Rachel Corrie was left in the dirt, just a bit of refuse. The mound of dirt, the rubble, the debris, and under it the tangled body of Rachel Corrie. She was killed by the big, ugly unfeeling machine. Now the masters of the machine want nothing more than that she be forgotten. They want the world to believe she was only an interfering rag, imprudently obstructing an important construction work.

The builders of the wall want you to think she was delaying their progress, which is correct. It is what she meant to do. Rachel Corrie opposed the building of the wall. She did not want it built. They want the world to think Rachel Corrie was wrong to oppose the big ugly machine. They want you to think Rachel Corrie was devoid of judgment, lacking in some essential component of self-preservation. They want you to think she was imprudent to oppose the big ugly machine, to the point of being down right stupid. They have failed in this. Instead, we find them stupid to think we can be so misled.

Rachel Corrie was not an unfeeling, unthinking part of the house she defended. She knew what was taking place, that bright day in occupied Palestine. Rachel Corrie knew the big ugly machine was the ruthless representative of cruelty incarnate, of the despicable Israeli regime. Rachel Corrie objected to the senseless destruction of a private dwelling, the home of a Palestinian citizen who had committed no wrong. It was a death machine. Rachel Corrie stood bravely before it.

The home was destroyed to create a free zone along the path of a wall. The wall is the invention of the Israeli government. It is being created to encircle Israel, to screen it off, to capture inside its thirty-meter height the land Palestinians have lived on for at least five hundred generations. The Israeli's want the land. The big ugly machines intend to bulldoze the Palestinians off, to destroy their homes, to push over the walls with the occupants still inside.

Rachel Corrie offered her frail body as a symbol of defiance, daring the big ugly machine to destroy her. To do so would demonstrate to the world the cruelty and inhumanity of the Israeli regime. She first sat, then stood, hoping to save herself if her bluff was called. It was a game of Dodge, of Stop-You-Insensitive-Beast. She had played the game many times before, always managing to evade the big dumb machine. But this time she lost. The big dumb machine ran her down, and she was dead before the hour was out.

They want us to forget Rachel Corrie. But we will not. We will not forget Rachel Corrie. We will not forget her cause. We will remember the big ugly machine. We will remember the masters who sent the big ugly machine to build the wall. We will remember the makers of the big ugly machine, and the men who provided the money to buy it.

We will remember the ideology that built the wall. We will remember the reasons the wall was built. And to help us remember, we will give the wall her name. The new wall, in all its ugliness and offensiveness, we will call it The Rachel Corrie Wall. It represents the walls of all the houses that have been destroyed. It represents all the lives that have been buried beneath the rubble of the Israeli cruelty. It is a shrine to Israeli shame, constructed to themselves.

Build it high. Build it long. Build it thick. Build it as a great monument. It is a monument to conviction. It is a monument to courage. It is monument to our resolve that this wall will remain an insult to all that makes us human. It is an outrage to all humanity. It is a reminder of our rage. Because, you see, Rachel Corrie did not act alone. She stood there for all of us.

She stood there representing what is good and honourable in the human spirit. She was there as part of us. She will remain there. So long as there is injustice, so long as there is racial pride, so long as the insanity of religious bigotry and self-righteousness plague the earth, Rachel Corrie's Wall will remind us. We will not forget Rachel Corrie.

The big ugly machines are a symbol of inhumanity. They challenge the human spirit in a contest between force and the compassion that makes us human. Rachel Corrie is a fallen warrior in that battle. Let the wall be her tomb. Let every map proclaim her sacrifice. Though centuries pass, we will remember Rachel Corrie. It is her wall, it is Rachel Corrie's Wall, and it will always remain so.