Talk:Rachel Corrie

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A seperate incident that day, in which a Palestinian man died, was considered not relevant, and removed.

Ams80 thought that two ISM quotes were contradictory - "in one paragraph she's run over through being sucked off the top of a pile of rubble. In the next paragraph she has sand poured on her and is then run over." - see "contradictions in eyewitness reports".

Ed Poor said that The article should not judge morality of the death, but just tell what happened - "Let each reader form their own moral evaluation"

The reason for the bulldozers being in the area is basically controversial, with the IDF saying they were clearing shrubbery/bush, and the ISM saying they were demolishing houses.

In one of my edits, I removed the assertion that the IDF didn't offer aid, and instead simply stated some things: Rachel was crushed, then the bulldozers+tank withdrew, then Rachel was picked up by a Red Crescent ambulance. I think that gets across the facts of the matter well - reader can judge for hirself. Martin 21:47 Mar 27, 2003 (UTC)

I seem to recall, also, from reading the the New York Sun this morning, that protective shields on the bulldozer would screen a person from the driver's line of sight. Thus if the girl tripped and fell down, she could become invisible to the operator -- who might reasonably conclude that she had given up her protest and wisely gotten out of the way. Uncle Ed

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To snoyes, replying to your "astonished" comment way above:

Generally, people are held to be accountable for their own actions. I think everyone who has edited or commented on this article would agree with this. If not, i.e., if someone wants to pay respect to nihilism or relativism or some other such social philosophy, we could add that to the article. Something like, John Noman of the Int'l Nihilist society said, "No one is to blame for this incident, because like the bumber sticker says, shit happens."

Initially, the article seemed to be written for the purpose of blaming the Israeli army for deliberately killing the girl. In short, the article accused Israel of murder. Well, that's one POV.

Another POV is that jumping in front of a moving vehicle, whose driver cannot see you, is suicide.

Then there is the legal POV, where in civilized nations there are varying degrees of responsibility all the way from accident, negligent homicide, manslaughter, and so on up to first-degree cold-blooded murder. I'd like to see something of the legal angle added to the article.

Getting to your comment: what is "astonishing" about balancing (A) the view that the bulldozer operator deliberately killed the girl with (B) the view that the girl deliberately or accidentally sacrificed herself? Are you astonished that anyone would disgree with A? Or do you think my change failed to bring balance? Or what?

I do think it is "neutral" to present a balance of responsibility for two people involved in a fatal accident. And I do think it was an accident. Perhaps I am wrong. If so, we should radically change the article to fix my error: we should focus on the controversy over how various advocates have characterized her death:

Joe Blow of Winds 'R Us says the Israeli Army murdered her.
Larry Legalist of the Jurists Union called the incident "negligent homicide" and vowed to bring charges of "manslaughter"
Captain Josh Nudnik said it was "an accident"

I hope these ideas help us all to improve the article. --Uncle Ed 15:37 Mar 19, 2003 (UTC)

Hmm, If you actually look at your edit that I was criticising for not being neutral, and you at the same time saying on the talk page that we need more neutrality then you would better understand my point.

You stated as fact that "she fell in front of [the bulldozer]". I think that we can agree that we don't actually know this! Rather, what is neutral is to report what people saw, and obviously associate the observations with which role that person has. (ie. if they are an activist, we will say this, if they work for the IDF, we will say this.).
Furthermore you stated as fact that the bulldozer was "was destroying tunnels" I've read four different news reports, inlcluding two from "right-leaning" news sources (CNN & Haaretz), nowhere was this mentioned. The fact that I deleted this unfounded sentence and you did not respond to that at all shows to me that you can't believe very strongly that this is actually true.
Thirdly, you stated as fact that the bulldozer operator "could not see her". Again, how can you claim to _know_ whether the bulldozer operator saw her or not. I agree with your above statement that we need to balance things out by reporting the views of different people, but there is an important difference between attributing statements to people and stating such opinions as fact. I was criticising the latter.

I still consider the article at the point after you corrected some of my mistakes after my major rewrite to be as close to neutral as the article has ever been. However, IMO it got progressively worse as people started putting in all the previous stuff again, oh well. --snoyes 16:05 Mar 19, 2003 (UTC)

Thank you for your courteous and detailed reply. You are, of course, correct on all three of your bullet points: (1) I don't know for a fact that she fell; (2) I don't remember for sure about "destroying tunnels"; and (3) whether or not the operator could see her is probably the biggest bone of contention of the entire incident.

