The expected verdict in the death of Rachel Corrie, killed under the wheels of an Israeli-modified Caterpillar bulldozer in 2003, came down today and the court found no fault with the Israel Defense Forces. That was no surprise. But the deafening silence about it in Washington is nonetheless reprehensible.
I’ve [...]]]>
The expected verdict in the death of Rachel Corrie, killed under the wheels of an Israeli-modified Caterpillar bulldozer in 2003, came down today and the court found no fault with the Israel Defense Forces. That was no surprise. But the deafening silence about it in Washington is nonetheless reprehensible.
I’ve met Cindy and Craig Corrie, Rachel’s parents, on several occasions. I cannot imagine the lives they lead. I cannot imagine the death of my child, much less the death of a child at the hands of a supposed ally of my country with no accountability. I can’t imagine my child being killed by that ally and then seeing my child being blamed for the incident. Yet the Corries have lived through all this, and somehow, while their frustration has grown, it has never morphed into hate. Somehow they always cling to the hope that Israel, an ostensible ally and fellow democracy, will at some point do the right thing.
I’m sure, though I haven’t spoken with them in years, that the Corries held out little hope that this verdict would be that point. But what is perhaps most stunning is that there is no clamor in the United States, aside from those whose sympathies would be with Rachel’s cause in trying to protect Palestinians from the ravages of occupation, for some kind of action on behalf of a US citizen who lost her life on foreign soil under, to be kind, questionable circumstances.
Take Cindy Corrie’s words today: “This was a bad day, not only for us, but for human rights, humanity, the rule of law, and the country of Israel.” Someone was missing on that list, but Cindy got to them in another comment: “The diplomatic process between the United States and Israel failed us.”
I admire Cindy Corrie’s restraint. But the US failure here is much broader than what she is saying. And it’s a long term one.On March 25, 2003, Congressman Brian Baird (D-WA) introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives calling on the US government to “undertake a full, fair, and expeditious investigation” into Corrie’s death. The bill gathered 77 co-sponsors, which is not a large number, though a larger one than is typical for a bill critical of Israel. But none had the political muscle to counter defenders of Israel in the House, so the bill died in the Committee on International Relations. Its death, like its existence, generated little attention.
President Bush got a promise from Ariel Sharon, Israel’s Prime Minister at the time, that Israel would conduct a “thorough, credible, and transparent investigation.” An investigation concluded that Rachel’s death was an accident, and that it was, in essence, her own fault for being there in the first place. In a detailed analysis of not only Israel’s several layers of investigation, but also of their own investigation, “Human Rights Watch’s own research indicates that the impartiality and professionalism of the Israeli investigation into Corrie’s death are highly questionable.”
Indeed, the State Department said at the time that “We do not consider this matter closed with the reception of the internal IDF report. We are going to press for a full and transparent investigation.” But none was forthcoming. And what is the US view today? Well, the US Ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro told the Corries last week that Israel’s investigation into Rachel’s death “…was not satisfactory, and wasn’t as thorough, credible or transparent as it should have been.”
Indeed, the US’ official position is to press Israel for such a thorough and credible investigation. But nine years later, the Corries were reduced to trying to file a civil suit because there was simply nothing else happening. So much for US pressure.
Let’s be clear about this: we have a US citizen who met her death on foreign soil. The State Department and both the Bush and Obama Administrations believed that the investigation into her death was unsatisfactory. George W. Bush, surely not a president anyone would cast as less than enthusiastic in his support of Israel, personally requested a deeper investigation from the Israeli Prime Minister. And nearly a decade later, all our ambassador to Israel is doing is reaffirming that Israel has doesn’t enough.
Is there a better example of the absurdity of the US’ relationship to Israel than Rachel Corrie? It doesn’t matter if one believes that she had no business going to Gaza in the first place. The fact is that Israel has not explained her death to the satisfaction of its closest ally and patron. If this was any other country — including Great Britain, or Canada — there would be a massive outcry and the US wouldn’t rest until the questions were answered and some kind of accounting was seen.
But not with Israel. The relationship is not special, nor is it because it is “cherished,” in the ridiculous words of Mitt Romney. This is the relationship of an over-indulgent parent further spoiling an already selfish and harmful child. As we watch an Israeli Prime Minister brazenly interfere with a US presidential race, and try to manipulate the US into a war that is against our (and Israel’s) interests, we might also notice that our government is not fulfilling its most fundamental obligation: protecting its citizens overseas.
If Israel wants to make the case that Rachel Corrie’s death was an accident or was merited by her actions, then a transparent investigation that meets basic standards of credibility is the way to do that. That Israel refuses to do that would seem to indicate that they do not believe that the outcome of that investigation would be to their liking. Surely it cannot be about secrecy for security’s sake; Israel is no longer present on the ground in Gaza and the tactics, equipment and systems are a decade old.
Nothing can erase the tragedy of Rachel Corrie’s death. But her death offers an opportunity for the US to finally start to try to curb Israeli impunity. Palestinians are injured and killed regularly, and cases are often closed without resolution or even due investigation, as one can easily see by looking at the site of B’Tselem: The Israeli Information for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. And other foreign activists have also been killed by Israeli forces over the years.
But the US continues to be inert on the matter. One can only hope the Corries find some solace and peace elsewhere. Israel, at least, has good reason to want to bury the truth behind Rachel Corrie’s death. The United States has only its own cowardice as an excuse.
]]>Debating the Goldstone Report last week, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) laid bare the depravity of Washington’s discourse on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He asserted that there is no Israeli occupation in the West Bank, declared that settlements are only built inside Israel, and put Israel’s eastern border at the Jordan River. These contentions are, respectively, wrong, in blatant contravention of international law, and just to the right of Likud.
