Killing-By-Bulldozer
Someone claimed I never intentionally broadcast when Israeli people are murdered, but that I seem to take special care to broadcast the murder of Palestinian people. The murder of any person is a cause for regret – this is never in doubt. But as to the form of the expression of regret, maybe it’s all a question of quantity. The death of an Israeli seems to generate far more raw media output than the death of a Palestinian. Some of this is due to ideological censorship, and some due to the structural reality that most “Middle East” journalists report from within Israel and not from within the Occupied Territories. However, the crushing-to-death-by-bulldozer of an unfortunate American student has provoked a predictable upsurge in reports of Palestinian deaths. I note that, according to several eye-witness reports, the bulldozer intentionally reversed over the injured woman to complete its task. A cynic might say that in exercising such diligence beyond the call of duty the driver was probably not unionized. Alas these ISM “human shields” began their campaign with great optimism. The woman who was killed wrote as much recently. But was not to last. Of course, many Israelis see these non-violent activists as enemies to be eliminated, while others note that they have hithertofore possessed a certain degree of immunity.
This past month, Israel nearly set a record for killing Palestinians, mostly civilians, in a single month. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Israeli assaults killed 82 Palestinians, of them 50 in the Gaza Strip and 32 in the West Bank, wounding an additional 616 persons. Israeli soldiers also killed several Palestinian children and 3 medical staff as they sought to attend to wounded. Now, they have killed an American peace activist. In this same period, only six Israelis were killed, all of them soldiers.
This story’s gruesome tally is already insufficient, they need to add at least ten more:
Ten Palestinians, including a four-year-old girl, were killed during Israeli swoops in the Gaza Strip on Monday that touched off fierce battles with gunmen
This cycle of meaningless violence will continue as long as absolutist Palestinian and Israeli ideologues engage in a careful calculus of terror using people as raw material and territory to keep score.
The bulldozer was part of an operation to eliminate tunnels used by Palestinian terrorists to illegally smuggle weapons from Egypt into Gaza. Corrie apparently stood atop a mound of dirt as the bulldozer approached the house, but then fell backward, tumbling down the mound and out of sight. The bulldozer continued and accidentally crushed her. The IDF Spokesman said that soldiers repeatedly warned demonstrators to keep a safe distance.
Corrie was a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement. She was known for anti-Israel and anti-American activities, as this photo from Gaza http://www.honestreporting.com/graphics/articles/corrie.jpg) shows Corrie burning an American flag, while Palestinian children look on.
The Washington Post
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35126-2003Mar16.html) notes
two important points:
1) soldiers driving an armored bulldozer have limited visibility because of the narrow window.
2) One of the ISM founders admits the protesters might not have been as disciplined in their protest as they should have been.
Most media reports failed to mention that the IDF bulldozer was looking for smuggling tunnels. Instead, reports described the house sympathetically as “the home of a Gazan doctor.”
And the entire mainstream media neglected to mention Corrie’s anti-American activities and flag-burning. Not that that should matter in her death.
MIKE WRITES: “the bulldozer intentionally reversed over the injured woman to complete its task”
1) MIKE HAS NO PROOF THAT IT WAS INTENTIONAL.
2) THE STORY MIKE QUOTES NEVER SAYS HE REVERSED OVER THE INJURED WOMAN.
3) THE STORY *DOES* SAY:
“Dale, the activist who watched Corrie die, said that protesters often play cat-and-mouse with the bulldozers and that occasionally an operator will lift protesters with the shovel and remove them. In other cases, he said, bulldozers have pushed dirt up against protesters, but no one had ever been injured. Corrie described the danger herself after a run-in with the military last month. ”The internationals stood in the path of the bulldozer and were physically pushed with the shovel backwards, taking shelter in a house,” she wrote in an e-mail distributed in a March 3 news release by the ISM. ”The bulldozer then proceeded on its course, demolishing one side of the house with the internationals inside,” she wrote.
CLEARLY THIS WAS A WOMAN THAT WAS KNOWINGLY, WILLINGLY, PITTING HERSELF AGAINST A HUGE MACHINE WITH SMALL WINDOWS AND BAD VISIBILITY. BAD FORWARD VISIBLITY:
http://www.kithobbyist.com/AFVInteriors/fullmetal/d9dozer/D910.jpg