For the bias file: Amy Goodman

The following is a column by Amy Goodman, published March 12, 2010, about the death of a 23-year-old American student named Rachel Corrie, who was crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer On March 16, 2003. Corrie’s parents are suing the government of Israel.

Rachel Corrie’s (posthumous) day in court

An unusual trial begins in Israel this week that people around the world will be watching closely. It involves the tragic death of a 23-year-old American student named Rachel Corrie. On March 16, 2003, she was crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer.

Corrie was volunteering with the group International Solidarity Movement, which formed after Israel and the United States rejected a proposal by then-United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson to place international human-rights monitors in the occupied territories. The ISM defines itself as “a Palestinian-led movement committed to resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land using nonviolent, direct-action methods and principles.” Israel was building a large steel wall to separate Rafah from Egypt, and was bulldozing homes and gardens to create a “buffer zone.” Corrie and seven other ISM activists responded to a call on that March day to protect the home of the Nasrallah family, which was being threatened with demolition by two of the armored Israeli military bulldozers made by the U.S. company Caterpillar.

Note word choice.

Cindy Corrie, Rachel’s mother, related what happened: “The bulldozer proceeded toward Rachel. … She was in her orange jacket. When it kept coming, she rose on the mound, and the eyewitnesses testified that her head rose above the top of the blade of the bulldozer, so she could clearly be seen, but the bulldozer continued and proceeded over her, and so that it was covering her body. It stopped and then reversed, according to the eyewitness testimonies, without lifting its blade, so backed over her once again.

Now notice this, the source cited is Rachel Corrie’s mother – who was in the U.S. not Israel. Cindy Corrie is quoted telling the story in the first person. The ultimate source are “the eyewitnesses” – who are not named.

And check the description of the International Solidarity Movement at David Horowitz’s site Discover the Network.

Led by Palestinians working closely with American recruiters, ISM invites American volunteers to travel to the Palestinian territories and disrupt the actions of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), which is engaged in anti-terror operations in the region. ISM maintains a continual, low-level presence in the territories year-round, punctuated by occasional large, episodic campaigns. At various times, ISM members have temporarily taken over Israeli military checkpoints, interfered with the arrests of Palestinians charged with terrorism, and attempted to prevent the destruction of Palestinian homes containing subterranean tunnels for weapons smuggling.

And about that mention of Caterpillar tractors:

The Chicago chapter of ISM has endorsed the “Declaration Regarding Caterpillar Violations of Human Rights,” a document that impugns the U.S.-based Caterpillar Corporation for selling its machinery to the Israeli army, which in turn uses that equipment to demolish Palestinian terrorists’ homes and bases of operation. This Declaration characterizes the Israeli actions as malicious and unprovoked acts of indiscriminate destruction that constitute “grave abuses of human rights and humanitarian law.”

Their account is a little different:

Among ISM’s most well known members was the late Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old volunteer who, in March 2003, was crushed beneath a bulldozer in Rafah when its operator failed to see her trying to block the destruction of a tunnel through which Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists were receiving smuggled weapons.

I have a lot of respect for Amy Goodman. Unlike a lot of “activists” she walks the talk. She got the living daylights beaten out of her by Indonesian troops after witnessing a massacre in Timor back in 1991 and has put her own personal ass on the line in a lot of other places as well.

This is an Appeal to Pity. Of course, it’s a column not a news item, so she’s got the latitude to put her opinions in. But…

The Wikipedia article quotes Michael Delli Carpini, dean of the Annenberg School for Communication, said, “She’s not an editorialist. She sticks to the facts… She provides points of view that make you think, and she comes at it by saying: ‘Who are we not hearing from in the traditional media?'”

I think it’s great to find “who are we not hearing from in the traditional media?” and I wish more journalists would do that.

But look again – she did not cite the “eyewitness” source, she did not cite other eyewitnesses who apparently have a different story. And rather than quoting those eyewitnesses, she quoted Corrie’s mother.

That’s a twofer, an appeal to pity and a thirdhand account of the incident phrased in such a way she doesn’t have to identify the source.

She most certainly is an editorialist, and is shilling for the ISM.