But one of his claims deserves more careful attention, because the misconception is more widespread: that the Gaza Strip is not occupied Palestinian territory. “Here’s a statement of fact: Gaza to this moment, and since 2005 has not been occupied by anyone. There’s not a single Israeli soldier in Gaza today,” Weiner said. Later in the debate, he hit on this point again in a heated exchange with former Rep. Brian Baird.
Indeed, there are no permanent Israeli military bases in Gaza. They were removed along with the Strip’s civilian settlements in Israel’s 2005 unilateral withdrawal. Since the withdrawal has resulted in increased rocket attacks from the besieged Strip into Israel, proponents of the status quo have treated the action as a top-shelf piece of hasbara to explain Israel’s intransigence and foot-dragging on a peace deal.
Since withdrawal, however, Israel has claimed a right to make military incursions into Gaza at any time and place of its choosing. One needs only glance at the latest book by Breaking the Silence (BtS), an Israeli NGO, to see this is the case. The 431-page volume, aptly titled “Occupation of the Territories“, covers Israeli soldiers’ accounts of both Gaza and the West Bank throughout the decade.
“The perception of most Israelis is that we left Gaza and that Gaza is not occupied anymore,” Mikhael Manekin, a co-director of BtS, told me in a recent interview. “That’s how the government and military present it even though there’s a very big gap between that and what happens on the ground.”
Manekin said in Israel it’s difficult to find a map that does not include Gaza and the West Bank as part of the Jewish state. “When you look at testimonies, it makes sense to put them on the same map.”
One BtS testimony by a soldier from the Givati Brigade describes the regularity and breadth of Israeli military operations in Gaza between Israel’s withdrawal and and the Gaza War of late 2008 and early 2009:
There was a template. It started with Operation Hot Winter [end of February - beginning of March 2008] because until then it was the largest operation ever, not the longest, but in scope and with the most achievements. Before that there was Operation ‘Fall Clouds’ sometime in 2006, … it was a 48-hour operation, and afterwards for five months it turned out that there was a battalion operation, the battalion plus a little less than a company.
During those five months, Israel made six battalion-scale incursions and executed a host of company-sized missions into the Strip.
In the context of such assaults, the lack of permanent Israeli military bases is a red herring.
Defending his statement that there is no military occupation in the West Bank, Weiner cited the absence of a permanent Israeli military presence in some cities like Ramallah and Nablus. But, as Manekin explained to me: “Since 2008, Israel understands that you don’t need to be in the cities. But as long as you can be in the cities when you need to be, it’s okay.” The same paradigm, of course, applies to a tiny piece of land like Gaza.
Most observers still consider the West Bank to be occupied territory despite the lack of a permanent IDF presence in two of its major cities. That they do so clearly weakens Weiner’s claims about Gaza. Manekin cited the freedom of Israeli forces to strike into cities in the West Bank as clear evidence of continuing occupation. “That’s why the Occupied Territories and Gaza are the same,” he said.
Israel’s legal justification for its actions in both military and civil Palestinian affairs is based on the continuing state of hostilities between Israel and the Palestinians. Indeed, Israel used this justification in its attack on a Turkish flotilla of humanitarian aid bound for Gaza. When nine people aboard one of the ships were killed, including a U.S. citizen, Israel said it was carrying out its blockade — an act of war — against the Strip.
Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, forces engaged in hostilities or a resulting occupation may take reasonable precautions for both the security of their forces, and broader security needs. This is the legal basis on which Israel has defended its action in the flotilla incident.
“Israel has those ‘rights’ to do things in and to Gaza that it would not have in and to, for example, Egypt or Jordan,” said Helena Cobban, an analyst and journalist who has published widely on violations of humanitarian law and war crimes. ”But, by the same token, it has certain very well specified responsibilities for the well-being of Gaza’s residents.”
When Israel’s advocates insist that Gaza is not occupied, they are trying to justify its failure to fulfill its legal responsibilities to the people who live there. “(Israel) wants to have the ‘rights’ without the ‘responsibilities’,” said Cobban, a sometime IPS colleague.
But there are more essential qualities of occupation that can still apply to Israel’s actions within (incursions) and around (blockade) Gaza. “Occupation is about control,” said Mitchell Plitnick, the former U.S. director of B’tselem, an Israeli human rights organization. “Israel maintains control over all ingress and egress — with Egypt, in the south — as well as the coastline and the airspace. To the extent Israel maintains that control, it is still occupying Gaza.”
At the Goldstone debate, Weiner acknowledged that Israel can enter Gaza any time, “but they’re not in Gaza today. They are not in Gaza today.” Two days after the debate, Israel launched airstrikes against targets in Gaza. The Israeli army claims more than 60 rockets fired from Gaza have landed in Israel this year. Make no mistake: This is a hot war. And it’s the longest-running one in the world today.
But the point may be a moot one anyway: The lack of traditional occupation in Gaza — Israeli bases, settlements, and uninterrupted military presence – becomes irrelevant in the face of these active hostilities. “Israel’s military actions taken against Gaza do not constitute the launching of a new war of aggression,” said Cobban. “They are seen more as merely a continuation of the uninterrupted state of war that has existed for 43 years.”
The Fourth Geneva Convention, pertaining to treatment of civilians, distinguishes between occupation and active hostilities. But the document only does so in order to stipulate that the rules therein apply equally to both. “Occupation” has become such a buzzword in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that the focus lies there, while ignoring the fact that the central issues is actually more than four decades of ongoing military hostilities.
“Occupation” or, as Weiner said again and again, “war”? It’s a distinction without a difference. Israel’s responsibilities remain the same.
]]>