THE TRUTH IN JENIN

Some important talking points about jenin

-no human rights organization (not even the UN) found evidence of a "massacre". In stead the numbers were very close to those the Israelis gave. I don't remember them off the top of my head but i believe it was approx. 45 killed under ten of which were innocents- the rest armed terrorists. This is in direct contradiction to palestinian early claims of up to 500 casualties and mass graves.

-Israel did not carpet bomb jenin as it could have safely and as other nations have done without such scrutiny. Instead it sacrafice 23 of its own soldiers in some of the most bitter fighting of the last 2 years. many of these casualties could have been avoided if not for strict adherance to their orders to prevent as many civilian casualties as possible.

-While there may have been abuses by soldiers, this was directly against their orders and was in no way sanctioned from above. soldiers breaking the law ar persecuted as criminals in Israel- again in direct contradiction to how the PA treats terrorists.

-the most striking argument is handed to us on a silver platter by the gross exaggerations which are made against Israel in this case. It is one of the best documented skirmishes in this current conflict and definitely speaks to the resetraint of the Israeli military. Focus ont he points of exaggeration on their part to discredit the speaker as well as focusing on the catalyst for entering Jenin- the Passover Massacre

IDF releases tape showing fake Palestinian funeral
The IDF released a videotape Thursday showing the apparently staged funeral of a Palestinian in the Jenin refugee camp. The footage was filmed by an IDF unmanned reconnaissance plane on April 28.
http://www.mideasttruth.com/video.html

The pictures show a phony funeral that the Palestinians organized in order to multiply the number of casualties in Jenin. The pictures were taken on 28/04/02. The funeral procession was held between the area destroyed in Jenin and the cemetery.
http://www.idf.il/english/news/funeral.stm

These are huge tools in countering the so-called massacre.

I was present at a private viewing of the film "Jenin, Jenin", by Muhammad Bakri, at the Jerusalem Cinematheque. The limited audience included Lia van Leer, Director of the Cinematheque, and some journalists. At the end of the screening, I reacted by pointing out, one by one, the lies and lack of truth shown in the film. One of the participants responded furiously, "if you cannot accept the facts in the film, you apparently do not understand anything, and how can you be a doctor?" For a moment I forgot that I had been in Jenin last April, serving in the capacity of doctor for IDF forces in the area, while this esteemed viewer's information came, at best, from rumors. Bakri has woven together lies and half-truths so skillfully that it is difficult to withstand the temptation to be drawn into the distorted picture he has created.

I failed to convince the Cinematheque's management to cancel the screening. I was told that the images of destroyed houses are authentic and that, therefore, there is truth in the film, and that anyway, the film will be screened throughout the world. I was nevertheless invited to the film's Jerusalem premiere, and I went, so that I could use the opportunity to explain my position to the audience. Following are some of the points that I had hoped to raise.

1. The director of the hospital in Jenin, Dr. Abu-Rali, claims in the film that the western wing of the hospital was shelled and destroyed, and that the IDF purposely disrupted the supply of water and electricity to the hospital. The truth is that there never was such a wing and, in any case, no part of the hospital was shelled or bombed.

Indeed, IDF soldiers were careful not to enter the hospital grounds, even though we knew that they were being used to shelter wanted persons. We maintained the supply of water, electricity and oxygen to the hospital throughout the course of the fighting, and helped set up an emergency generator after the electricity grid in the city was damaged.

Bakri himself is seen in the film wandering around the clean, preserved corridors of the hospital, but not in the "bombed" wing. I met him outside the auditorium and asked him if he had visited the western wing. At first he said no, and then immediately corrected himself. "Just a minute, you remember the glass that broke in the film - that was from there."

It is important to note that Abu-Rali is one of the "authorized sources" on which the claim of a "massacre" is based. At the beginning of the operation, he was interviewed on the TV station Al-Jazeera and spoke of "thousands of casualties."

2. Another impressive segment of the film is an interview with a 75-year-old resident of Jenin who, crying bitterly, testified that he had been taken from his bed in the middle of the night and shot in the hand, and, when he failed to obey the soldiers' orders to get up, was shot again in the foot.

This same elderly man was brought to me for treatment after a clean-up operation in one of the houses used by a Hamas cell in the refuge camp. He had indeed sustained a slight injury to the hand and suffered from light abrasions on his leg (although certainly not a bullet wound). IDF soldiers brought him to the station for treating the wounded, and there he was treated, including by me.

One of the army doctors diagnosed heart failure, and we immediately offered to transfer him for treatment to the "Emek" Hospital in Afula. He requested to be treated at the hospital in Jenin since he was not fluent in Hebrew. After the Jenin hospital refused to admit him, we transferred him to Afula. He was in the internal medicine ward for three days and received treatment for heart problems and anemia, from which he suffered as a result of an existing chronic disease.

3. Another interviewee told the story of a baby hit by a bullet that penetrated the baby's chest, passed through its body and created a large exit wound in its back. According to the information supplied in the film, the baby died after soldiers prevented his evacuation to hospital. However, the baby's body was never found. Furthermore, if such a wound had been in fact inflicted, it would have certainly been fatal, and evacuation to hospital would not have saved the baby's life. What was the baby's name? What happened to the body?

4. The same person also claimed that he used his finger to open an airway in a child's neck after he was wounded. Again, this is a total fabrication. It is impossible to perform such an operation with one's finger. This "witness" also told how tanks rolled over people, again and again, crushing them alive - this, too, never happened.

5. The film mentions mass graves in which the IDF put the Palestinians who were killed. All of the international organizations that investigated this matter are in agreement that a total of 52 Palestinians were killed in Jenin, and their bodies were turned over to the Palestinians for burial. Bakri did not even bother to show the location of these so-called mass graves.

