Jenin massacre uncovering

LINDA MOTTRAM: To the Middle East and as more information comes out of the cities of Jenin and Nablus on the West Bank, it's becoming clear that Israel will have to answer allegations that it's committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during its occupation of the West Bank.

One British forensic expert says the evidence points to a massacre by Israeli forces. That expert is Professor Derrick Pounder from Amnesty International who's inspected the devastation and examined some of the now rotting bodies that are still being pulled from the rubble in Jenin.

He says the truth will come out, just as it did in Bosnia and in Kosovo before and the UN envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen, who has also inspected the Jenin refugee camp says the sight is horrific beyond belief and that Israel's failure to allow in rescue teams was morally repugnant.

PETER CAVE: As he picked his way through a pile of rubble the size of several football fields which was once a crowded ghetto of houses in the refugee camp, Terje Roed-Larsen was clearly taken aback by the scale of the devastation, the bodies and the knowledge that many who died underneath were buried alive for days.

TERJE ROED-LARSEN: I think I can speak for all in the UN delegation here that we are shocked, this is horrifying beyond belief. Just seeing this area looks like as if there's been an earthquake here and the stench of death telling its own story around here.

PETER CAVE: Mr Roed-Larsen has called for a full withdrawal of Israeli forces and a lifting of a curfew in the area, not only to allow the retrieval of the dead but also to provide urgent help for those still alive.

DERRICK POUNDER: The stench of decaying corpses are all over the place. I saw personally an about 12-year-old boy being dug out, his body totally destroyed. I saw two brothers digging out of the rubble their father and their brothers.

There are people all over the place digging with their hands, looking for their relatives and dear ones. It's a horrible scene.

The devastation is nearly total at the heart of the refugee camp and we assess that about 2,000 people are now without roof over their heads. There's lack of food, there's lack of water, the electricity grids are destroyed, the water is cut.

It's a catastrophic situation particularly in the refugee camp but also in the whole town of Jenin.

PETER CAVE: Despite growing international outrage over the apparent massacre, the Israeli Government remains unrepentant. Foreign Ministry spokesman Gideon Meir.

GIDEON MEIR: Jenin is a symbol of Palestinian brutalitism. Jenin is a capital of suicide bombers. Jenin, there was a huge infrastructure of terror. We went there to fight the terrorist cells to eliminate terror. There was heavy fighting there and great fighting there. We lost 23 of our boys. Jenin is not a recreation area, Jenin is not a resort.

LINDA MOTTRAM: Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesman Gideon Meir, that report from Peter Cave in Jerusalem.

1) The Palestinians are terrorists who got retaliation.

A single small sample of the egregious terrorism ordered by Suha, Arafat and their supporters:

In Paris, protected by France, Arafat's wife and Arafat's daughter live in luxury and comfort
as they send other children to die murdering other innocent children.

Suha [and "Subliminal man"]: "If we (Arafat and me, his trophy wife) had a son
(we only have a daughter) there is no greater honor than to have him be
a suicide bomber."

2)The PA uses fraud and lying with the media.

Palestinian - American Media Fraud

In early 1988, reporters were called to el-Mokassed Hospital in Jerusalem
to film a dying Palestinian boy. His Palestinian doctor showed him hooked to life-support tubes,
and claimed the child had been savagely beaten by Israeli troops.
On February 8, 1988, ABC's Peter Jennings introduced the report by saying UN officials
"say that the Israelis have beaten another Palestinian to death in the territories."
NBC and CBS also gave the claims wide publicity.
But the story wasn't true.
According to the child's autopsy and medical records, he died of a cerebral hemorrhage.
He had been sick for more than a year.
Overall, the U.S. networks, Emerson wrote,
"have been complicit in a massive deception about the West Bank conflict.

Ashwari, Arafat: "All your media are in bed with us."

International Herald Tribune Jenin's dead cast a long shadow
Christian Science Monitor

Ten-day ordeal in crucible of Jenin
Peter Beaumont in the West Bank meets eyewitnesses who accuse Israel of massacre
Observer Worldview Sunday April 14, 2002

UK Guardian - Muted criticism in American newspapers
Julian Borger, April 17, 2002
"The Los Angeles Times said in an editorial yesterday that, by barring journalists from Jenin during its offensive, Israel had scored a propaganda own goal. "By aggressively keeping reporters out of the battle zones, in some cases at gunpoint, it has assured rising suspicion and the declining sympathy that invariably accompanies such distrust."

International Herald Tribune - Jenin's camp is a scene of devastation as toll is argued
James Bennet The New York Times, April 15, 2002

WashPost: U.N. envoy calls camp 'horrifying'
- WHAT WE ARE SEEING here is horrifying horrifying scenes of human suffering, said Roed-Larsen, who helped shepherd Palestinians and Israelis toward the 1993 Oslo peace accords. "Israel has lost all moral ground in this conflict."

