News Release

U.S. Aiding Israeli “Killing” and “Colonizing”

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CINDY CORRIE [email]
CRAIG CORRIE [email]
Cindy and Craig are parent of Rachel Corrie; there have been a series of events the last several days commemorating her killing ten years ago by Israeli troops in Gaza. Together, Cindy and Craig founded Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice. Craig Corrie recently wrote the piece “Ten Years on I Want Answers for my Daughter Rachel Corrie,” which states: “On March 16, 2003, my daughter Rachel Corrie was crushed to death under a bulldozer driven by an Israel Defense Forces soldier. The bulldozer was manufactured in the United States by Caterpillar, Inc. and paid for by U.S. foreign military financing aid. My tax dollars paid for the machine used to kill my daughter. In a telephone conversation the next day, Israeli Prime Minister Sharon promised President Bush a ‘thorough, credible, and transparent’ investigation into Rachel’s killing with a report to the U.S. Government. In response, April 24, 2003, our family received a printed PowerPoint presentation circulating in Congress purporting to explain the death of our daughter. This report, created by officers in command of the IDF unit that killed Rachel, concluded, ‘Ms. Corrie was not run over by a bulldozer, but sustained injuries caused by earth and debris which fell on her during bulldozer operation.’

“Not only was this statement not supported by accounts from Rachel’s friends and their photographs, it was subsequently contradicted by ‘Captain R.S.,’ the highest ranking IDF officer on the scene. In Haifa District Court in April 2011, he pointed to the blade marks on the ground in one of the photos, and swore he knew in the first minute that the bulldozer had run over Rachel. …

“What then would I ask President Obama to do as he makes his way to Israel and Palestine? Assure Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas alike that we will stand with them for the just aspirations of all their citizens, including the equal recognition to their right to be free of threats to their homes, families, farmland, and future. Explain that the U.S. will no longer support financially or diplomatically the apartheid system embodied in the occupation of Palestine and in the treatment of Palestinian citizens of Israel.”

STEPHEN ZUNES [email]
Professor of politics and chair of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco, Zunes said today: “There has always been a fundamental contradiction between the United States being the sole mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the primary military, economic, and diplomatic supporter of the Israeli government, which continues to illegally occupy and colonize Palestinian land seized in the 1967 war.”