6. The film claims that Israeli planes bombed the city. This is untrue. In order to avoid civilian casualties, only accurate gunfire from helicopters was used.

7. Another point worth noting is that Bakri was not in Jenin during the operation; he arrived two weeks after its conclusion. The destroyed area in the center of the city was filmed in such a way as to appear substantially bigger than it really was, and the posters of "martyrs" and Jihad slogans that covered the walls during the operation were all gone.

The film repeatedly manipulates visual images, showing tanks that had been photographed in other places juxtaposed artificially with pictures of Palestinian children. This is crude, albeit well-done, manipulation.
* * *

At the end of the screening, the hundreds of viewers awarded Bakri and the editor of the film with thunderous applause. Bakri turned to the audience and asked if there were any questions. I introduced myself, ascended the stage and began to systematically list all the lies and inaccuracies in the film.

At first, there was a rustle in the crowd, and then boos and I was called a "murderer", "war criminal" and the like. Before I had even finished my second point, a man from the audience aggressively ascended the stage and tried to grab the microphone from my hand. I decided not to be dragged into violence. I let him take the microphone and walked off the stage. I was surprised that only a few spectators rose to the defense of freedom of speech and freedom of expression. I was amazed that the audience was not willing to hear the facts from someone who had physically been there.

It was painful for me as a man, a father and a doctor to hear calls of "murderer" from my own people. I said that I hadn't murdered anyone, but the calls intensified. A powerful hatred was directed towards me. I had an unpleasant feeling that I haven't been able to shake.
I do not regret going to the Cinematheque that night, and I am certain that some people present did listen to me and that it changed their ideas a little about the "facts" they had just seen. I am also certain that there were other people who were chagrined at the intolerance demonstrated by the crowd. Still, the fact that they were a silent minority is hard for me to accept.

Permit me, therefore, to say what I did not succeed in saying to those hate-filled people that night. I am proud that I was part of the good and moral forces that operated in Jenin, regular and reserve soldiers with motivation and spirit who went out to destroy the infrastructure of terrorism at its capital. Many of the suicide bombers who murdered old people, women and children in our city streets came from Jenin.

I am proud that we were there and fought, and proud also of our combat ethics. The camp was not bombed from the air, in order to prevent hurting innocent civilians; neither did we use artillery, although we knew of specific areas in the camp where terrorists were hiding out. The soldiers fought the terrorists, and only the terrorists. Before destroying a house from which heavy gunfire was being directed at our soldiers, several warnings were issued and every possibility was given for civilians to get out safely.

Our medical teams treated every wounded person, even if he had Hamas tattoos on his arms. At no stage was medical care withheld from anyone.

This heroic and at the same time moral fighting cost us dearly in the lives of the best of our fighters. We who were there, the soldiers who fell there, their families, and the IDF don't deserve to be used by Muhammad Bakri to incite the world to murder and hatred.

My name is Ron, im 26 years old student. I study law and information technology in IDC herzelia.

Im glad I have the opportunity to speak with you and let you hear my side of the story, my point of view.

We have just seen an example of a ruthless attack of Palestinian propaganda in the media battlefield. So what did we see? We saw a perfect setting of devastation; we saw sad and angry people and we heard their stories. I tell you this was nothing but a collection of well-presented lies. But not just lies, it was lies with inherent incitement well built in them not only against Israel and Israelis but also against the entire Jewish people. “…Q: how can they kill children A: they killed Jesus they kill can kill children…” This movie engineered and sponsored by the Palestinian propaganda office is just another “fantastic” project of this office led by Yaser abed rabo, who very cleverly used an Israeli arab who is also very famous among the Jewish majority who in return to world fame (participating in festivals all over the world) and money, enabled the Palestinian propaganda to be delivered to Israelis. This movie has a number of purposes 1. Strengthen Palestinian patriotism and hatred towards Israel 2. Invoke feelings of remorse within other Arab countries and elsewhere in the world and by that gain important public opinion favoring the Palestinian side that can be translated to money of pressure on Israel. 3 weaken Israeli spirit as part of the efforts in this battle.

In my opinion to challenge someone who have seen this movie or and is filled with rage and anger towards is Israel, one should try to do three things:

1. Explain about the battle of jenin in the prospect of the entire struggle between Israel and the Palestinians.
2. Explain about Israel Jewish and democratic history and heritage to show how the related accusation are not possible
3. Give specific examples to show the lies that appear in the movie to shake its credibility.

History
You can’t just look on the movie and draw your opinion on the entire conflict; you have to know the history and roots of the conflict. Now should this person not agree that the Jewish people are entitled to have their own state, than we have no argument If he does think that we are entitled to have a state then it can easily be shown that Israel has always done everything in its power to try and end the conflict.
We have seen people who’s suffer is real but instead blaming Israel, the Palestinians should be blaming their own leadership who constantly rejected any kind of compromise that included a Jewish state, causing the ongoing suffering of their people hurting their cause and dream to establish an independent state:
1937 - In July 1937, Britain, in a Royal Commission headed by former Secretary of State for India, Lord Peel, recommended partitioning the land into a Jewish state (about a third of British Mandate Palestine, including Galilee and the coastal plain) and an Arab one.
Palestinian and Arab representatives rejected this and demanded an end to immigration and the safeguarding of a single unified state with protection of minority rights. Violent opposition continued until 1938 when it was crushed with reinforcements from the UK.
1947 – The UN set up a special committee, which recommended splitting the territory into separate Jewish and Palestinian states. Palestinian representatives, known as the Arab Higher Committee, rejected the proposal; their counterparts in the Jewish Agency accepted it.
The partition plan gave 56.47% of Palestine to the Jewish state and 43.53% to the Arab state, with an international enclave around Jerusalem. On 29 November 1947, 33 countries of the UN General Assembly voted for partition, 13 voted against and 10 abstained. The plan, which was rejected by the Palestinians, was never implemented.
2000 – camp david prime minister barak agrees to hand in to the Palestinians 97% of the occupied territories including parts of eastern jerusalm (excluding the jewish holy sites) and additional land from within Israel in exchange to the 3% of the territories that were inhabited by Jewish settlers. Yaser Arafat did not accept the plan on the grounds of his demand for the right of return of Palestinian refuges back to Israel and instead instructed the opening of the new intifada that included the renewal of suicide bomob killings of Israeli civilians.