Australian Broadcasting Corp. - Jenin massacre uncovering
AM - Friday, April 19, 2002 8:08

Two UN envoys tell of 'horrific' devastation in Jenin camp; Annan disturbed by report

CS Monitor - Jenin massacre?
April 18, 2002
Evidence appears to be mounting that a high number of civilians may have been killed when Israeli forces ravaged Jenin. BBC carries the account of Amnesty International observer Derrick Pounder, who toured the West Bank camp:

BBC News - Jenin massacre 'evidence growing'
18 April, 2002
"A British forensic expert who has gained access to the West Bank city of Jenin says evidence points to a massacre by Israeli forces."

"I must say that the evidence before us at the moment doesn't lead us to believe that the allegations are anything other than truthful and that therefore there are large numbers of civilian dead underneath these bulldozed and bombed ruins that we see."

Link 2
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South China Morning Post - Friday, April 19, 2002
UN envoy calls Jenin 'horrific'
After damning report on conditions in refugee camp, Annan renews call to send in neutral force.

And UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen has made headlines with his description of Jenin: "What we are seeing here is the large-scale suffering of the whole civilian population here. No military operation could justify the suffering we are seeing here." But The Wall Street Journal gives pause to these breathtaking accounts. Michael Rubin notes that the United Nations Human Rights Commission recently condoned suicide bombing. Whether Jenin will serve as a turning point for both the Israeli and Palestinian cause remains unclear. But it's compelled some serious questions, like this one in Ha'aretz: "What is Israel's strategy?"

Washington Times - Powell leaves Israel after a fruitless visit
Betsy Pisik, April 18, 2002
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell left Israel yesterday, disappointed after six days of intensive shuttle diplomacy: He was unable to negotiate a cease-fire, win Israel's withdrawal from the West Bank or persuade the Palestinian leadership to halt the terror campaign against the Jewish state.

BBC News - Jenin camp situation 'horrendous' - Monday, 15 April, 2002

Washinton Post - Controversy Swirls Over Jenin Battle, April 12, 2002

Boston Herald - Truth of how many died in Palestinian camp is buried under towering heaps of rubble, April 16, 2002

Under the rubble of the refugee camp
Apr 18th 2002 | JENIN REFUGEE CAMP

For five days Israeli helicopters and tanks relentlessly rocketed the square kilometre of the camp to soften the resolve of the 160 Palestinian militiamen holed up within it. Men aged 15 to 45 were ordered by loudspeaker to surrender. Hundreds did so. They were stripped to their underwear, manacled, hooded, beaten and finally dumped in neighbouring villages. Some were used as human shields in front of the army as it pushed its way into people's houses. Women and children were told to flee to Jenin town.

U.K. Guardian - Fresh evidence of Jenin
Phil Reeves in Jerusalem, 18 April 2002
The autopsy on the 38-year-old Palestinian revealed that "he was either shot in the foot, and then in the back, or shot in the back first receiving a fatal wound and his corpse was for some reason shot in the foot," he said. "Whichever order the shots occurred in, it was highly suspicious".
. . .

"Palestinians who survived the long battle in which Israeli helicopters fired rockets and machine-guns into a densely populated area have said the Israeli army committed many atrocities. Witnesses have described people being shot as they surrendered; houses being bulldozed with people inside; the use of human shields; the burial of 32 bodies in a trench, and one case of Israeli soldiers turning on the household gas supply before tossing a stun grenade into a room full of people."

LA TIMES - 'They Forced Me to Hate.'
Conflict: Residents of the Jenin refugee camp speak of the viciousness of the Israeli attack.
T. CHRISTIAN MILLER, April 15, 2002
JENIN, West Bank -- Lukea Tomei could only watch through a peephole as one neighbor was shot, his arms in the air. She cried out when she saw an elderly woman blasted by a sniper.

SMH.AU (Australia) - The guns are silent but cries for help go unheard pmcgeough@smh.com.au, April 18 2002

The smell of death hangs in the air around some buildings still standing and from sections of the rubble. When the Herald tried to take aid workers to a building in which camp residents said there were five dead men, Israeli soldiers ordered us away at gunpoint.

In the rubble at the centre of the camp, reminiscent of pictures of the destruction of Dresden, two human feet protruded from the rubble. And as I spoke to an aid worker in a nearby alley, he pointed out that on the ground, between my feet, was a human foot - which he presumed had been part of a nearby blob that he said was a corpse mangled beyond recognition when it had been run over by an Israeli tank.

