The Price of Solidarity Is Death. The Corries Know

As Palestine activism is increasingly criminalized, the story of two young American women killed decades apart by Israeli forces reveals both the cost of conscience and the meaning of solidarity.

History often repeats itself in the world of Palestine activism. One of the first articles I published over twenty years ago was about the brutal murder of Rachel Corrie, the American activist who was bulldozed by an Israeli tank in Gaza. At that moment, I (like many others) believed Corrie’s death would invite a serious response from the U.S. government. I thought that, although our elected officials had been callously indifferent to the suffering and deaths of Palestinians, perhaps they would spring into action in response to the murder of an American citizen. In hindsight, that was a naive expectation. The two decades since Corrie’s death have witnessed repeated offenses against Americans by Israeli forces, followed by inaction from our government and a muted response from the establishment media. This is evident in the lack of accountability for the recent murders of the Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu-Akleh and teenager Tawfic Abdel Jabbar.

One glimmer of hope I had in the aftermath of Corrie’s tragic death—and which I hold onto yet—comes from Corrie’s parents, Cindy and Craig, who have continued advocating for their daughter when virtually everyone in power seems to have forgotten her story. As they have aged, their strength and sense of resolve has only seemed to grow. Since the death of their daughter, Cindy and Craig Corrie have remained unwavering in their pursuit of justice, not only for Rachel, but for various other oppressed people too. Together, they founded the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice to promote grassroots activism, human rights, and nonviolent resistance in Palestine and beyond. Through the foundation and their personal advocacy, they have traveled to Gaza, the West Bank, and across the United States to speak with local communities and policymakers in order to amplify Palestinian voices. They have stood beside families mourning similar losses and called attention to cases like those of Abu-Akleh, Abdel Jabber, and others whose deaths at the hands of Israeli forces have been met with silence or denial. Despite the indifference of those in power, Cindy and Craig have continued to remind the world that Rachel’s life—and the cause for which she died—still matter. Little did I know our paths would eventually cross under the grimmest of circumstances.

In 2020, I became the Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Washington—the very state where the Corrie family is from. A few years later, in September 2024, I received a phone call early in the morning from a community member informing me that a young woman we knew had been killed by Israeli forces. Her name was Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi and, like Rachel Corrie, she was an American activist from Washington in her twenties. Everyone who I knew in the scene of Palestine advocacy had some connection to Ayşenur. She was a committed activist and human rights defender who cared deeply about the suffering of the Palestinian people and resented her government’s involvement in the Gaza genocide. At just twenty-six years old, she traveled to the West Bank to oppose the expansion of new Israeli settlements south of the Palestinian city of Nablus. While international attention was focused on Gaza, the ongoing tragedies in the West Bank received far less notice. Ayşenur was committed to shedding light on the daily realities Palestinians faced there, and she stood in protest alongside them as an act of solidarity. While in the West Bank, however, she was shot in the head by an Israeli sniper that killed her instantly. Her death was not only a deep personal loss for me and those who knew her, but another tragedy for the State of Washington.

As with Rachel Corrie, my naive impulses returned in response to Ayşenur’s murder. I once again told myself that her murder had to be “different,” and that our government was sure to respond forcefully. Amidst the ongoing genocide in Gaza, I pleaded with elected officials to recognize the gravity of what happened to Ayşenur, but to no avail. It was especially hard to humanize Ayşenur to elected officials—Democrats and Republicans alike—who, at precisely the time of her murder, were working to criminalize speech and campus activism since the onset of the genocide. They simply did not care.

As I scrambled along with my community members to assist Ayşenur’s family, I found myself on a Zoom call to help coordinate statewide efforts. Among the many who joined the call to help were Craig and Cindy Corrie. It was a surreal moment. They clearly felt a deep responsibility to be present for Ayşenur—a responsibility shaped by a kind of grief that only parents who have lost a child can truly understand or express. In the state’s thriving activism scene, the Corries are mainstays, often lending their voices and platform to those who seek justice in Palestine. In the past few years, I have been able to closely witness their continued fight for justice amidst an unprecedented pushback against Palestine activism by local, state, and federal policymakers. They are always present, no matter the nature of the event. I even saw them in the crowd at a small banquet CAIR organized shortly after I became Executive Director; their commitment to community organizing and justice is profound.

The Corries are always present because they understand the political stakes we face. They understand that we now find ourselves in an environment where advocating for the very humanity of Palestinians is being punished and criminalized at the highest levels of political office. This is visible in the recent arrests and ongoing cases of Mahmoud Khalil, Badr Khan Suri, Rümeysa Öztürk, and others who were punished for exercising their first amendment rights to speech and assembly. Is it any surprise that the same people pursuing these policies are apparently indifferent to the repeated killing of American activists, journalists, and even children by Israeli forces?

As American and global public opinion shifts against Israel for its atrocities, there has been an all-out offensive to try and silence any form of dissent. I have personally sat face-to-face with members of Congress, pleading for a ceasefire resolution and to end our government’s blank check policy which enables Israel to conduct its genocide. My impassioned pleas have only been met with robotic responses about Israel’s right to defend itself. Meanwhile, Ayşenur’s family has been traveling to Washington, D.C. to push for an independent investigation of her murder. The irony is that the very same members of Congress who have supported the Gaza genocide are the ones Ayşenur’s traumatized family members must communicate with in order to achieve any potential justice for her.

But it is not enough that the ruling class ignores American deaths at the hands of Israel, they also pursue draconian legislation at home, such as the “nonprofit killer bill” and the “Antisemitism Awareness Act,” aimed at silencing Palestine advocacy. If passed, the consequences will be disastrous. Free speech has already been chilled on campuses across the United States, and encoding such acts or bills into law would only further push our country in the direction of outrightly criminalizing speech that criticizes or antagonizes the State of Israel—in complete violation of the Constitution. It does not get much better at the state and local levels, where genocidal war criminals such as Itamar Ben Gvir are being invited on speaking junkets, and “Gaza Real Estate” events are being callously advertised in anticipation of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the strip.

Despite these immense challenges, this past April I joined Ayşenur’s husband (Hamid) and sister (Ozden) in seeing the Washington State Legislature recognize her in a symbolic House Resolution. This was a chance for lawmakers to take seriously the need for an independent investigation into Ayşenur’s murder. To the extent that our hopes are restrained, we remain energized by the commitment of our community, including the Corries, who stood right beside Ayşenur’s family for support during their recent attendance at the Washington State Legislature. Through all the grief, political indifference, and systematic repression of dissent, the presence of Cindy and Craig Corrie has remained an enduring moral constant. They are living reminders of what it means to carry trauma forward in service of something larger than oneself, and their authenticity as activists is reflected in their willingness to act year after year without the promise of reward or recognition. Without needing to be centered, they always show up and refuse to stay silent even when doing so might be easier for them.

The Corries’ presence in these moments might not resolve the ongoing violence of the Israeli state, nor galvanize our officials into action. But, in the long run, it will force our officials to confront what that violence continuously depends on: their complicity, and the myth that no one will persist in naming what is being done to the Palestinian people and those who stand by them.