Between January 2002 and April 2002 (3.5 months)

We had approximately 20 suicide bomb killing attacks that have killed
94 Israelis and wounded over 800.

Mar 27, 2002 - 27 people were killed and 140 injured - 20 seriously - in a suicide bombing in the Park Hotel in the coastal city of Netanya, in the midst of the Passover holiday seder with 250 guests. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack

After this attack the Israeli government has decide to lunch the offensive against terrorist infrastructure in the Palestinian territories.

So how was it for me?
My grandparents were holocaust survivors who’s entire family was murdered, they made alia in 1950 after the 2nd ww.
My parents are both Israeli born I have 2 sisters and a dog.

As you all probably know we have an obligatory army service that we all have to do when we reach the age of 18. So exactly when American youth are finishing high school and start to make plans as to how many parties a week they should go to in college. Israeli youth are recruited to serve in the army. You have many different types of service you can do, you can do a combat service, that is to be a combat solider in one of the forces: air force navy or the ground forces, you can do a technological service of some sort or you can do some sort of an office job. I chose to be a combat solider cause I wanted to give back as much as I can to my country that provided me with a place to live good education and good standard of living. I served 4.5 years 2 of which I was a platoon commander.

After I finished my army service I flew to the u.s to a summer camp where I was a counselor of 8 year olds.

When I came back I started university. I am currently in my fourth year, studying law and business management.

Why am I telling you all this? to draw an image, a face for the solider. It is harder to believe a false propaganda when instead of a faceless soldier with a gun and a helmet you see the person, you relies that he is no different than your son your brother or your neighbor. I hope that by doing so it will be easier for you not to believe these lies of the Palestinian propaganda.

I go to school, I like to watch and play sports I do everything American guy my age would do, until I receive a green letter calling me to report for miluim – the reserves duty, and so I did, this last march. Now since I am a student, im entitled to do 21 days of service a year or less (meaning they cant call me to do more days). My company commander in the reserves duty – Moshe, is also a student but since he is the company commander he is doing around 60 days of service a year. You must understand what a burden it is, you are taken out of your normal life, out of everyone that loves you, out of work which could be devastating if your trying to run your own business or if you’re a student and have to miss about one third of the semester. You are most likely sent to problematic areas to risk your life. This is still true when your way past your 30ths when you can already have your own family. That is why we are currently experiencing a very big problem of people not coming to miluim, the burden is so big so just like in taxes (and it is a kind of tax) when the burden is too big the people stop paying. So the people that do come and serve are the ones that in spite the tremendous burden cant bare the thoughts of their friends collapsing under a bigger burden due to their possible absence. The ones that do arrive have an added value.

We were all called last march (almost exactly a year ago) to serve 28 days in an area between Jerusalem and Rammala. Our job was to try and catch suicide bomb killers who try to infiltrate to Israel from rammala and into Jerusalem. During this period of time we managed to stop in one of our posts an ambulance that was carrying a 56 year old doctor a woman with two children under the age of 5 that was full with explosives.

A week before our supposed release we were notified that instead of going back home we are reassigned, this time we were to go to jenin.
We had a couple of days to rearrange and to go in, our instructions were very clear. We were to go inside the camp, from house to house find explosives and wanted people. We honestly thought and we actually practiced the procedure –knocking on the door searching the house and moving on to the next one.
We started marching towards the camp when heavy fire was fired upon us, my commander Moshe who was 29 and a newly wed to michaly was shot dead. It was only then that we realized that this was going to be a totally different thing then what we had expected.
From that moment on we continued to do and work towards completing our objectives: find explosives and wanted people, this time in a more secure way in a more military fashion. We advanced from house to house taking covers making sure none of us get hurt, never the less we had another soldier shot to death and a number of others that were wounded. To my surprise we hardly encountered civilians. Most of the houses we entered were empty, in retrospect I understand that most of the inhabitants of the camp have left it when they realized that IDF is about to enter the camp. The only people who stayed were those who wanted to fight IDF or very poor people who had nowhere to go.
All through the battle we had an army vehicle with a loud speaker calling the people to come out in peace, this had two purposes, to take the innocent civilians out of the fire zones and isolate the terrorists, and ask the terrorists themselves to come out instead of fighting with them.

Now, you saw what 20 people (the suicide killers) with explosives can do to a crowd of civilians. We had few hundred soldiers with much more explosives. If the Israeli soldiers were out of control or morally corrupted as the Palestinians claim them to be the death toll would have been much much higher.

You can ask any general in any army in the world and he would tell you, this was not the military way to do it. Why? Because you can complete your objectives without endangering your own soldiers. By using heavy artillery and air bombs. Just like the u.s has done in iraq of 1991 in Afghanistan and many other places. Instead the Israeli army has decided to send in the infantry units, just in order to be able to differentiate between the enemy and the civilians.

Finally, the operation was over after the last group of people who try to resist surrendered. We found a number of explosives labs and factories that produced the explosives to the suicide bomb killers.

I returned home, than started the rumors about the massacre. I couldn’t believe my ears. I took it very personally, how can they blame me? Me, who for years heard his grandparents tell him about their horrific stories from the holocaust? Me who was educated to respect human rights and people no matter who they are? Me who never encountered and would never allow the slightest immoral action to occur? Me who’s life was endangered just to be able to spare innocent Palestinians lives?
I was furious.

