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April 24, 2002
Todd May
Drowning Children, Palestinians and American
Responsibility
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Loneliest Road
Nir Rosen
The Broken Home:
Revisiting Israel
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
A
Big Blow to Big Tobacco
April 23, 2002
Brian Wood
Where Is the Aid for the Victims in
Jenin?
John Chuckman
I,
George:
Gomer as Claudius
Norman Madarasz
French Presidential Elections
Absenteeism and Le Pen
Dr. Susan
Block
Bernard
Parks, Goodbye:
A Farewell to My Chief
Joan Smith
Who Will Rid Us of
These Pedophile Priests?
April 22, 2002
CounterPunch
Wire
EPA
Ombudsman Resigns
in Protest
Dave Marsh
DeskScan: What's Playing
at My House This Week
Ron Jacobs
A20
in DC: Taking the
Message to the Beast's Belly
Kathy Kelly
An Open Letter to
Israeli Soldiers
Irit Katriel
Word
Games and Body Bags
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
We Come for Peace
Daniel
Bar-Tal
Is
There a Way Out?
Occupation, Terror
and Understanding
David Wilson
A Week of Coups, But Now
The Freedom Train Hits Town
Shaik
Ubaid
Today
I Was a Palestinian
April 21, 2002
Michelle Campos
Suckered Again in Israel
Mike Leon
200,000
in DC Protest Say:
"We Are All Palestinians Today"
C.G. Estabrook
Sex and Power in Catholicism
Kathy
Kelly
Gimme
Some Truth Now
A Walk Through Jenin
April 20, 2002
Philip Farruggio
Drowning in a Sea of Apathy
Kristen
Schurr
Leaving
Nablus
Bernard Weiner
Israel and the Intifada
for Dummies
Jean-Guy
Allard
A
Coup Signed by Otto Reich
Chris Floyd
The "Grandeur" That Was Rome:
A Letter from the Front
April 19, 2002
Eric Flint
Free
the Books!
David Krieger
A Peace Proposal:
Bring in the Children
Jeff Paterson
Advice
to Recruits from
a Gulf War Vet
Jeffrey St. Clair
From Sen. "Lunkhead" to
Bush Energy Czar: A Year in the Life of Spencer Abraham
April 18, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Latin
America's Dilemma:
The Propaganda of Otto Reich
Sam Bahour
Bush is Playing Russian
Roulette with Palestinians
M. Shahid
Alam
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April 24, 2002
Jenin: the Propaganda Battle
By Tanya Reinhart
In Israel, Jenin is perceived mainly as a public
relations problem (called in Hebrew "hasbara" -- explaining).
It appears even that the army and the government believe that
Israel is winning the propaganda battle. After all, all relevant
principles of this battle have been strictly adhered to:
The first principle: No pictures or information in real time! The
IDF (Israeli army) managed to fully prevent the media from entering
Jenin during the events. Thus, all we were left with were "conflicting
reports" -- a stream of horrible accounts coming from Palestinian
witnesses who escaped the refugee camp -- and the IDF's utter
denial. In the meanwhile, the work of destruction could continue
undisturbed for ten days.
On the seventh day of Israel's "operation"
in Jenin (April 9), it was reported in the Israeli media that
the army was nevertheless worried. "Officers of the IDF
expressed their shock" about what happened in Jenin: "When
the world will see the pictures of what we have done there, it
will cause us enormous damage." (Amos Har'el and Amira Hass,
Ha'aretz, Hebrew edition, April 9, 2002). Israeli Foreign Minister
Shimon Peres even slipped and mentioned the taboo word "massacre"
(which he immediately denied of course).