I really appreciate your attention to detail, and the effort you are making to craft a neutral article. Please carry on, as I have no more time today. --Uncle Ed 16:35 Mar 19, 2003 (UTC)

The "tunnels" thing is from an HonestReporting.com communique on the 17th March - it's not been backed up by Israeli government statements, AFAICT, so I think we can put that one down to fog of war.

Here's the actual communique: [1] - the relevant quote is "The bulldozer was part of an operation to eliminate tunnels used by Palestinian terrorists to illegally smuggle weapons from Egypt into Gaza". It's been repeated in discussion fora and such, sometimes attributed to honest reporting, sometimes not, but never attributed to anyone else. Martin

"first to be killed" versus "first to die" - no longer relevant - neither are in the article.

existing structures => buildings, vegetations, homes - everything
If we want to discuss these demolition operations in detail, it should not be at Rachel Corrie

conflicts in eyewitness reports

Witnesses: ISM activists, Dr. Samir Nasrallah (maybe Samir Masri), Ali al-Shaar

First conflict I see is was she standing, sitting, kneeling, or lying in the path of the bulldozer:

Tom Dale (ISM): "Rachel knelt down in its way."
Greg Schnable (ISM): "Rachel was standing in front of this home."
Richard Purssell (ISM): "Rachel stood to confront the bulldozer..."
Joe Smith (ISM): "She sat down in front of it..."
Al-Shaar (Pal): "The American girl was lying in front of the bulldozer..."

Second conflict, did she actively climb onto the debris, or was the debris pushed onto her?

Tom Dale (ISM): "The bulldozer reached her and she began to stand up, climbing onto the mound of earth."
Greg Schnable (ISM): "The bulldozer began to push up the ground from beneath her feet."
Richard Purssell (ISM): "Rachel climbed up the pile and at the one stage was looking into the cabin window."
Joe Smith (ISM): "[He] continued to drive until she was forced onto the top of the dirt he was pushing."
Al-Shaar (Pal): "...the bulldozer took sand and put it over her..."

There are other, smaller, conflicts as well, but the above are the ones I see as the biggest.

I think that the following picture, taken from early ISM actions during the day, might help in picturing how things unfolded.

File:Ism-bulldozer.jpg

food for thought from ◈¡◈

This page is about "Rachel Corrie".

It isn't about "The Murder of Rachel Corrie", "The Suicide of Rachel Corrie", or "Rachel Corrie in the Isreal-Palestine Conflict".

In my last edit, I tried to treat Rachel Corrie with respect. I tried to make the article focus more on her and less on arguments around her death. Yes, she is clearly most famous for the circumstances of her death, but that doesn't mean we should define her by her death.

To some, she is a martyr. To some, she was a supporter of terrorists. To some, she simply died in an incredibly stupid way. If we try to achieve NPOV by describing all these views in parallel, we might lose track of the fact that she was a person. -◈¡◈

And not a saint??!?!?!??!?!? -Two halves 05:16 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)

Gummi Bears, etc - initial edit appeared sarcastic to some. The relevant section has been improved - please update further if needed.

Reliance on ISM reports

Two sections of the article repeat themselves and way too much is taken from ISM sources to be NPOV-credible i feel

PMelvilleAustin 09:06 Mar 19, 2003 (UTC)

If you disagree with the ISM, then quote some other source. Deleting ISM statements is not going to make this a better article. Susan Mason

Who keeps removing all the eyewitness and ISM reports, and WHY? Dietary Fiber

Various people, including myself. I can't speak for others, but I think BigFatBuddha's positions is described above (under "food for thought"). Anyway, my reasoning went something like the following:

We want to describe Rachel's death, and normally eyewitness quotes would be a good way of doing this. But this runs into problems: there are conflicts (see above) in eyewitness reports, so it's not possible to quote a single eyewitness report as being representative of them all. Further, the IDF witnesses have not made public reports, and the Israeli army hasn't commented in the kind of detail that the ISM has commented, which hinders attempts to achieve balance.