I turned to the foreign media to tell my story. It didn’t end my frustration – they just didn’t want to hear it. They did interview me but they didn’t like what I had to say, it just didn’t fit in to their story. So in the good case they did not publish it like the interview I gave to BBC television news, in other cases like a bbc radio show that was supposed to present the two side of the story, the reporter james Reynolds interviewed me and my friend for three hours to what was supposed to be a one hour report on jenin. The 60 minutes were divided: 10 minutes james raynolds comments 10 minutes things me and my friend have said 30 minutes the Palestinian side and 10 minutes for…. commercials.
My worst experience was with CNN where the reporter Shila McVicker, who after interviewing me not only hadn’t at all provided the spirit of the things as I said them, but used fragments of my sentences to prove her story about the so called Israeli war crimes.

An article written by Richard Start:

PRECISELY A MONTH AGO, on April 8, the Palestinian news agency Wafa was reporting that Israel had committed the "massacre of the 21st century" in the Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin. "Medical sources" informed Wafa of "hundreds of martyrs." This was a lie, concocted not only for local consumption--to keep the Palestinian people whipped up in a patriotic, Israel-hating frenzy--but mostly for export to the West.

That same day, you could hear breathless reports of the supposed Israeli atrocities in Jenin being spread by Palestinian sources on NPR, CNN, and elsewhere. Typical was the hysteria of Nasser al-Kidwa, the Palestinian representative to the United Nations, on CNN: "There's almost a massacre now taking place in Jenin. Helicopter gun ships are throwing missiles at one square kilometer packed with almost 15,000 people in a refugee camp. . . . Just look at the TV and watch, watch what the--what the Israel forces are doing. . . . This is a war crime, clear war crime, witnessed by the whole world, preventing ambulances, preventing people from being buried. I mean this is an all-out assault against the whole population."

No, this was an all-out assault on the truth. There was a pitched battle in Jenin. But the "hundreds" of martyrs were a cynical invention. The death toll was 56 Palestinians, the majority of them combatants, and 23 Israeli soldiers.

Unlike the celebrated foreign-dispatch lies of the 20th century--the New York Times's Walter Duranty Pulitzer-winning cover-up of Stalin's murderous Ukraine famine, say, or Herbert Matthews's 1957 reports of Senor Fidel Castro's hopes for a "democratic Cuba"--the Jenin fraud has been almost entirely inflated and then deflated in the short space of a month. I think it's safe to say that no one will win a Pulitzer for reporting on the (non-existent) "massacre of the 21st century." This was amateur-hour propaganda, and any reporter who fell for it should be mortified.

Mostly that means British reporters. Full credit to the Guardian for allowing Sharon Sadeh to administer a well-deserved flogging to Fleet Street in its pages on Monday. "The Independent, the Guardian and the Times, in particular," writes Sadeh, "were quick to denounce Israel and made sensational accusations based on thin evidence, fitting a widely held stereotype of a defiant, brutal and don't-give-a-damn Israel." You can read the whole satisfying piece here.

Not that American reporters were without sin. Screenwriter Daniel Gordan's description of the ax-grinding media in action is also worth a click. My favorite part is his description of this encounter between CNN's Sheila MacVicar and an Israeli soldier in Jenin:

"One [Israeli] reservist sensed MacVicar's hostility. He was a soft-spoken man who approached her and introduced himself as the reserve unit's medical officer, Dr. David Zangen. He told her that when the fighting was over, they found photograph albums of children from roughly 6 years of age up through early and mid-teens. It was an album of photos of children who would be the next crop of suicide killers, with notations indicating when each of the children would be ripe. The reporter had no time for the doctor, however.

"'Perhaps you should ask yourself why,'" she said, dismissing him.

"'I do, madam,' he said, 'I ask myself why. I can't imagine it. I can't imagine sending one's child out to be a mass murderer who commits suicide to kill women and children.'

"'Well, I can explain it,' said the reporter. 'For me it all comes down to one word, "occupation."'

"'But madam,' the doctor said, 'Jenin hasn't been occupied for nine years.'"

This is an actual quote from the U.N report on Jenin:
“The number of Palestinian fatalities, on the basis of bodies recovered to date, in Jenin and the refugee camp in this military operation can be estimated at around 55. Of those, a number were civilians, four were women and two children. There were 23 Israeli fatalities in the fighting operations in Jenin.”

In Their Own Words: Palestinian Statements Demonstrate that Israel's Actions in Jenin Were Clearly Warranted

§       The Palestinian fighters in Jenin spoke of how they booby-trapped the camp elaborately, armed themselves with explosive belts and grenades and enlisted women and children into the battle.

§       "Believe me, there are children stationed in the houses with explosive belts at their sides."

-Abu Jandal, Islamic Jihad commander

§       "We have prepared unexpected surprises for the enemy….We have prepared a special graveyard in the Jenin camp for them."

-Ali Safori, Islamic Jihad Al-Quds
Brigades commander

§       "We had more than 50 houses booby-trapped around the camp. We chose old and empty buildings and the houses of men who were wanted by Israel because we knew the soldiers would search for them."

-"Omar," Islamic Jihad bomb-maker

The Rush to Condemn Israel:

The United Nations and the European Union

§       The reckless and eager rush to condemn Israel was epitomized by the statements of international organizations, which attacked Israeli military actions - without knowing the facts - either by equating them with the tactics of suicide-bombers or by demonstrating hostility toward Israel more directly..

§       "Combating terrorism does not give a blank check to kill civilians. However just the causes, there are illegitimate means, and the means that have been used here are illegitimate and morally repugnant."

