Today the Madison-Rafah Sister City Project delivered postcards written during the recent Rachel Corrie commemoration, along with an event flier, to Senator Tammy Baldwin’s office in Madison.

The cards called for an immediate and permanent Gaza ceasefire, the opening of Gaza to unlimited humanitarian aid, and an end to US support of the Israeli military.

Rachel Corrie was killed in 2003 by an Israeli army bulldozer while protesting the demolition of a Palestinian home in Rafah.

In 2012 an Israeli court ruled that Corrie’s death was an accident for which she was responsible, and absolved the Israel Defense Forces of any wrongdoing. The judge ruled that the soldiers in the bulldozer could not possibly have seen her.

Former UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian Territories Richard Falk said it was “a sad outcome” for “the rule of law and the hope that an Israeli court would place limits on the violence of the state.”  

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said that the “court’s decision confirms a climate of impunity, which facilitates Israeli human rights violations against Palestinian civilians in the Occupied Territory.” (Wikipedia)