Given all that, it seemed better to me to quote from no eyewitnesses, rather than just from one, and better to say that we don't know what happened, rather than trying ourselves to reconcile the different reports into a single coherent account. Perhaps it's a matter of aesthetics? Martin

Why not quote from several of the eyewitnesses? If the Israelis decide not to comment, that is no reason to ignore those who have commented. Dietary Fiber

If the bulk of our description is a POV eyewitness quote, then it appears that we are asserting that POV. I'm not really sure how I feel about this, and I wonder if there's some precedent for dealing with articles like this. cprompt

Well, I've self-reverted that bit of the article. I'm really not confident about describing the death in a neutral way, so I'll leave it to other wikipedians. All yours, "dietary fiber"... :) Martin

I disagree, if I write an article on Jesus Christ and spend the majority of the article reciting Christian assertations of Christs holiness, I am not asserting that POV, I am merely discussing it fully. Dietary Fiber

The following expose should be considered in making this a truly NPOV article:

copyright material removed - see below
Source of expose article on the Rachel Corrie incident (Jewish World Review)

The essence of the "expose" is that Image:RachelCorrie08.jpg was not taken immediately before the incident, but some time before. Which we knew. Note that the ISM website currently captions the photo "Rachel confronting one of the 2 bulldozers conducting home demolitions on the day she was killed". It looks like this is a Reuters-originated fog of war error. Martin

The fact that Corrie was there all day seems to indicate that the IDF knew she was there. Dietary Fiber

But she wasn't there all day, sahib, she had only come running to that specific house when her friends called her on the radio. She (and the others) had been in the area all day, but there hadn't been an extended standoff over this one house. -◈¡◈

I'm sure that issue is not Did the army know the girl was in the area? but How much responsibility does the girl bear for her own death? (I daresay an American civilian would have stopped driving as soon as he saw that kids were getting in the way; however, this was not in America.) --Uncle Ed 01:15 Mar 26, 2003 (UTC)

I don't see why why your issue is more important than my issue. Dietary Fiber

Ed, the accounts I've read have said that in the events leading up to this, the bulldozers had NOT been stopping for the protesters. It was generally up to the protesters to jump aside when this game of "chicken" got to be too much for them. You know, this is the first I've thought of it comparing it to that game, but that was in some ways what this was. -◈¡◈

*sigh* I never like the game of "chicken", not when lives are really at stake. Moreover, it's a very one-sided game when it's bulldozer against teenager. *sigh* I wish kids would not throw away their lives like that.

On the other hand, "Greater love hath no man than to lay down his life for his brother."

I don't know what to think, except that when brothers fight I wonder where the parents have gone off to, eh? --Uncle Ed 21:56 Mar 26, 2003 (UTC)

The danger shouldn't be overstated. Yes, it was more dangerous than anything most of us are likely to get up to - but the ISM have been doing this for a couple of years now, and this is the first fatality. Martin

content regarding copyright status moved to talk:Images of Rachel Corrie

Cut from article:

In Rafah and elsewhere in the Palestinian territories, Corrie has been treated as a shahid or "martyr" - the first non-Arab to be treated in this way.

Ahem. Treated as a martyr by whom? Does this mean one or two obscure people said "that girl was a martyr"? Or that her friends in Solidarity International decided to label her "a martyr"?

And what does "the first non-Arab to be treated as...a martyr" mean? Joan of Arc wasn't an Arab.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying this sentence shouldn't be in the article. But please recognize that such a sentence raises more questions than it answers.

Please tell us:

Who treated Rachel Corrie as a martyr?
In what sense is she the first "non-Arab martyr"?
Does this mean "martyr to the cause of establishing an independent, non-Jordanian Palestinian state", or what?

Then, please put the sentence back. --Uncle Ed 17:09 Apr 8, 2003 (UTC)

Good catch - I didn't realise that was unclear. Incidentally, this info is from ISM activists and various news sources (though generally "left wing" news sources, I should add). It's not been disputed by anyone, and I don't see that it serves either side of the confict in particular, so I felt confident enough to add it as fact.

Who: Palestinians in Rafah and elsewhere. All kinds - including unsavoury types (Hamas representatives, for example). In particular she got the "martyr photo" plastered on walls next to those of the Palestinians who've died (inc. sucide bombers, other people crushed by tanks or 'dozers', gunmen, victims of Israeli snipers, etc, etc). I could provide a list in the article, but I'm concerned that would be unbalanced. Perhaps an example would be best.
First non-Arab to be treated by Palestinians as a martyr to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. IIRC, it's been reported a few times, but potentially it might be hyperbole. At some point I'll have to check back through other foreigners killed in the conflict and do articles on them.
I'd prefer martyr to the conflict rather than your phrasing, because while Corrie did want to see a Palestinian state, she had other aims/causes as well, that were equally important.