-Terje Roed-Larsen, U.N. Special
Coordinator to the Middle East

§       "Israelis can't trample over the rule of law, over the Geneva conventions, over what are generally regarded as acceptable norms of behaviour without it doing colossal damage to their reputation."

-Christopher Patton, European Union
External Relations Commissioner

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch

§       Non-governmental organizations, including leading human-rights groups such Amnesty International also pre-judged Israel's behavior.

§       "What was striking is what was absent. There were very few bodies in the hospital. There were also none who were seriously injured, only the 'walking wounded.' Thus we have to ask: where are the bodies and where are the seriously wounded?"

- Derrick Pounder, a forensics expert
working with Amnesty International

§       Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch charged Israel with violations of international law and war crimes. Neither discussed the international law violations involved in arming a refugee camp, or demanded the United Nations be held in any way accountable for its lack of oversight in the camp. While Human Rights Watch acknowledged in a May 3 report that there was no evidence of a massacre and that Palestinian gunmen had contributed to endangering Palestinian civilians, they continued to emphasize that there was prima facie evidence Israel committed war crimes.

World Governments

§       Some of the world's governments also chose to speak out before the facts were known.

§       The U.N. Commission on Human Rights endorsed a resolution which adopted, by reference, a 1982 resolution recognizing the "legitimacy of the struggle of peoples…by all available means, including armed struggle." Austria, Belgium, France, Portugal, Spain and Sweden supported the resolution.

§       "…the kind violence involving suicidal bombings which killed Israelis, Palestinians as well as Chinese, should be condemned. However, what was more shocking to the world was the human tragedy caused by brutal military attacks in Palestinian territories by Israeli forces…." (sic)

- Xinhua (Chinese news agency),
reporting the comments of Wang
Yingfan, China's Permanent
Representative to the United Nations

The United States: Restraint in the Face of Allegations

§       In the United States, the official response to allegations of Israeli human rights violations was restrained. Both the White House and Congress supported Israel's right to take action in the West Bank to defend itself. The White House urged that humanitarian workers be allowed into the camp and supported an investigation of the conflict by a U.N. fact-finding team. A few members of Congress were harshly critical of Israel's activities.

The Media: Failure to Provide Context and Balance

§       The media's greatest failing in reporting on Israel was ignorance about the complex situation there, made worse by the demand to produce scoops and splashy headlines at the cost of providing context and contrasting points of view. While the American media's coverage was uneven, it was generally fair. Lesser-known online media sources and Anglo-Arab sources were highly one-sided, as was much of the international press. The report focuses on the British press.

§       "Gaunt and exhausted, tormented with worry about his missing family, Jamal Fayed yesterday wandered round the vast heap of reeking detritus where Israel has buried the war crimes of Jenin refugee camp."

- The Independent

§       "Israeli officials were desperately scrambling to explain the war crimes committed at Jenin refugee camps as the international furore over the devastation rose to new heights yesterday."

- The Independent

§       "...the evidence of the Israeli army's absolute negligence in trying to protect civilian life is everywhere."

- The Economist

What Really Happened in Jenin

Jenin: Longtime Terrorist Stronghold

§       Jenin is a longtime terrorist stronghold that produced 23 suicide bombers since October 2000 and was highly fortified in preparation for an Israeli incursion.

§       The camp at Jenin was founded by the U.N. and supervised by U.N. officials. According to its own resolution, the U.N. is called upon to "help create a secure environment" in refugee centers; it condemns the arming of these centers. Yet the organization's recent attempt to organize a fact-finding inquiry in Jenin focused only on alleged Israeli violations - failing to acknowledge the possibility of either its own complicity or Palestinian violations.

§       In stark contract to Jenin, there was not a single Palestinian casualty or any infrastructure damage in other West Bank villages which did not offer armed resistance.

Israeli Accounts of the Battles : Restraint in the Face of Booby Traps and Intense Resistance

§       Israeli accounts of the Jenin battle emphasize the elaborate booby-trapping and constant bombings faced by the soldiers - almost all of which could have been avoided had the army relied on an air attack (a strategy that would likely have killed many more non-combatants) - and the provisions taken to avoid civilian casualties.

§       "There was always a soldier who approached the family and tried to calm them, asking about the names of the children, offering them candies, checking if they are in need of anything. A child I smiled at was confused. I'm sure he was raised believing that I'm the devil."

-Shlomi Laniado, field fighter

§       "The soldiers fought without harming civilians. This was noticeable in every place and on every level. I was moved by the sight of soldiers conducting themselves in such a dignified and moral manner. Many of us are reserve soldiers; we are not hotheaded people, and we were all very careful. I was impressed by the great care exercised by the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) in avoiding civilian casualties - especially in regard to children."

-Dr. David Zangen, lead accompanying medic

§       Israeli forces acted to minimize civilian casualties while Palestinian actions endangered civilians.

§       Casualty and physical damage reports indicate that the vast majority of Palestinians killed were armed. Some were wearing explosive belts.

§       Israel's casualties during the battles in Jenin were 23 killed and 75 wounded

Palestinian Fighters Corroborate Israeli Accounts of the Battles

§       Taabat Mardawi, a senior member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad who surrendered to Israeli forces, described the battle as "a very hard fight" but said he didn't see "tens of people" killed by the Israeli army. Mardawi said he and other fighters expected Israel to attack with planes in order to avoid their casualties; he spoke enthusiastically about Israel's decision to send in infantry. "It was like hunting…like being given a prize. I couldn't believe it when I saw the soldiers," he said. "The Israelis knew that any soldier who went into the camp like that was going to get killed." He added: "I've been waiting for a moment like that for years."

The Legal Basis for Operation Defensive Shield

§       Israel had a legal right to engage in military action in Jenin.

§       The conduct of the IDF in the conflict did not breach the standards of international law.

