Posted on 04/20/2002 4:44:02 AM PDT by Jurist
This is a transcript of AM broadcast at 0800 AEST on local radio.
Jenin massacre uncovering
AM - Friday, April 19, 2002 8:08
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.
The ABC's foreign affairs editor Peter Cave reports from Jerusalem.
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.
You had my sides splitting! Well said!
In your opinion, the Palestinians would cease (or reduce) the number of murders if they had their own state? LOL... Well, I will tell you what I (and many others) know: These terrorists have never been interested in having their own state alongside Israel. These individuals have one goal- the complete destruction of Israel and in it's place Palestine. They have said this time and time again... it's in their media, their textbooks, geez... where isn't it? They have created their own hell by trying to destroy Israel. They have placed all their resources into annihilating Israel. As a result, they have nothing but horror to offer. Arafat is a two-bit dictator and he and his buddies are jew-hating murderers... imagine what sort of country Palestine would be with these freaks running the show. No thanks!
If life is miserable, they have nothing else to lose.
So they bomb people they don't even know? That makes no sense... MANY people live in poverty and misery and most DON'T run around blowing other people up. And what of all that money they use to purchase bombs and weapons? Why not use it to FIX things for crying out loud? The terrorists' idea of "fixing things" is to kill Israelis. The "argument" that poverty and misery cause terrorism is a cop out. Why attempt to justify the unjustifiable? Some things are just plain wrong.
If you want to investigate a massacre of innocents, try Waco.
The seeds of another anti-Israel, pro-terrorist "urban legend" have been planted.
1) a lot of french people never thought this myth was true to begin with. generally, they were shouted down by liberals.
2) there are several groups in the USA for whom this description accurately applies as well.
Yeah, right! You must have been talking to Miss Cleo.
"Let it therefore be known and appreciated that, in demanding the restoration of the refugees to Palestine, the Arabs intend that they shall return as the masters of the homeland, and not as slaves. More explicity: they intend to annihilate the state of Israel."--Muhammad Saleh ed-Din, Egyptian Minister for Foreign Affairs, in Al Misri, a leading Egyptian daily, October 11, 1949.With the exception of Ralph Galloway, all the quotes above are from Arab sources. You can find these and more, together with their documentation in a very extensive notes section, in From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine by Joan Peters, pages 20-24.
"The return of all the refugees to their homes would be secured, thereby we should of the one hand, eliminate the refugee problem, and on the other, create a large Arab majority that would serve as the most effective means of reviving the Arab character of Palestine [note: not the "Palestinian" character of Palestine], while forming a powerful fifth column for the day of revenge and reckoning." --Al-Ziyyad, a Lebanese newspaper, April 6, 1950.
"The Arab states do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as an open sore, as an affront to the United Nations, and as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders do not give a damn whether Arab refugees live or die."--Ralph Galloway, former director of UNRWA, in 1958.
"Since 1948 Arab leaders have approached the Palestine problem in an irresponsible manner....They have used the Palestine people for selfish political purposes. This is ridiculous and, I could say, even criminal."--King Hussein, 1960
"Since 1948 it is we who demanded the return of the refugees...while it is we who made them leave....We brought disaster upon...Arab refugees, by inviting them and bringing pressure to bear upon them to leave....We have rendered them dispossessed....We have accustomed them to begging....We have participated in lowering their moral and social level....Then we exploited them in executing crimes of murder, arson, and throwing bombs upon...men, women and children--all this in the service of political purposes...."--Khaled Al-Azm, his 1972 memoirs, Syria's Prime Minister after the 1948 war.
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