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By Bruce S. Ticker
June 1, 2004
Maybe, just maybe, Rachel Corrie knowingly aided and abetted cold-blooded murderers.
Many of you will probably call me naive and roll over having belly-laughs. It took me long enough, right?
When Corrie died more than a year ago, it was no great stretch to suspect that she and others who converged on Israel's territories knowingly supported terrorists. There was certainly no proof and it was just as difficult to figure out any hard connection.
At the time, my chief objection to Corrie and her pals with the International Solidarity Movement was their interference with Israeli military activities. Most are foreigners who endanger lives by the simple act of stepping foot into the middle of a war zone. They put the lives of everyone - themselves, Israeli troops and the Arabs they purport to help - at risk in an already tense and volatile situation.
There have been political means at their disposal to address their concerns for the last few years, but they have not bothered to employ them.
The raid on Rafah brings new facts to light which indicate that Corrie and other ISM members had to know they were aiding and abetting terrorists, if they were not participating in terrorism themselves.
The 23-year-old Corrie, who traveled more than 8,000 miles from Olympia, Wash., was run over by a bulldozer when she tried to block the vehicle from demolishing a house in Rafah - a house where she had been staying.
The Israeli military ruled that this was an accident and ISM members accused the driver of murder even before the military could investigate the incident.
It may pass the "reasonable person" test that these ISM'ers knew very well they were helping terrorists. What would a reasonable person conclude?
Consider: The Israeli government revealed that 90 weapons-smuggling tunnels were constructed between the Egyptian border and Rafah. At least some of these tunnels were known to end underneath the homes in Rafah.
With 90 tunnels running underneath Rafah, there must have been lots of suspicious activity. Corrie and her friends would have had to be blind not to notice.
First, there are the tunnel connections underneath the homes. ISM'ers who stayed with Gazan families might have seen the tunnels themselves or they at least spotted people going back and forth from the basement of the home.
During deliveries, people would have been hauling the goods out of the homes. Maybe Corrie herself did some heavy lifting.
The weapons then had to be transported somehow. Vehicles appear to be the natural choice. They would have had to be driven to the tunnel entrances and the weapons would need to be loaded onto the trucks.
Would you wonder about this kind of activity if you were personally on the scene?
Wherever ISM members mingled and even lived among Gaza and West Bank Arabs, it is possible that many of these Arabs were terrorists or helped the terrorists by feeding and housing them. The ISM'ers could have been at gatherings where they were introduced to suspected terrorists, heard stories about violent activities or noticed otherwise suspicious activity.
Actually, there is not only hard evidence but proof of aiding and abetting terrorists. When terrorists seized a church in Bethlehem, a few ISM'ers smuggled food to them.
If you put it all together, a reasonable person must conclude that the ISM members knew they were aiding and abetting terrorists.
The instant that it dawned on any of them that they might be helping terrorists was precisely the time for them to end their involvement. That's what a sincere and honorable person would have done.
Perhaps some ISM'ers dismissed such validation on grounds that this was the Arabs' only mechanism to resist Israel's brutal occupation.
Which would excuse, in their warped minds, the murder of hundreds of innocent human beings.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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