Yediot Ahronot
April 21, 2002
(Appendix and some quotes added)
Dissident Voice
April 22, 2002
JENIN - THE PROPAGANDA WAR
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 10, 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 THE 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)." So, for 'Ha'aretz' it is simple. The IDF just made a confusing
counting mistake. The IDF may be not so
competent in counting, but there is no doubt it is the most moral army in
the world.