Israel's counter attack was immediately
launched. "The Foreign Ministry is mobilizing forces to
counter Palestinian allegations that IDF forces conducted 'a
massacre' in the Jenin refugee camp" (Ha'aretz, April 10,
2002). A special PR center of the IDF and the Foreign Ministry
was formed in Jerusalem, and its representative, Gideon Meir,
passed to the press the major principles of the Israeli version:
a) "What happened in Jenin was a fierce battle and not a
massacre." ("The main diplomatic ammunition" in
the campaign's "arsenal is that 22 Israeli soldiers have
been killed in the fighting"). b) "The battle was fierce
because the IDF sought to minimize civilian suffering."
c) The PR campaign should direct attention to the Israeli casualties
in terror attacks. (Anat Cigelman and Aluf Ben, Ha'aretz, Hebrew
edition, April 9, 2002.)
The second
principle of the propaganda battle:
If you have full control over the local media, you can pass anything.
These messages have been repeated since, again and again, not
only by all politicians and Israeli spokesmen, but also by almost
every reporter, weaved into the news reports, and by the analysts
and columnists, disguised as spontaneous acts of expressing an
educated opinion. Here is Ha'aretz's editorial version of the
propaganda line: "There is evidence of intense combat, but,
with appropriate caution, it can already be said what did not
happen in the Jenin refugee camp. There was no massacre. No order
from above was given, nor was a local initiative executed, to
deliberately and systematically kill unarmed people" (Ha'aretz,
April 19, 2002, editorial column).
This line is pretty sophisticated. The
word "massacre" may bring to mind soldiers moving from
house to house, shooting everyone they find -- men, women and
children (as in Sabra and Shatila). Such massacre clearly did
not take place in Jenin. No Palestinian source ever described
the facts this way. Still, Ha'aretz and everyone else insist
on falsifying just this specific interpretation of the word.
What did clearly happen in Jenin is that the army simply ignored
the fact that there were an unknown number of individuals and
families in the areas which were bombarded day and night by missiles
from "Cobra" helicopters, or even in some of the houses
erased by bulldozers to pave way for the tanks. No one came to
shoot them individually; they were just buried under their bombarded
or bulldozed homes. Others died of their wounds in the alleys,
or cried for days under the ruins, until their voices faded away.
Bit by bit, testimonies of reserve soldiers
are filtering through the back pages of the Israeli media: "After
the first moments of the fighting, when a commander was killed
. . . the instructions were clear: shoot every window, sow every
house -- whether someone shoots from there or not." To the
question whether he saw civilians get hurt, the reservist answered:
"Personally -- not. But the point is that they were inside
the houses. The last days, the majority of those who came out
of the houses were old people, women and children, who were there
the whole time and absorbed our fire. These people were not given
any chance to leave the camp, and we are talking about many people"
(Ofer Shelah, Yediot Aharonot's weekend supplement, April 19,
2002).
For many, such descriptions are sufficient
to make them shiver, and they don't really care whether the right
word for this is "massacre." For the success of the
PR campaign, it is therefore necessary to stress that we are
not talking here about shelling and killing civilians, but about
a fierce battle, in which civilians may also get occasionally
killed.
According to the Israeli army, in the
Jenin refugee camp, where 15,000 residents are crowded densely,
there were a few dozen wanted terrorists, and several hundred
armed men. What is considered appropriate for such battle conditions?
The PR center clarifies this in its second principle above: It
was possible to erase the whole camp, with its residents, with
a few precise hits of F-16 bomber jets, and, thus, eliminate
all the terrorists with no casualties to the Israeli army. But
the army took an enormous risk of actual fighting, in order to
save Palestinian life. If this is the range of options, the Israeli
army proved in Jenin that it is a truly humane army.
It may take a while before we (Israelis)
start to digest what we did in Jenin. I don't have the words
yet to speak about my shame, my horrible pain for the Palestinian
people. Therefore I speak about what we did to ourselves. A dear
friend of mine was murdered three days ago in a trip in Sinai
-- a painter and computer expert, in the draft resistance circle.
