Ever hear of Rachel Corrie?

• Author: Blank, David Eugene
• Position: Letters to the Editor - Letter to the editor

I was pleased to see Robert Hirschfield's essay on U.S.-born Rabbi Arik Ascherman ("Israeli Rabbi Defends Palestinians," July issue). And the graphic illustration by Earl Holloway, with Ascherman standing in front of a huge bulldozer, caught my attention. It should remind you and your readers that an American volunteer who monitored Israel's nasty and illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories, twenty-three-year-old Rachel Corrie, was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza on March 16, 2003. Readers should also ponder if she was the victim of an intentional murder.

With no intent to lessen Rabbi Ascherman's courage and Judaic correctness in resisting far right Israelis and their ethnic cleansing of the occupied Palestinian territories, I wonder whether The Progressive...