AMBULANCES SHOT AT

"The wounded and the sick, as well as the infirm, and expectant mothers, shall be the object of particular protection and respect."
(Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 16)

Human Rights Watch
Israel: Cease Attacking Medical Personnel

(New York, March 9, 2002) -- Human Rights Watch today called on the Israeli government to instruct soldiers to immediately refrain from attacking medical personnel in the West Bank and Gaza. During the past week, at least three ambulances have been fired upon, three ambulance staff have died, and nine other medical personnel have been injured.

Ambulances Denied Access

Israeli Tanks Fire on Ambulance
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Los Angeles Times - Friday, April 19, 2002
Israel let trapped victims die, U.N. aide says
T. Christian Miller

SHARON

Amnesty International
"The Palestinians must be hit and it must be very painful. We must cause them losses, victims, so that they feel the heavy price"
Ariel Sharon, Israeli Prime Minister, speaking to the press on 5 March 2002

"The IDF showed a widespread disregard for life, law and property.
People from outside the invaded areas, including journalists, United Nations agencies, other humanitarian workers and even diplomats, were prevented from gaining access to offer aid or report on what was going on."
"With six main cities and many villages effectively under siege, blocked off from the outside world, and with movement within the towns prohibited, a humanitarian disaster loomed as supplies of food and water ran out for many Palestinians.
Ambulances, including those of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), were not allowed to move or suffered lengthy and life-threatening delays. Medical personnel or those who tried to help the injured were fired on and the wounded bled to death on the street."

CNN.com - Memories of Sharon's past revived

As Israeli tanks roll, views harden ['Wag the Dog?']

Christian Science Monitor
Israel's Sharon announces 'harder' steps - February 22, 2002
Polls show public support is slipping, but Ariel Sharon says he won't alter course.

LA Times - Massacre Allegations Smolder in Camp Ruins
- TRACY WILKINSON, April 16, 2002
"The practice is not a new one for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, whose nickname is "The Bulldozer" because of his hard-driving style. Forces commanded by him leveled homes in the West Bank village of Kibya in 1953 in retaliation for the slaying by Palestinians of a Jewish woman and her two children. Sixty-nine people were killed in the houses, about half of them women and children. Sharon said at the time that he believed the homes were empty. The episode earned Israel its first formal U.N. condemnation"

Washington Cox Newspapers - Sharon, Warrior And Candidate:
Despite Past, A Political Comeback,
LARRY KAPLOW / Cox Washington Bureau. 01-28-01
There was the 1953 attack on Kibya, Jordan. In retaliation for the murder of three Israelis, Sharon's special Unit 101 raided the town and blew up 45 houses. They killed 69 people, about half of them women and children and won some of Israel's first serious international condemnation. ...

With the army controlling the entrances to two Palestinian refugee camps, [Sabra and Shatila] it allowed Lebanese militias to enter the camps on a "mopping up" mission. The militias engaged in three days of killing that left more than 800 dead. ...

An Israeli government commission determined that Sharon should have foreseen the massacre, and that his commanders had reason to know it was underway, but did not stop it. By request of the commission, he was forced to resign his post.

AP - Sharon regrets not killing Arafat in 1982
Mark Lavie, February 1, 2002
JERUSALEM (AP) - Ariel Sharon says he's sorry he didn't have Yasser Arafat "liquidated" while he had a chance 20 years ago, during an Israeli siege of Beirut. ...

As defense minister in 1982, Sharon directed an Israeli invasion of Lebanon, where Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization ruled a virtual state within a state. At first presented as a 48-hour operation to move the Palestinian forces out of southern Lebanon, the war expanded and Israeli forces eventually occupied Beirut. ...

"In Lebanon, there was an agreement not to liquidate Yasser Arafat," Sharon told the Maariv newspaper. "In principle, I'm sorry that we didn't liquidate him." ...

Sharon's part in the Lebanon invasion drew him a rebuke from an official Israeli commission of inquiry, which found him indirectly responsible for a massacre of Palestinian refugees in Beirut by Christian militiamen in September 1982, while Sharon's troops controlled the area.

SABRA & SHATILA

Synopsis on Events Leading Up to Sabra and Shatila

BBC - Sharon, Sabra & Shatila

TROOP ACTIONS

UK Guardian - Smuggled into hospital in an ambulance under a pile of corpses
Peter Beaumont, April 5, 2002
"[Israeli Soldiers] took Elias to his daughter's house nearby and told him to knock on the door.
"The soldiers wanted them to open the door," he said yesterday.
"I shouted to my daughters that it was okay. As I was speaking I turned and lifted my arms." ...

The soldier behind him, one of four he says, opened fire without warning towards Elias and the door. The first bullet severed his index finger. The second hit him in the thigh. ...

Elias said they left him at the house, propped in a room and told his daughter that the "old man had had a stroke".