§       During the battle there several violations of international law by Palestinian forces

The Lessons of Jenin: The Need for Context and Balance

In conclusion, a massacre of hundreds of Palestinians by Israel was widely alleged, reported and condemned, but did not in fact occur. The tendency of groups and governments to speak prematurely - and of the media to report those comments uncritically - reminds us that, in reporting the news, freedom from bias, seeking context and examining all sides is essential for everyone, especially those with voices that carry weight internationally.

The Role of Anti-Semitism

Finally, while the report remains largely silent on the question of whether some of the zealously anti-Israel reaction to the events in Jenin reflected anti-Semitic attitudes, prejudice undoubtedly informed some of the remarks quoted. Mere criticism of Israel is not bigotry, but the vehemence and reflexiveness displayed by some of those considered here seems indicative of a larger set of beliefs about Jews.

The phantom massacre
NATIONAL POST EDITORIAL
April 25, 2002

Critics of Israel are up in arms about the "massacre" that took place in the Jenin refugee camp earlier this month. Palestinian sources originally claimed that up to 500 were killed -- many through "summary executions." Terje Roed-Larsen, a senior United Nations envoy who visited the camp, said Israeli actions in Jenin were "illegitimate and morally repugnant." Svend Robinson, the NDP's Foreign Affairs critic, said "It appears there was a massacre in Jenin at the hands of the Israeli Defence Forces and if that happened, that is a war crime." And Amnesty International has declared: "The evidence compiled indicates that serious breaches of international human rights and humanitarian law were committed, including war crimes." But as of this writing, only about 50 Palestinians from Jenin are confirmed dead (not counting the 23 suicide bombers from the area who attacked Jews in the last 18 months). Amnesty has backed off from its "war crimes" alarmism. And The New York Times, which has slanted noticeably against Israel since its March 29 invasion of the West Bank, concedes: "Dozens of interviews with residents of the camp, hospital officials, Israeli soldiers and officials, and Palestinian fighters produced no solid evidence of large-scale, deliberate killing of civilians in the camp. Palestinian claims of hundreds of dead appear to be exaggerated."

If there was no massacre, why were all those homes in Jenin destroyed? Ask the terrorists themselves. The Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram Weekly recently published an interview with an Islamic Jihad bombmaker who helped booby trap the refugee camp. "We had more than 50 houses booby-trapped," said the terrorist. "We chose old and empty buildings and the houses of men who were wanted by Israel because we knew the soldiers would search for them ... We cut off lengths of main water pipes and packed them with explosives and nails. Then we placed them about four meters apart ... in cupboards, under sinks, in sofas." This puts the scenes of devastation in perspective. Rather than lose its men in booby-trapped buildings, the Israeli army sensibly bulldozed suspect homes after using bullhorns to warn occupants to get out. No doubt innocents were killed during the operation, and allegations that some residents were given insufficient time to flee seem credible. But the charge of a systematic "massacre" is clearly propaganda. If Israeli troops wanted to kill Palestinians in large numbers, they would have used bombs, not bulldozers. They also would have destroyed more homes.

From press reports, one would think all of Jenin was leveled. In fact, the destroyed area was small -- just 1/30th of the camp. Indeed any "war crimes" committed in Jenin were likely committed by the Palestinians. The Geneva Conventions prohibit "the feigning of an intent to negotiate under a flag of truce or of a surrender" and "the feigning of civilian, non-combatant status" by fighters. The Palestinians themselves claim to have done both. This is how Al Ahram tells the story of the Jenin ambush that killed 13 Israeli soldiers: "'They were lured there,' [the bombmaker] says. 'We all stopped shooting and the women went out to tell the soldiers that we had run out of bullets and were leaving.' The women alerted the fighters as the soldiers reached the booby-trapped area. 'When the senior officers realized what had happened, they shouted through megaphones that they wanted an immediate ceasefire. We let them approach to retrieve the men and then opened fire.'"

The UN has authorized an investigation of the Jenin "massacre" that may begin as early as this weekend. In principle, Israel should welcome an objective inquiry. But Mr. Sharon believes the investigating committee's mandate is too broad, and that it is dominated by individuals who may prove overly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. After watching the UN and the rest of the world embrace tall Palestinian tales of mass graves and cadaver-carting trucks, Mr. Sharon and his Cabinet are concerned the investigation will become a tool of Arab propaganda. Such concerns aren't entirely unwarranted, and until the United Nations can satisfy them, Israel should refuse to participate. The world is all too eager to swallow Israeli atrocity tales. The last thing we need is for the United Nations to (once again) lend them the organization's official imprimatur.

The Second Battle of Jenin
WALL STREET JOURNAL EDITORIAL
April 25, 2002

The Middle East breeds myths faster than it can digest them. The latest is Jenin, the Palestinian West Bank refugee camp and the scene earlier this month of a bloody battle. The Israeli military laid siege and overran the camp after eight days of fighting.
But that was nothing compared with the propaganda battle now going on to persuade the world that something far worse really happened. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak yesterday accused the Israeli army of "despicable crimes" in Jenin. Palestinian leaders speak of 500 civilian deaths, Amnesty International talks about "possible war crimes," and the U.N.'s Mideast envoy calls the Israeli military offensive "totally unacceptable and horrific beyond belief."

Pardon us if we stick to the few facts anyone really knows. Home to 14,000 Palestinians, Jenin was not Mayberry RFD. It was a stronghold of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, where extremists trained and armed young people to kill Israeli civilians. By the terrorists' own admission, about 20 of the 50 suicide bombers since September 2000 came from Jenin.

Scores of well-armed Palestinians were ready when the Israelis moved in on the morning of April 3. They had burrowed tunnels, booby-trapped doors and set up snipers. Palestinian militants also placed the civilians of the camp, including children and wives, directly and deliberately in harm's way as human shields. Homes became their bunkers. One Islamic Jihad commander told the Palestinian press that, "Believe me, there are children stationed in the houses with explosive belts at their sides."

