Jenin - the truth

A few nights ago a documentary film "Jenin - massacring the truth" was
broadcast on Israel TV (in English). It is a report by a Canadian reporter
Martin Himel with the aid of an IDF doctor, Jonathan van Caspel, following
up on the story published throughout the world reporting that there had been
a massacre of Palestinian civilians in Jenin in April, 2002, during part of
the IDF Operation Defensive Shield.
What prompted this IDF operation was the terrible toll of 130 Israelis
killed during March 2002 alone, including 29 dead in the Park Hotel here in
Netanya during a Passover Seder meal (a real massacre). The IDF re-entered
the West Bank cities for the first time since many Israeli withdrawals had
taken place under the auspices of the Oslo Accords. So up to that point the
excuse often given for Palestinian attacks, namely "the occupation," could
hardly be taken seriously.
Since the majority of suicide bombers and attacks had emanated from the
Palestinian town of Jenin, near the borders with Israel in Samaria
(Shomron), the IDF for the first time attacked the casbah in Jenin, and went
into the narrow alleys, which had been booby-trapped by the terrorists.
Intense hand-to-hand fighting ensued and the terrorists were gradually
driven back. In order to overcome the hard core remainder, the IDF used
tanks, that were difficult to maneuver in the narrow streets, and armored
bulldozers. In the process many buildings were destroyed and some civilians
were killed. That is not in dispute.
What was in dispute however is how many civilians were killed and did the
IDF engage in deliberate massacre of civilians? The answer to the first
question can be given definitively, since both the UN and Human Rights Watch
(UK), neither known for friendliness towards Israel, determined after
extensive searches that ca. 52 Palestinians had been killed during the
Operation altogether, of whom 22 were civilians (the IDF lost 16 soldiers).
Given these numbers (very small under the circumstances) it is impossible
that any "massacre" took place.
Note that in the first few days of the battle Saeb Erakat gave out the
"official figure" of 520 civilians killed, and stuck to this even when asked
for evidence that he could not produce. Others spoke of thousands of
Palestinians killed, and Jenin reduced to rubble. The UN Middle East
spokesman Terje Roed Larsen visited Jenin and repeating Palestinian
propaganda spoke of "the stench of bodies" and called what happened there
"an atrocity."
This situation reminded me of the IDF campaign into Lebanon in 1982, when at
first thousands, then hundreds of thousands, were claimed to have been
killed by the IDF in the first days of the war in southern Lebanon. The
fact that these numbers were released by Fathi Arafat, Yasser's brother, and
head of the Palestinian Red Crescent (who also died recently in Cairo), did
not dampen the media's enthusiasm to accept such figures and repeat them. I
pointed out in an article in the Washington Jewish Week that there were less
than 300,000 people in the whole of southern Lebanon, so such casualty
figures were obviously grossly exaggerated. You'd think that the media
might learn a lesson from this and not trust Palestinian spokesmen without
other confirmation.
But no, the media enthusiastically embraced the "Jenin massacre" story, even
though there was no objective evidence for it. Many reporters took the
words of so-called Palestinian eyewitnesses at face value, without any
corroboration. The fact that (we now know) they were lying, only increases
the deception (or self-deception) indulged in by these scores of Western
reporters. There was clearly a "herd mentality" among these journalists, who
shared their biased enthusiasm for attacking Israel (particularly since they
were initially kept out of the zone by the IDF for their own safety). Of
course, the BBC excelled itself, trumpeting in self-righteous anger how the
IDF had massacred civilians ("Massacre evidence growing," April 18, 2002).
Given the actual casualty figures and the absence of hundreds of bodies, the
whole "massacre" story was a "big lie" and a calculated piece of
disinformation. But, the damage was done.
Dr. van Caspel (of Dutch origin), who had been with the IDF forces in Jenin,
who had treated Palestinian casualties as well as IDF soldiers, could
corroborate as an eyewitness that there had categorically been no massacre.
This doctor had been moved to refute the claims in a movie entitled "Jenin,
Jenin" that was produced by a Palestinian actor, who had not been present in
Jenin, but who had filmed many Palestinian "eyewitnesses" describing
cynically how the "massacres" had taken place.
What was most interesting about the latest film was the response by many of
the Western reporters when confronted by these facts. Only one actually had
issued a renunciation of his incorrect story, but some newspapers, such as
the South African Mail, refused to carry his correction (when confronted
they later issued a partial correction). Most of the other reporters
dissimulated or lied (such as the Daily Telegraph's David Blair), by denying
that they had used the words "massacre" or "atrocity", which they had, as
shown in their original reports. One "reporter", Janine di Giovanni, who
writes for the supposedly prestigious newspaper "The Times", refused to
speak to the IDF doctor, and ordered him out of her house, and she asked the
reporter if he was Jewish (he did not reply), and then she repeated the
canard that Israel gets off easy from its actions (although this in itself
does not appear to be true) because it has great influence with (controls?)
the US Government. Apparently she is known for her reports from war zones
(where it is difficult to corroborate stories), and has written a book in
which she has amplified on the story of the "massacre" in Jenin. In it she
claims that the destruction in Jenin was worse than that in Grozny, which is
ridiculous, since only 7% in the center of Jenin was destroyed, while ca.
95% of Grozny was destroyed by the Russians with aerial and artillery
bombardment (neither used by the IDF). She also said that the massacres in
Jenin were worse than those in Bosnia and Kossovo, where thousands were
killed! So her reporting is biased, and her credibility destroyed. Yet she
still refused to even listen to the facts! So much for objective Western
reporting!