If you do that is your right but recognise that hundreds of million, or more likely billions of people simply don’t.
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Les
9:15 am
Aug 30, 2012
Jack,
Britain holds the sad distinction of being the first Western nation to evict the Jews, in 1290. Their media has never recovered, it seems. And they certainly grouse about being called out for their sickly, cowardly bias these days. Its too bad someone has to watch the watchers because their left wing agenda calls for fair treatment of everyone, except Jews.
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Les
9:31 am
Aug 30, 2012
After seeing the comments about painting liberals with an anti-Semitic brush, I should clarify. What seems to be a movement informed by the political left has made efforts to embrace Muslims, radical ones, at that, and stand with them repeatedly and blame Israel and Jews. Yes, I know much of the Jewish American population is on the left, and their support of Israel is mixed. But if anyone can explain this odd, misguided acceptance of anti-Western Shariahists who are not afraid to say they want to take down Western institutions and replace them with Islamic ones, and explain it is not a left wing phenomenon, please do.
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Peter
9:52 am
Aug 30, 2012
The Guardian carries a Nazi cartoon that surpasses even the New Statesman cover of a few years ago.
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Josephine Bacon
10:03 am
Aug 30, 2012
This is a phase that is all part of the “political correctness” mania, that has been exploited by the Arabs and their Stalinist sympathisers. It is no coicidence that this Jewish (oh, excuse me, Israel) hatefest began just when the Communist Party in Great Britain was disbanded and the Communists became entryists in the Labour Party. For instance, in Holborn & St. Pancras Labour Party to which I belong, we have several of them, but we also have some decent people, not all of them Jews, who spoke out against the recent motion at the GC condemning the JNF as racist. As someone pointed out here, antisemitism is not party-political it is a mental attitude.
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I beati laici « Bugie dalle gambe lunghe
1:35 pm
Aug 30, 2012
[...] a Honest Reporting per il suo contributo Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:Mi piaceBe the first to like [...]
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Isabelle
3:46 pm
Aug 30, 2012
Indeed Kal, Anne Frank was a completely innocent & true victim deliberately targeted for annihilation for 1 reason only, what she WAS: Jewish. Corrie’s death was a tragic accident caused by her own misguided zeal & reckless behavior & she was not killed intentionally at all. Unlike Corrie’s, Anne Frank’s death was murder. Les & Peter make great points re Britain etc. & Les, what is interesting is this fellow travelling, esp. in Europe where diminished formerly powerful marxist atheistic parties (ex:France’s old Communist Party) with radical religious Islamofascists. Reckless leftists are Islamofascists’ useful idiots who don’t realize they would be among 1st to go under Sharia rule.
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Isabelle
4:28 pm
Aug 30, 2012
Yes Peter et al, British history: bizarre twists & turns: positive spread of Western values, great legal system used by others (exUSA), break from anti-Semitic Roman Church (even if only for Henry VIII whim), PM Disraeli, great Balfour/Churchill.Yet ancient + recent MAJOR betrayals of Jews: expulsion, reneged Balfour map & deal, Coward Chamberlain, blocked Jews from ancestral home/turned back to death camps, abstained at UN partition vote (even Stalin’s USSR voted yes), becoming modern Western bastion of Sharia, anti-Semitism, even HRH Chuck seduced by Islam/Thx QE II for sticking around! Call it divine justice or whatnot? Past 60 yrs: Sun sets very quickly on left over British Empire!
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Ed Frias
7:37 pm
Aug 30, 2012
The best article about the Flag burner Rachel Corrie.
A Tribute to Rachel Corrie
Thanks for showing us what “peace” really means.
RUHAMA SHATTAN
March 16, 2004
Today is the first anniversary of Rachel Corrie’s death. I want to thank Corrie for the explosives that flow freely from Egypt to Gaza, via the smuggling tunnels under the Gaza homes that she died defending.
Perhaps it was these explosives that in the year since her martyrdom–oops, death–have been strapped around suicide bombers to blow up city buses and restaurants in Israeli cities, particularly in Jerusalem, killing men, women and schoolchildren (two of them classmates of my daughter and her friend in the February 22, 2004 bombing) and leaving hundreds more widows, orphans and bereaved parents.
On the first anniversary of her death, I want to thank Rachel Corrie for showing Palestinian children how to despise America as she snarled, burned an American flag, and led them in chanting slogans, and as she gave “evidence” at a Young Palestinian Parliament mock trial finding President Bush guilty of crimes against humanity.