As Israeli soldiers moved from house to house one night, a Palestinian ambush killed 13. But even then the Israelis did not call in an aerial assault that would have killed far more Palestinians while protecting Israelis. Instead they sent in bulldozers, which demolished homes and created the ugly photos carried by the press but also carried greater risk of Israeli casualties. After eight days of fighting, 23 Israeli soldiers were dead, making Jenin among Israel's bloodiest military operations since 1973.

Some civilians also died, though we don't know how or how many. The Israelis estimate Palestinian deaths at around 100, mostly gunmen. "Clearly, innocent lives may well have been lost," Secretary of State Colin Powell testified before the U.S. Congress yesterday, adding, "I have no evidence of mass graves. I see no evidence that would support a massacre took place."

The U.N. wants to send a fact-finding team this weekend, and this certainly makes sense. Israel initially agreed, though it now wants to delay the team until its concerns about the make-up of the delegation are addressed. The Israelis believe the group is dominated by human-rights officials, who should be balanced by experts on military operations and counter-terrorism. This makes sense too.

And while the U.N. experts are there, they might also investigate the massacre, by fellow Palestinians, of Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israelis. As these columns have reported, that slaughter of innocents happens nearly every day and in the most brutal fashion. If they have time, the U.N. team might also visit Hama in Syria, where Hafez Assad murdered up to 25,000 of his own people in 1982.

As a democracy, Israel will of course hold itself to a higher moral standard. And it ought to, since the best defense of its own military operations is that they are targeted not at civilians but at terrorists; meanwhile, the Palestinians target pizza parlors and school buses. Israel ought to welcome international scrutiny, if only to offset the propaganda of its enemies.

If war crimes were committed or the army acted dishonorably, the perpetrators will be held to account by Israel's democratic institutions. Yet from what we know so far, Jenin wasn't a crime. It was another tragically bloody battle in a war that the Palestinians started 18 months ago.

Letter from Shlomo Brown (Rabbi), sent to his students, on Israel Independence Day.
Impressions of the Battle, from Jenin (On the State of Israel's 54th Independence Day)

I am sitting on a tank doing guard duty opposite the Jenin refugee camp. Now that the sounds of battle have ceased, the real battle is underway in a different arena: the media. I decided to write my impressions of the difficult battle in Jenin, during which we lost 23 soldiers, and which the Palestinians are attempting to portray as a massacre.

The Jenin refugee camp is one of the most crowded in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. About 12,000 residents live in an area 600 meters by 600 meters. The camp is built on the slope of a mountain, with extremely crowded conditions, with the streets no wider than a meter, for the most part.

The preparations of the camp residents for the battle began several weeks before the IDF entered the Palestinian Authority territories in the knowledge that the IDF would be unable to combat terrorism without entering the Jenin refugee camp, which has produced the largest number of suicide bombers. The camp quickly became a fortified area, with all of the residents taking part in preparing explosive devices and booby-trapping the houses. Most of the houses in the refugee camp are plastered with posters of the "shahids" (martyrs) who committed suicide and murdered innocent civilians throughout Israel.

Despite the simple solution - to bombard the camp from the outside with artillery and planes - the IDF decided to enter the camp and clean it out house by house, in order to prevent the death of innocents (if there were any in the refugee camp), in the full knowledge that doing so would cause heavy casualties to IDF soldiers. Painfully, that turned out to be the case. The IDF allowed all who so desired to leave and surrender.

A large number of the camp residents decided to transform Jenin into the "Palestinian Masada," and to make an effort to kill as many IDF soldiers as possible.

The battles lasted more than six days. Throughout the battles, the IDF called upon the civilians and terrorists to put down their weapons and surrender. In the final stages, after hundreds of the camp's residents surrendered, and just a few dozen terrorists remained, the IDF considered bombing the area which had not yet been conquered -- an area of 100 meters by 100 meters -- with warplanes, but, for some reason, decided not to. That night 13 IDF soldiers were killed in the infamous "alley of death."

In one of the battles in which I took part, an IDF soldier was killed by a sniper's bullet which detonated a grenade which he was carrying. He was the final casualty of the harsh battle in Jenin. May it be our hope and prayer that it will indeed be the last casualty. May he rest in peace.

At this stage, the IDF began to demolish the unconquered buildings in the area by means of bulldozers and tanks, in order to avoid further booby-traps. However, throughout, the terrorists were given the opportunity to surrender, but they continued to fight in an attempt to hurt the IDF soldiers. Early Wednesday morning, the IDF surrounded the last fighters and after extended negotiations, the terrorist leaders, many of whom were directly responsible for the deaths of civilians, decided to put down their weapons and surrender. They were arrested and interrogated. I took part in the arrests, and I can attest to the fact that had the IDF desired to eliminate them, they could have done so in a few seconds. However, in an attempt to avoid unnecessary killing, a tremendous effort, which lasted half a night, was expended and they convinced them to surrender. And indeed, they surrendered at dawn. To my amazement, immediately after the surrender, four women and a ten year old child emerged from the same house. They, of course, were permitted to leave.

Throughout the many days and hours during which I was in the refugee camp, I did not encounter even one corpse. Among the regiment's soldiers, the crews of 10 tanks, who spent many days in the camp, only one tank crew saw a corpse.
All of the stories attempting to portray the battle as a "massacre" are an attempt to belittle the moral military victory and ethical manner in which the IDF conducted the battle against those murderers. Although, considerable damage was caused to the camp, it was a direct result of their decision to fight and not to surrender at any cost. The pictures emerging from the camp accompanied by the wailing of the camp residents, are a cynical attempt to transform the battle victory into a massacre.

