THE TRUTH WILL OUT 

The Guardian’s foreign news sector has an ‘Explainer” column written for the benefit of readers less familiar with the Middle East.

Reporting for the column, Oliver Holmes explained what has caused the recent outburst of violence in our region.

“Deadly attacks in recent days raise fear of spiralling bloodshed…. “Israel launched one of its deadliest operations in years in the occupied West Bank, sending soldiers on an unusually fierce raid to kill militants stationed in the Jenin refugee camp. Ten Palestinians, mostly gunmen, but also two civilians, including a 61-year-old woman, were killed.

The attack sparked back-and-forth violence, including the exchange of rocket fire between the Hamas-run Gaza Strip and Israel. On Friday evening, January 27 a Palestinian gunman killed seven Israelis outside a synagogue in East Jerusalem. It was the deadliest Palestinian attack in the city in years.”

Oliver Holmes clearly intimates a connection between the IDF raid in the Jenin refugee camp and the East Jerusalem synagogue massacre.

Other foreign news outlets also linked the two attacks.

Further to that, Reuters quoted remarks made by Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that appeared to draw an equivalence between the to two events.

“Sources in Israel's foreign ministry said the language from Russia's top diplomat failed to reflect the difference between a raid in Jenin that targeted Islamic Jihad terrorists and a terrorist attack on civilians outside a synagogue in Jerusalem. 

It’s not a cycle, it’s a one-way conflict in which the Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) stockpiles weapons and threatens Israel from places like Jenin. There’s no cycle, it’s Israelis trying to pre-empt the group from expanding and carrying out attacks.

Furthermore, the attack in Jerusalem, carried out by one perpetrator who targeted Jewish civilians, is not part of a cycle.

The “cycle” cliché is problematic because it is trotted out almost every day regardless of the facts. The UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process condemned a “cycle of violence” on January 26 and back on January 18 France’s mission to the UN also said the “cycle of violence” should end. January 18 was even before the Jenin raid and the Jerusalem attack.

Foreign news outlets frequently use “laundered language” when referring to Palestinian terrorists. They are described as militants, gunmen or forces, rarely are they called terrorists.

It’s important to clarify that various Israeli elite security units operate in the Jenin area almost every night in an ongoing effort to thwart Palestinian terrorist activity.

These routine pre-dawn raids usually warrant no more than a brief mention. “The unusually fierce raid” that Oliver Holmes referred to, differed from other raids in that it took place after sunrise when more people where up and about. I don’t know why this particular raid was carried out ‘so late.’ I doubt if it was a mishap or a command error.

Jenin is no more than 7-8 km as the crow flies, from Ein Harod. Whenever the border crossing is open to commuters, our Arab neighbours in the villages nearby shop in Jenin where everything is much cheaper.

However, the refugee camp adjacent to Jenin is definitely not a bargain shopping venue. It’s a dense urban complex of narrow winding alleys where Palestinian terrorists are liable to lurk around every bend in the road, on every rooftop and behind every open window.

The various Israeli elite security units carry out their nightly raids with pinpoint accuracy homing in on a targeted building or even on one of its rooms.

I have mentioned Jenin many times in the past. In May last year I wrote. “The conflicting accounts of the shooting of Al-Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh during an IDF incursion in Jenin on May 11 brought to mind another Jenin-related incident that occurred 20 years ago. I mention it because I played a minor part in the incident’s public relations (PR) aspect.

The film “Jenin-Jenin” directed by Mohammed Bakri a well-known Israeli Arab actor was screened long after ‘the dust had settled’ in the Jenin refugee camp. Bakri made the film in order to tell what he called “the Palestinian truth” about the "Battle of Jenin”, a clash between the IDF and Palestinians in April 2002. Often translated as “The Massacre in Jenin”

     Mohammed Bakri

A month after 18 Israelis were killed in two separate attacks, and a few days after a suicide bombing in Netanya killed 30 people and injured 140 others, the  IDF launched “Operation Defensive Shield.” a large-scale incursion by IDF units in the West Bank. It was particularly intense in the Jenin refugee camp where Palestinian terrorist groups operated from.  

