Who was the real Rachel Corrie?
‘Let me fight my monsters’ KATHARINE VINER Guardian, 8 April 2005 Two years ago Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American protester, was killed by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza. Since then she has become a potent symbol for both sides of the conflict. But who was the real Rachel? KATHARINE VINER, who has edited her writings for a new play, on an ordinary woman with an extraordinary passion There is a particular entry in Rachel Corrie’s diary, probably written some time in 1999, four years before she was killed by an Israeli bulldozer in the Gaza Strip trying to prevent the demolition of Palestinian homes. She is aged 19 or 20. “Had a dream about falling, falling to my death off something dusty and smooth and crumbling like the cliffs in Utah,” she writes, “but I kept holding on, and when each foothold or handle of rock broke I reached out as I fell and grabbed a new one. I didn’t have time to think about anything – just react as if I was playing an adrenaline-filled video game. And I heard,