I must admit that they fought with determination and courage and caused us great casualties. However, unfortunately, they are trying to transform their military defeat into a media victory by turning the battle into a massacre.

Since I was mobilized, about three weeks ago, I am impressed each day anew, by the willingness of people to leave their homes and endanger their lives in order to defend Israeli citizens. Recently, the Israeli media has been reporting about the phenomenon of conscientious objectors, refusing to do reserve duty in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. The quick and complete mobilization proved, more than a thousand words in a newspaper, to what extent that phenomenon is marginal and limited.

I, along with many of my friends, view it not only as a civilian, Zionist obligation, but as a supreme moral privilege to defend the nation and the Land of Israel.

The sights which we encountered during the battles were harsh, and I am not referring only to the sights of IDF soldiers who were wounded and killed, but also to the terrorists who were wounded and killed and the hundreds of captives. However, anyone who entered the camp and witnessed the culture of "shahidim" on each and every house, realized that this is a war which was waged with no alternative - a war which was imposed upon us by an enemy lacking a conscience which does not hesitate to use women and children as live shields, does not hesitate sending young people to commit suicide and indiscriminately murders women, children and the elderly, and subsequently transforms them into martyrs and role models. And despite the substantial "price" which we paid in achieving victory in this battle, we emerged victorious militarily and even more so morally, and we have nothing of which to be ashamed. On the contrary, we should be very proud.

Shlomo Brown 54th Independence Day A tank in Jenin

Also click on Yossi Klein Halevi on the Jewish World Review: http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0502/halevi.html

Jenin: The Truth
by CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER
Washington Post Friday, May 3, 2002


"Jenin Camp Is a Scene of Devastation But Yields No Evidence of a Massacre."
-- Headline, front page, The Washington Post, April 16.

"There is simply no evidence of a massacre."
-- Peter Bouckaert, senior researcher, Human Rights Watch, Jenin.
Jerusalem Post, April 28.

"Holley told Agence France-Presse that he did not see 'any evidence of a massacre. The Israeli army was fighting against some desperate [Palestinian] fighters here.' "
-- Agence France-Presse, quoting Maj. David Holley, British military adviser to Amnesty International, April 28.

A massacre is the deliberate mass murder of the defenseless. The "Jenin massacre" is more than a fiction. It is a hoax. "Palestinian Authority allegations," reported the Boston Globe (April 29), ". . . appear to be crumbling under the weight of eyewitness accounts from Palestinian fighters who participated in the battle and camp residents who remained in their homes until the final hours of the fighting. . . . All said they were allowed to surrender or evacuate."

And yet for weeks the world has been seized with the question of the "Jenin massacre." The U.N. Security Council called emergency meetings. The secretary general appointed a special investigating committee (now disbanded). The European press published the most lurid allegations. To say nothing, of course, of al-Jazeera TV.

All this for a phantom massacre. Yet this same Middle East conflict yields no shortage
of real massacres:

April 27: Adora, Palestinian gunmen enter residential quarters shooting everyone, including a 5-year-old girl shot through the head in her bed.

April 12: Jerusalem, suicide bombing at a bus stop, 6 murdered.

April 10: Yagor, suicide bombing on a bus, 8 murdered.

March 31: Haifa, suicide bombing in a restaurant, 15 murdered.

March 28: Eilon Moreh, shooting attack, 4 murdered.

March 27: Netanya, suicide bombing at a Passover seder, 28 murdered.


These are massacres -- actual, recent massacres. Massacres for which the evidence is hard. Massacres for which the perpetrators claimed credit. Where was the Security Council? Where was the Kofi Annan commission? Where was the world?

The United Nations' excuse will be that these murders were perpetrated not by states but by groups. But this is nonsense. The Palestinian Authority is a recognized government. The links of its top leadership to these murders is precisely the kind of question that warrants investigation. Yet the very idea that the United Nations would investigate Palestinian massacres is absurd.

The fact that such an undertaking is unimaginable is what has made the past several months so deeply, despairingly troubling. The despair comes from the bewilderment of living in a world of monstrous moral inversion.

Take Jenin. What was the real story? That hand-to-hand, door-to-door combat, in an intensely built-up shantytown, among dozens of houses booby-trapped by Palestinian fighters, should have yielded somewhere between seven and 21 scattered civilian casualties is nothing less than astonishing. It testifies to the extraordinary scrupulousness of the Israeli army, which lost 23 soldiers in the battle, precisely because it did not want to cause the civilian casualties that come with aerial bombardment, as has happened everywhere from Grozny to Kabul. And yet Israel was investigated precisely for defending itself against massacres that warrant no investigation.

Palestinian apologists wave away this double standard with the magic mantra of "occupation."

More nonsense. Twenty-one months ago, Israel offered a total end to the occupation, ceding 100 percent of Gaza and 97 percent of the West Bank to the first Palestinian state ever. The Palestinians turned that down and took up the suicide bomb. By the Orwellian logic of today, the Palestinians are justified in perpetrating one massacre after another to end an occupation that Israel offered to remove almost two years ago.

For the "international community," as embodied by the United Nations, such inverted moral logic is the norm. This is what it must have been like living in the false consciousness of Soviet communism, where everyone had to publicly and constantly pretend to believe the official lies, all the while knowing they were lies. This is what it must have been like living in the 1930s, as the necessities of appeasement created a gradual inversion of right and wrong -- the Czechs, for example, pilloried by official opinion in Britain and France for selfishly standing in the way of peace at Munich.

Churchill's great gift to civilization was not just that he rallied good against evil but also that he pierced a suffocating fog of self-deception by speaking truth to lies. Where is the Churchill of today, the official of any government, prepared to tell the United Nations that its frantic hunt for a phantom massacre by Jews -- while ignoring massacre after massacre of Jews -- is grotesque and perverse?