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Article from the Olympian Online
The Olympia woman killed by an Israeli bulldozer Sunday in the Gaza Strip city of Rafah is one of several peace activists from the Olympia area who have placed themselves in harm's way with nonviolent actions on behalf of Palestinians facing Israeli occupied forces. Rachel Corrie, 23, was a member of the International Solidarity Movement, which has sent some 2,000 activists to occupied territories that have been combat zones in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Corrie, who associates said arrived in Rafah in late January, was run over by a bulldozer while standing in front of a Palestinian physician's home marked for demolition. At least eight members of the Olympia peace movement have traveled to the occupied territories in recent months to protest abuse of Palestinian people under Israeli control, said Therese Saliba, an Arab American and professor of Middle East studies at The Evergreen State College. Saliba said Corrie, who was a senior at TESC but not enrolled this quarter, was interested in setting up a sister-city relationship between Olympia and Rafah, a city refugee camp of about 140,000 people near the Egyptian border with Israel. "I talked to her a couple of times when she was planning her trip," Saliba said. "She was a leader on campus and in the peace movement. She was a bright student and a clear-thinking person." "She wasn't just about being a human shield," said Phan Nguyen, 28, a friend and fellow activist who made similar trips to the West Bank cities of Nablus and Ramallah as recently as last summer. "She was trying to set up pen pals for grade school students in Rafah and Olympia." Nguyen, a library employee at TESC, said a second Olympian, identified as Will Hewitt, was among the seven other U.S. and British citizens with Corrie at the time of her death. During her stay in Rafah, Corrie was one of several activists, who call themselves internationals, standing in support of Palestinian workers at a Rafah municipal water well undergoing repairs after it was destroyed by Israeli tanks and bulldozers Jan. 30. "The activists and workers were fired upon several times over a period of about one hour," she wrote via e-mail regarding an incident March 1. "One of the bullets came within two metres of three internationals and a municipal water worker, close enough to spray bits of debris in their faces as it landed at their feet." She recounted in a March 3 e-mail distributed by the International Solidarity Movement a Feb. 14 incident in which she and six other internationals tried to stop a bulldozer from knocking down a Palestinian home in the Block O area of Rafah. "They encountered two bulldozers and a tank, which fired shots around the internationals that seemed directed at Palestinians in nearby alleys," she reported. "The internationals stood in the path of the bulldozer and were physically pushed with the shovel backwards, taking shelter in a home." She said the activists escaped the tank amid gunfire. 'A very valuable service' Nguyen recalled speaking to Corrie before she left for Rafah, which the International Solidarity Movement calls the Gaza Strip's hottest hot spot. "She was strong in her convictions and willing to do something about it," he said. "She was excited, she was nervous, she didn't know what it would be like." John Van Eenwyk, a psychologist and founder of the International Trauma Treatment Program in Olympia, said he has been to Gaza Strip several times since 1991, working with individuals traumatized by the endless killing and brutality there. "The problem in the occupied territories is that the Israeli Army operates with absolute impunity," he said. "The military is out of control." He said he's not surprised by witness reports that the bulldozer that ran over Corrie then backed up over her. He said ISM members such as Corrie have provided a valuable service, sending back to their hometowns firsthand accounts of the social injustice and oppression that is part of everyday life in refugee camps such as Rafah. "I think they're doing a very valuable service," he said. It's a tragedy that it took Corrie's death to raise awareness in her own South Sound community of what is happening on a daily basis in occupied territories of Palestine, said Steve Hughes, a longtime friend and classmate of Corrie's at Capital High School. He recalled Corrie as a fellow member of the high school's International Club. "I've known her since I was 16," said Hughes, 24. "She was already interested in the international community. She could not abide the injustices she saw our government participate in with other countries. "She worked tirelessly for social justice," he continued. "She felt she had to take it another step. Her decision to go to Palestine was a logical progression for her."