By informal reports, his murderer was an Egyptian who sought
revenge for the murder of the Palestinians. He could not distinguish
between my friend and the nice reserve fellows from Jenin that
we saw and heard so much about the last few days. In fact, they
do look similar, and many of these guys are also in the computer
business. Itai Angel, the young journalist who interviewed reservists
on channel 2 TV news last Friday night, has possibly managed
to convince many in our little bubble that such nice guys, by
their very nature, cannot possibly commit a massacre. Therefore,
there was no massacre -- there was a fierce battle and we are
OK. But outside our bubble, nobody watches Itai Angel. They watch
the ruins of Jenin. We are turning the whole Muslim world against
us.
APPENDIX: THE
BATTLE OVER BODIES
(1) Reports on individual, purposeful, shooting of
unarmed civilians by soldiers (executions) regarded only shooting
of men. Here is one such testimony, reported in greater detail
by the Independent (UK):
Fathi Shalabi watched his son die. The
two men were standing side by side with their hands up when Israeli
soldiers opened fire on them. Mr. Shalabi's son, Wadh, and another
man who was with them died instantly, but the 63-year-old Mr
Shalabi survived. He lay on the ground pretending to be dead
for more than an hour while his son's blood gathered around him
. . . Mr Shalabi described what took place. Soldiers ordered
his family and Mr Al-Sadi down a narrow alley. "In cover
behind the corner were four soldiers. The two young men with
me were carrying baby children, and the soldiers did not shoot
at them." Wadh Shalabi was carrying his four-month-old son,
Mahmoud. The soldiers ordered the men to hand the children over
to their mothers and told the women and children to go into the
next-door house. Then they ordered the men to raise their shirts
and show they were not wearing suicide belts. "The soldiers
were about three meters away. I heard the names of two of them;
they were Gaby and David." He said that the soldier called
Gaby appeared to be in command. "They saw Abdul Karim had
a plaster on his back. Suddenly Gaby shouted 'Kill them!'."
(Justin
Huggler and Phil Reeves, The Independent, April 21, 2002).
These two dead men were civilians. However,
even shooting surrendering soldiers is a war crime. The Hague
Tribunal found Bosnian Serb General Radislav Krstic guilty of
Genocide for his role in the killing of Muslim soldiers and males
in Srebrenica in 1995. Muslim women and children were not killed,
but expelled from the town. In the mass graves in Kosovo as well,
mostly male bodies were found.
(2) Though
Jenin was sealed to the press, pictures of the battlefield, shot
with local amateur video cameras, were broadcasted, mainly on
Arab TV. They showed alleys lined up with male bodies (many armed).
This is to be expected, given that there was indeed a serious
battle in Jenin. In early reports of the Israeli army, the number
of these bodies was estimated as 200. The Palestinian figures
were much higher. As the time was reaching to open the camp to
the press, the army expressed, as we saw, serious concerns regarding
the "PR" effects of the scenes on the ground. It is
appropriate to wonder what happened with these bodies.
On Friday, April 12, it was reported
that "the IDF intends to bury today Palestinians killed
in the West Bank camp. Around 200 Palestinians are believed to
have been killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers since the start
of the operation last week . . . Military sources said until
now the IDF has not buried any of the bodies. The sources said
that two infantry companies, along with members of the military
rabbinate, will enter the camp today to collect the bodies. Those
who can be identified as civilians will be moved to a hospital
in Jenin, and then on to burial, while those identified as terrorists
will be buried at a special cemetery in the Jordan Valley. One
Israeli source said that the decision to bury the bodies was
taken to prevent the Palestinians from using the bodies for propaganda
purposes . . . The Palestinian Authority has expressed concerns
that Israel is trying to hide the large number of dead, since
it has blocked Palestinian medical teams from evacuating the
dead and wounded from the camp during the past week." (Anat
Cigelman, Amos Harel and Amira Hass, Ha'aretz, April 12, 2002).
Apparently, no one in Israel was particularly
concerned then about issues of international law, mass graves,
etc. So ample further information was provided on TV news the
evening before about the preparations: Special refrigerating
trucks were shown waiting to transfer the bodies to "terrorist
cemeteries" in the Jordan valley.
