Rachel Corrie

A good deal of attention is being paid to the death of Rachel Corrie, the 23-year-old Evergreen St. College student and member of the International Solidarity Movement, who was killed in Gaza by an IDF bulldozer yesterday.

With typical callousness, IDF spokesman Jacob Dallal proclaimed, "This is a regrettable accident. We are dealing with a group of protesters who were acting very irresponsibly, putting everyone in danger."

Yeah, it sure as hell looks like those protesters were "putting everyone in danger":

This is a tragedy, of course, but the larger tragedy is the fact that, as Starhawk writes, "Young women, but more often young men, get killed in Gaza and the West Bank every day, and the world pays no attention. What was different today is that Rachel Corrie was an American."

But, as we all know, American lives are just worth more. 3,000+ die on 9/11 and the world practically comes to a halt. Now, the US government is primed to set in motion a policy which will ignite the skies over Iraq as never before and put millions of lives in danger, and what is the typical reaction? Silence. Indifference. Willful ignorance. Complicity.

Update: Check out some of the emails Rachel sent to family and friends during her time in Gaza. Sad stuff.