When you are more useful to your friends dead than you are alive, it is time to find new friends.

Let's take a look at motive first. Cui bono: Who benefits from Rachel Corrie's death? Certainly not Israel or Caterpillar, both of which have been libeled and vilified repeatedly as a result. This, however, came directly from Hamas, which is on the U.S. State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations, as reported in "Making of a Martyr" by Sandra Jordan.

"'Her death serves me more than it served her,' said one activist at a Hamas funeral yesterday. '...Her death will bring more attention than the other 2,000 martyrs.'"

In Rafah, Arafat's political party Fatah held a wake for 'Retchell Corie', attended by representatives of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs brigade, among others. These are the militant Islamic fronts condemned by Rachel's government as terrorists. Their people mingled with secular organisations and droves of ordinary Palestinians who came to pay their respects, including children carrying a sign: 'Rachel, we love you as an angel.' A little boy pointed to a picture of her and said: 'She died defending this holy and blessed land.'

It is the first time an American has been adopted as a Palestinian martyr.

The natural question, of course, is whether the Palestinians and/or the ISM made Rachel into a martyr as well as adopting her as one. This is prima facie evidence that the International Solidarity Movement and/or its Palestinian handlers had a motive for wanting Rachel Corrie dead.

There is also plenty of precedent for the idea of the Palestinians murdering their own friends and indeed own people to make jihad against Israel. In March 2004, Palestinian terrorists gave 11-year-old Abdullah Quran a shrapnel bomb (without his knowledge, which emphasizes the importance of never accepting any kind of package from a stranger at an airport) which they could detonate by remote control. Israeli soldiers saved the innocent boy's life by finding the bomb but the lesson is clear. Palestinian terrorists are willing to murder Palestinian children by using them as unwitting bombs, so they're obviously willing to kill young and idealistic American peace activists if that will help them make propaganda.

Now let's take a look at the International Solidarity Movement's own responsibility for this young woman's death. To begin with, the ISM knowingly, willfully, and recklessly encouraged her to enter an area with moving construction equipment (bulldozers) without a hard hat. Since head injuries were implicated in her death, at least in some accounts, the ISM's possibly-criminal negligence was at least contributory to her death and this is something her parents should consider when deciding who to sue-- although Caterpillar admittedly has much deeper pockets than the ISM.

Now we have the ISM's own account of Corrie's death as reported here.

The activists have compelling photographic evidence to support eyewitness claims that Corrie's death was a deliberate, murderous mowing down of a unarmed protester. Dale watched as she knelt down in front of the bulldozer, perhaps 20 metres away, something the activists had done repeatedly that day as they had in the past. 'The bulldozer went towards her, very slowly, she was fully in clear view, straight in front of them.'

As the bulldozer got closer, it pushed a mound of earth in front of its blade. The heap began to overtake Corrie so she stood up to climb up the mounting soil. 'Unfortunately, she couldn't keep her grip there and she started to slip down. You could see that she was in serious trouble, there was panic on her face as she was turning around,' said Dale. 'All the activists there were screaming, running towards the bulldozer, trying to get them to stop. But they just kept on going. '

Note that, by their own accounts, the activists watched as a very slowly-moving bulldozer advanced toward the young woman they claimed to love as a friend, and not one of them lifted a finger to pull her out of its path. Were they too cowardly to take whatever small risk that saving her might have entailed, or were other motives involved?

The activists said the driver saw Corrie. 'As the mound grew higher she climbed up, getting to eye level with the driver. He saw her in her fluorescent orange jacket. But he kept on going,' Smith said.

A traumatised Smith raised his camera and took photographs: Rachel standing in front of the bulldozer; then her bloodied body being pulled from the freshly turned soil; being cradled in the arms of her friends.

That's very interesting: instead of pulling the young woman out of the slowly-moving bulldozer's path, Mr. Smith stood there and took pictures of her being killed. Why was taking pictures a higher priority than pulling her clear? Noting that the Corries are suing Caterpillar (as if CAT was somehow responsible for this tragedy), that is a question that CAT's attorneys really ought to be asking.

The reference adds, "'If only they'd had a video camera,' one Palestinian journalist lamented. 'A film of the Israelis killing an American in cold blood would have ended the intifada.'" Don't worry, the next time the ISM and/or its handlers set up an American to be killed, I am sure several video cameras will be handy-- and then again, they might not. After all, it is a bit of work to photomanipulate and post a single fradulent and deceptive picture, so doctoring an entire videotape would take more work than any Palestinian or ISM member is likely to want to expend.

Omdurman.org has posted an expansion of one of the ISM's pictures of Rachel Corrie and a friend standing in front of the bulldozer. It is a photomanipulation and not even a good one. The man, who obviously has no feet, was obviously cut and pasted into the picture. Rachel Corrie is casting an obvious shadow to her left but the much larger bulldozer casts no shadow in that direction whatsoever.

If I was investigating a murder and one of the witnesses presented me with phony evidence, I would really have to question his motives and perhaps even his own complicity in the matter. The International Solidarity Movement has done exactly this and, given the other evidence we see here, it is now a prime suspect.

Omdurman.org demands justice for peace activist Rachel Corrie, an idealistic but naive young woman from Evergreen College who was more valuable to her "friends" dead than she was alive. THE INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT MUST BE DESTROYED.