Images talk moved to talk:Images of Rachel Corrie

I'm sorry, but I just have to say about that picture, they were protecting a well... and they brought bottled water along?!? -- John Owens

larger version - is that bottled water? I thought it was some kind of soda drink (insert your own gag)... It's probably because the well was still under reconstruction - it got bulldozed sometime in January. Martin

Well, I still can't read the label of course, so all I really have to go on is that it seems to be either clear or empty, and it wouldn't seem to make much sense to keep an empty bottle in the middle like that. But of course, it could be any of several kinds of soft drink, I suppose, yes. And if the well was being rebuilt, that certainly would make much more sense. -- John Owens

I restored one Corrie quote, as follows:

Corrie's death was foreshadowed by an email she had sent a month earlier where she wrote "[We] stood in the path of the bulldozer and were physically pushed with the shovel backwards, taking shelter in a house. The bulldozer then proceeded on its course, demolishing one side of the house with [us] inside."

I like this quote, and was the editor to originaly add it. Over time, the article muted into a form where this quote was lumped with a bunch of things that Corrie said, but I feel it deserves to stand on its own somewhat. I think it is a very relavant quote because it foreshadows her death, and shows that she was aware (or at least willing to claim) that the bulldozers were willing to "physically push" demonstrators. If true, this would mean that her death shouldn't have come as a surprise. -◈¡◈

One problem is that it references a single incident, whereas in practice it seems there are fairly regular "close calls" - earlier that day a bulldozer allegedly stopped shortly before it would have impaled an activist on a piece of barbed wire, and there are plenty of similar incidents on the ISM website. I think I'd prefer a more general quote - perhaps from the ISM? Martin

No, a quote from the ISM would miss my point entirely. I like *this* quote because it shows that *Corrie* knew that being hit by bulldozers was a risk. A quote from another source would show general knowledge of the risk, but wouldn't show that she *personally* was aware of it. I think that she personally wrote of the risk demonstrates her bravery or stupidity depending on your perspective. -◈¡◈

But compare that with this quote - "I am staying put in Rafah for now, no plans to head north. I still feel like I'm relatively safe and think that my most likely risk in case of a larger-scale incursion is arrest." [2] (February 20). I don't think we will ever know for sure how conscious Rachel was of the risks she was taking... Martin

Trivia: this mailing list post by Jimbo Wales is in concordance with my own thoughts, so I shall quote rather than writing it out myself. Martin

If she said to have had a love of gardening, and this is verifiable from published sources, then I think there's nothing wrong with having it.

It is true that gardening is not her claim to fame, but I think that in the future when people read an article about her, rather than a more general article about the Palestinian situation in 2003, they will likely be asking themselves "What kind of person is this?"

No matter what a person's political position is, or view of Rachel Corrie's actions, there's no question that it is very *interesting* to say: "What sort of person does such a thing? What motivated her? How is she different from me? How are we similar?"

Personal details are relevant to a biography of this sort.

Yes Martin, and I didn't propose we delete every personal fact about her. Having a "love of gardening" is not the same as having "gardened". We can tell from the information about her that she was committed to the peace cause, and it is completely appropriate to write about that. This other stuff is pretty trivial. Saying she participated in Burning Man is like saying she went to a Grateful Dead concert, it is just a trivia. -◈¡◈

for what it's worth, Al Gore is a known Grateful Dead fan, been to concerts, but his wikiarticle does *not* mention it. Kingturtle 20:18 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)

I'd like to add my few words, even though I know absolutely nothing about Rachel Corrie and don't care whether she was a keen gardener or a Grateful Dead fan. There are a huge number of biographical articles in wikipedia, and the length and detail of them has very little to do with the "importance" of the subject. Some of the ones taken from Britannica are enormous and contain enormous quantities of apparently irrelevant information. I've done my share of pruning of some of these, but I try not to take out any details that people could possibly want to hear - I just concentrate on summarising. I think there's room for this kind of trivia in the biographies. If people want to know about Rachel Corrie enough to read the article, then they may conceivably want to know about her hobbies; if they don't want to know, they won't read the article. It's as simple as that. Deb 21:23 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)

I suppose that, without knowing why a user reads an article, it is hard to know what is appropriate to write. Some people who look up Rachel Corrie would be happy to learn "American girl protesting Israeli occupation of Palestine who was run over by a bulldozer, some debate as to who was to blame.", while other people might want to know what her favorite color was and if she had any cute birthmarks. How do we write an article so the person who wants the first level of knowledge doesn't have to read through the second level to get to it? -◈¡◈

Good point. I believe the biography standards say that the opening sentence, separated from the rest of the article by a space, should say what the person is famous for. So the article would begin:

Rachel Corrie (dates) was an American girl, etc, etc.

Rachel Corrie was born in such-and-such place and loved gardening, etc.

Deb 21:53 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)

With the new intro, Buddha, would you be happy if I restored the trivia? Martin