Sickening: Rachel Corrie’s Parents Lose Murder Case in Israeli Court
The Unhived Mind
Sickening: Rachel Corrie’s Parents Lose Murder Case in Israeli Court
February 25, 2015
http://truthsector.net/2015/02/25/sickening-rachel-corries-parents-lose-murder-case-in-israeli-court/
First of all. Who is Rachel Corrie?
Her Dream Was to Stop Hunger by the Year 2000
Video link: youtube.com/watch?v=OpcmA9x6R9U
The recent court ruling in Israel claiming that it was Rachel’s own fault that she died that day is not just a slap in the face of Rachel, her family and every other decent person on this planet who is fighting oppression and injustice. It is a clear message that Israel is above the law and can murder anyone at will without ever being held accountable.
The Guardian – February 15, 2015
Israel’s supreme court has rejected the appeal by the family of Rachel Corrie – the US activist who was crushed to death by a military bulldozer in Gaza 12 years ago – which had sought to hold Israel liable for her death.
The ruling, which followed a high-profile hearing before Israel’s top court last year, appears to bring to an end – in the Israeli courts at least – years of effort by Corrie’s family to hold the country’s military responsible for her death.
Instead, the court upheld the decision of a lower court, which invoked the “combat activities exception” that the Israeli military cannot be held responsible for damages in a war zone.
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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/12/rachel-corrie-family-appeal-israel-court
HRW – February 17, 2015
This ruling has disturbing implications beyond the Corrie family’s case, as it sends a message that Israeli forces have immunity even for deaths caused by alleged negligence.
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Under Israeli jurisprudence, the ruling stated, “the rule is well known that an ‘explicit statutory provision of the Knesset overrides the provisions of international law’.
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Israeli forces testified at earlier hearings before a lower court in Haifa that Palestinian armed groups had fired at them “every day” during the course of their “clearing operations” in Rafah, but provided no evidence that any shots were fired at the time of Corrie’s death or during the two hours preceding it. The only relevant evidence the military submitted was a military log that recorded that a grenade had been thrown, without further information. The military argued in court that Palestinians threw a grenade at Israeli forces, but witnesses called by Corrie’s lawyer testified that the only grenade they observed that day was a smoke grenade thrown at them by Israeli forces.
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Israeli investigators failed to call any Palestinian witnesses, threatened to indict other foreign volunteers who witnessed Corrie’s death while questioning them about the incident. … The initial military inquiry into her death even concluded that “no signs substantiate [the] assertion that Ms. Corrie was run over by a bulldozer,” a conclusion that the military later reversed.
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Israeli forces … destroyed the homes of 16,000 Palestinians to clear a “buffer zone” along the Egyptian border. The military claimed its actions were intended to prevent the use of tunnels by Palestinian armed groups for military purposes, but the “pattern of destruction strongly suggests that Israeli forces demolished homes wholesale, regardless of whether they posed a specific threat.
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Israel commonly refuses to grant witnesses and victims from Gaza permission to enter Israel to participate in court hearings, claiming they may present security threats, and courts have required each Palestinian plaintiff in damages cases to pay prohibitively expensive “court guarantees” of up to 20,000 shekels (US $5,140) before accepting the case.
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Israel’s impunity laws slam the door on civilian victims in Gaza, and look like further evidence that Israel is not genuinely willing to hold its own forces accountable for serious violations.
http://www.hrw.org/news/2015/02/17/israel-dangerous-ruling-rachel-corrie-case