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Barry
8:04 pm
Aug 30, 2012
Great post Ed!! Any death could rightfully be considered tragic, but putting things in their proper perspective certainly effects the degree of that tragedy. While British (& other) media indulge in reporting the “senseless murder” of an innocent young woman, they ignore or obscure the true nature of the beast. She was a hateful anarchist who despised her own country as she did Israel, & her own stupidity ended her life. How can one who is so passionate on human rights concentrate so exclusively on a problem so artificial & cynical as the Palestinian cause while at the same time ignoring genocides and real human tragedies the world over. Hatred of Jews, democracy and truth.
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Ed Frias
7:39 pm
Aug 30, 2012
Perhaps her help in fanning the flames of violent anti-American sentiment led to the October 2003 bombing of the Fulbright delegation to Gaza to interview scholarship candidates, killing three. There will be no new crop of Palestinian Fulbright scholars this fall.
On the first anniversary of her death, I wanted to thank Rachel Corrie for providing her organization, the Palestinian-sponsored International Solidarity Movement, with the opportunity to release a manipulated photo sequence “showing” an Israeli military bulldozer deliberately crushing her. (I would also like to thank the Associated Press and the Christian Science Monitor for taking up the baton and immortalizing this cynical ISM stunt.)
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Ed Frias
7:39 pm
Aug 30, 2012
On the first anniversary of her death, I want to thank Rachel Corrie for showing the way to all those who seek peace in the Middle East. Unfortunately, Corrie’s peace, as anyone familiar with the Palestine Liberation Organization, Fatah, Hamas and Hezbollah organizations that she defended with her life knows–or as anyone familiar with the weekly rants of the Friday preachers in the Palestinian mosques is aware–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.”
Thank you, Rachel Corrie, of Evergreen State University, where the profs wear khakis and kaffiyehs at graduation ceremonies, for showing us what peace really means.
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Gary Katz
8:26 pm
Aug 30, 2012
Here’s my perspective as a retire trial lawyer: if you put aside the politics of the situation, Corrie trespassed into a closed construction zone, stood directly in the path of a slow-moving bulldozer, and remained there until it crushed her. Between the driver’s limited sight lines and the noise, Corrie had more opportunity and the last opportunity to avoid the accident, compared to the driver. Nothing blocked her view of the massive machine, which was much easier to spot than she was. If her relatives came to me to take on such a case, I would have declined it, because few juries would find against the construction company. The politics don’t change the facts, as the judge recognized.
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m
8:35 pm
Aug 30, 2012
Gary, you pretty much hit the nail again; this time from a purely logical, practical, and legal perspective. It matters little which side one’s emotions are on. Only a moron would attempt to argue your point.
Good post!
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Gary Katz
8:39 pm
Aug 30, 2012
Thanks, M. However, if my analysis were published in “The Guardian” or “Daily Telegraph,” I’m sure I’d be subjected to quite a bit of derision.
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m
8:46 pm
Aug 30, 2012
That is only because the Guardian and it’s ilk are not interested in logic or truth. They have an agenda and the truth is something that gets in the way of that agenda.
So, they are adept at inserting fingers into ears and singing lalalalala when the truth is place on their plate.
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Barry
8:51 pm
Aug 30, 2012
If your logical, unbiased and unemotional (and excellent) analysis were published in “The Guardian” or “Daily Telegraph”, I’d have to sell my clothes because it would mean that the world had come to its end!
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Gary Katz
9:24 pm
Aug 30, 2012
The editors and many readers of those publications do filter the facts through their prism of preconceived bias. Very unfortunate for everyone, including them.
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Josephine Bacon
9:23 am
Aug 31, 2012
The trial lawyer’s posting is really to the point, and of course he could call in evidence other bulldozer drivers, such as the one who posted here, to explain how limited the view is from the driver’s cab.
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Motti
11:12 am
Aug 31, 2012
I had the pleasure of working with the late great friend of Israel, the hon. Terrence Prittie, a former editor of the Manchester Guardian. He confirmed that the Guardian had become a bastion of Israel hating editors/columnists back in the 1960′s when the UK felt forced to back the Economic boycott of Israel, headquarters in the peaceful capital Damascus in Syria.
No mater what Israel to defend herself, she will be condemned by the chattering classes at the Guardian, edited by Muslims, Observer, Daily Mirr, the Independent (if only) The UK is not alone. Look at any other country where so many of the farleft fascists back the ongoing economic, political, and cultural war against Israel
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