However, a petition to the high court
interfered. "The High Court of Justice issued an interim
order Friday blocking the IDF from moving out the bodies of dead
Palestinians from the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank. A
panel of three justices will hold a full discussion on the matter
[Sunday] morning, following a petition by Adalah, the Legal Center
for Arab Minority Rights in Israel and LAW -- The Palestinian
Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment.
MKs Mohammed Barakeh (Hadash) and MK Ahmed Tibi (Ta'al-Arab Movement
for Renewal) also filed similar petitions . . . The petitioners
claim the army's decision violates international law as the Jordan
Valley cemetery will, they claim, be basically a mass grave,
thus damaging the honor of the dead." (Amos
Harel, Gideon Alon and Jalal Bana, Ha'aretz, April 14, 2002)
"MK Avigdor Lieberman (National
Union --Yisrael Beiteinu) has called for Justice Barak to be
removed from his post following the IDF decision. "Barak's
decision is a vulgar and clear interference by the judiciary
in the decision of the executive . . .'" His worry may have
been premature. When the full discussion was held on Sunday (April
14), the high court turned down the petitions, while recommending
that "the army make use of the services of the Red Crescent
and local officials in Jenin to help locate and identify bodies,
subject to the considerations of the military commanders."
(Moshe Reinfeld and Anat Zigelman, Ha'aretz, Hebrew edition,
April 15, 2002).
It was reported that following the temporary
Supreme Court decision of Friday, the IDF stopped "clearing
the bodies" from the camp, waiting for the final decision
on Sunday. However, on Sunday, the media was already allowed
to the camp, and they found a scene of mass destruction, but
with roads clean of bodies: That's how Amos Harel described it
in Ha'aretz: "The visit, which the army allowed after a
critical three-day delay, did not provide an unequivocal answer
to the question that everyone continues to fight over -- the
Israeli leaders and their spokesmen, and the Palestinians --
how many Palestinians died during the fighting? We talked with
soldiers in Jenin, officers and rank-and-file troopers, and all
vehemently denied the accusations of a massacre of civilians.
The Palestinian residents who escaped gave reporters a completely
different version. But on the ground, yesterday, only one Palestinian
body was to be found in the open, in an area where most of the
fighting took place." (Ha'aretz,
April 15, 2002).
Harel asks: "So what happened to
the rest of the bodies? The Palestinians say there were 500 killed.
IDF Spokesman Brigadier General Ron Kitri said on Friday there
were some 200, but then corrected himself with a much lower figure."
The formal IDF answer was given that same day: "Israel Defense
Forces officers now estimate that dozens -- not hundreds -- of
Palestinians were killed as a result of the army's activities
in the Jenin refugee camp. As of last night, 46 Palestinian corpses
have been located in the camp. Updated estimates concerning the
total number of Palestinian fatalities in the camp now range
between 70 and a little over 100. Officials believe that some
of the corpses are still buried under the rubble of houses demolished
by IDF bulldozers." (Amos
Harel and Gideon Alon, Ha'aretz, April 15)
Not too many further questions were asked
In Israel regarding how the IDF's initial estimate of 200 dead
in battle turned out so over exaggerated. Here is how the Ha'aretz
editorial of April 19 (cited above) sums the matter up: "In
Israel, too, suspicions were raised that there was truth to the
Palestinian claims. Many feared that Jenin would be added to
the black list of massacres that have shocked the world. The
IDF contributed to those fears when it issued a preliminary estimate
of hundreds of dead in the camp (it turned out that several score
were killed, with the exact number still unknown)." DV
Tanya Reinhart
is a Professor of Linguistics at Tel Aviv University This article
appeared in Dissident
Voice, a semi-regular newsletter dedicated to challenging
the lies of the corporate press and the privileged classes it
serves.
Email: dissidentvoice@earthlink.net
Other articles by Reinhart can be read
at: http://www.tau.ac.il/~reinhart
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