Transparent. Credible. Thorough.
These were the words used by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2003 when setting forth the terms under which the investigation into the killing of Rachel Corrie would be conducted to George W. Bush, one day after Rachel was crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer. Both the scene at the courtroom in Haifa, where the Corrie family's civil case is proceeding against the state of Israel, and the testimony of the bulldozer driver who killed Rachel, expose the hollowness of those words.
Transparent? First, the scene at the courthouse. I arrived early with the Corrie family and their legal team. When we got to the court room, there was already a crowd gathered outside. Entering the court room, I was struck first by the small size of the room assigned to a case that has received significant international attention: there were only two rows that could each comfortably fit about 14 people.
Nearly half the seats were already taken by young members of the Israeli military, in uniform, and people we heard were from the Israeli Ministry of Defense. We quickly secured seats for the family and their translators, a team made up largely of dedicated volunteers as the proceedings are conducted in Hebrew and no translation is provided by the court. I was lucky to be in the court room, squeezed in between a journalist and shared translator. Many of the journalists, human rights observers and members of the public who had come to attend the proceedings were denied entry into the court room.
For more information on the on-going trial in Israel, see http://rachelcorriefoundation.org/trial, and check the CCR website for more information on Corrie v. Caterpillar.
This entry was written by Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) Senior Staff Attorney, Katherine Gallagher, who was in Haifa to observe proceedings in the civil case filed by the family of Rachel Corrie against the State of Israel. On October 21, 2010 she observed the testimony of the driver of the Caterpillar D9R military bulldozer that killed Rachel Corrie and below are her reflections. Katherine was part of the legal team in Corrie v. Caterpillar, in which CCR represented Rachel Corrie's parents and Palestinian families in a case brought against Caterpillar for aiding and abetting war crimes by providing theD9 bulldozers to Israel knowing they were used to unlawfully demolish homes in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Full Article
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vincent-warren/live-from-the-corrie-tria_b_772735.html
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