The IDF refused to allow journalists and human rights organisations into the camp for "safety reasons" during the fighting. The closure led to a rapid cycle of rumours that a massacre had occurred. Jenin remained sealed for days after the raid. Stories of civilians being buried alive in their homes as they were demolished, and of smouldering buildings covering crushed bodies, spread throughout the Arab world. Various casualty figures circulated; a senior Palestinian official accused Israel of massacring more than 500 people in the camp. The closure remained in force and knowing that its findings were a foregone conclusion, Israel wouldn't allow a UN fact-finding mission into the refugee camp.

Notwithstanding the closure, Mohammed Bakri managed to slip past the barrier after the fighting and film interviews with residents of the Jenin refugee camp. The result was the film Jenin, Jenin featuring a range of testimonies that suggested a massacre had indeed occurred. Bakri gave voice to the perspective of Palestinians which would not reach the media due to the sealing of the city; as a result, he chose not to interview Israeli officials for the film.

Later, Human Rights Watch investigations found "no evidence to sustain claims of massacres or large-scale extrajudicial executions by the IDF in the Jenin refugee camp."

Nevertheless, various spokesmen, human rights organisations, and foreign journalists accused Israel of conducting a civilian massacre.

After a few screenings, the film was banned by the Israeli Film Ratings Board on the premise that it was libellous and might offend the public. The Tel Aviv and Jerusalem Cinematheques in Israel showed Bakri's film despite the ban.

Bakri took the ban to court and the Supreme Court of Israel overturned the decision. According to Supreme Court Judge Dalia Dorner: "The fact that the film includes lies is not enough to justify a ban," she implied that it is up to viewers to interpret what they see,

While Mohammed Bakri was filming Jenin, Jenin, BBC TV and radio crews waiting for permission to enter the Jenin refugee camp were staying at Ein Harod’s “Country Guest House.” (About 8km as the crow flies from Jenin). Frustrated by the press lockout and reluctant to go home empty-handed, they tried to interview the manager of the guesthouse, who in turn called me to help him. By the time I arrived at the guesthouse the TV camera crew had left, but the radio crew greeted me warmly, set up their recording equipment and began the interview which was broadcasted the following day on BBC radio’s morning news slot.

Scrolling up, almost to the present day, a news item published by Middle East Eye (MEE) dated 24 November caught my eye despite the fact the London based news website and its editor David Hearst are decidedly unfriendly toward Israel: - “Israel's Supreme Court rejected an appeal made by Palestinian actor and director Mohammad Bakri in a defamation and libel case filed against him by an Israeli soldier.

The Supreme Court upheld the ruling of the Lod District Court, which in January 2021 ordered Bakri to pay $55,000 for defamation and $15,000 for legal expenses to Nissim Magnagi, an Israeli officer who appears in the documentary film Jenin,Jenin,.

The court has also seized copies of the film, which was banned last year from screening in all Israeli cinemas.

The 11-day Israeli incursion resulted in the death of 52 Palestinians and the destruction of almost 300 homes. In the same incursion  23 IDF  soldiers were killed.

Magnagi appears in four seconds of the documentary Jenin, Jenin standing next to a military jeep with two other soldiers during the IDF incursion

In 2017, Magnagi sued Bakri for libel and defamation of character His case was the second one filed against Bakri for defamation, after the first case was dismissed in 2003.

Bakri told Arab48 news website that he does not regret making the film.

"If I could go back in time, I would reshoot the film to expose the inhumane crimes committed by the Israeli army in its invasion of the heroic Jenin camp," Bakri said.

He added that the Supreme Court's decision, which is final and could not be contested legally, attempted to accuse the film of fabricating eyewitness stories of the invasion.

"As an artist, I did not interfere in the content of the testimonies or guide them, and this is the truth that the occupation does not want to hear because it exposes its crimes. Jenin, Jenin does not feature commentary or voice-over but leaves Palestinians to tell their story of the 11 days of carnage.” Bakri said.

Palestinian claims that 500 people were killed during the 2002 Israeli incursion were dismissed by a UN report, which supported accounts that stated 52 Palestinians and 23 Israeli soldiers were killed. Israeli authorities rejected claims that the Israeli Army had committed a massacre in the camp, although they did prevent relief workers and reporters from entering, on the grounds that booby traps rigged by Palestinians were a serious concern. Palestinians later acknowledged that explosives were indeed placed throughout the camp.

Well, after all the truth will out.

 

Have a good weekend.

 

Beni,               2^nd of February, 2023.