Guardian Unlimited - Why Bush must send in his troops
Imposing a two-state solution is the last chance for Middle East peace
Michael Ignatieff, Friday April 19, 2002
...

"[n]either side is capable of making peace, or even sitting in the same room to discuss it. The Americans now face a historic choice. For 50 years, they have played the double game of both guaranteeing Israel's security and serving as honest broker in the region. This game can't go on. Either America gave a tacit green light to the Israeli operation, or it tried to restrain Sharon and failed. Either way, now that the Powell peace mission has failed, the American president looks ridiculous or devious, or both. He can't withdraw and he can't stand the embarrassment of continued diplomacy without result. The prestige and leadership of the United States, its vital national interests, are now on the line. Without a settlement in the Middle East, it has no possibility of support from Arab governments in its campaign against Islamist terrorists."

Israel faces rage over 'massacre'
- London and Brussels politicians demand UN investigation of Jenin allegations
- Ian Black in Brussels, Ewen MacAskill and Nicholas Watt
- The Guardian, Wednesday April 17, 2002
"US support for Israel remains strong compared with Europe, where anger against Israel reached levels not seen since the massacre at Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in the Lebanon in 1982."
- With the Israeli army still blocking full access to Jenin, it is impossible to establish even a rough body count. However, both Amnesty and the New York-based Human Rights Watch yesterday called for inquiries.

BACKGROUND

Background: US - Israeli Relationship

Pipes - American Foreign Policy on the Middle East

Mindset

The first casualty of war - Israelis say Western reports are biased. But the media complain Israel is harassing them.
Peter Beaumont, Brian Whitaker in Jerusalem and Edward Helmore in New York
The Observer, June 17, 2001

'Let's not forget that Israel feels under siege. And it literally is. That is what drives the feeling of ultra-sensitivity. They feel that there is bias and there is a conspiracy against them. There is a perception that Israelis are portrayed as instigating the problems and that the historical context of the threat against Israel is forgotten. There is a feeling too that Israel - which is a tiny island of democracy amid much less democratic neighbours - never gets enough credit for what it has achieved.' ...

'This is a charged political environment,' he says. 'Everyone wants to own you, and if they can't own you they want to destroy you. That applies just as much to the Arab world as it does to Israel. There is no middle ground. There is no time and no place that someone will put their arm around you and say, "Gosh, I really appreciate your fair and balanced reporting".'

Rocky Mountain News - Israeli attack wounds News photographer
Holger Jensen, News International, February 12, 2002
- Israeli F-16's rockets Palestinian Areas in Retaliation for Attacks

Germans and Dutch Express Remorse: Will the Israelis?

AP - As German president visits, survivors recall Nazi massacre in Italy
April 17, 2002

AP - Boston Herald - Dutch government resigns over Srebrenica report
April 16, 2002

There Was No Massacre in Jenin

The claim that there was a "massacre" in the Jenin refugee camp has been taken up by many news media around the world, human rights groups and even among many governments. This claim, originally made during the height of the fighting in the refugee camp, reverberates with gravity, seriously damaging Israel's political campaign to justify its self defense against terror and the legitimacy of the means it is using in that campaign.

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) and by blocking journalists from entering the camp to report what was happening inside. That was an invitation to another charge, also widely reported, of an alleged cover-up.

In recent days, journalists - including Ha'aretz reporters - have visited the camp, gathering their own first-hand impressions and eyewitness testimony about the IDF's operations. Ha'aretz reporter Amira Hass spent several days in the camp, and her report appears in today's pages. 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.

In Israel of 2002, there is practically no way to cover up atrocities. Testimony by commanders and fighters in Jenin, many of whom were civilians called up into reserves for the purpose of the operation, as well as testimony by those who observed the events through various means refute the claims of a massacre. The fighting was intense, as could be expected in built-up areas, and especially against the background of rapid Israeli successes in other areas, particularly the Nablus casbah. Armed Palestinians shot, blew up and mined houses and alleyways. The soldiers, who had difficulty progressing, used bulldozers and suffered heavy losses - 23 soldiers were killed. Under such circumstances, civilians were also harmed. That is a terrible, sorrowful fact, resulting from the nature of the fighting, and in some specific cases there should be an examination to determine whether everything necessary was done to prevent civilian casualties. But declaring the fighting in Jenin a "massacre" is a mistake on the part of the naive, and a slander by others.

Palestinian propagandists have made perverse use of legends that, in part, were invented outside Jenin. Leading these propagandists were officials of the Palestinian Authority who issued baseless charges of "executions," fanning the flames of hatred against Israel. The readiness of international elements, including the heads of the European Union, to accept the Palestinian version without question, is testimony to their character, to Israel's fragile situation and to Ariel Sharon's negative image.

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