So there was this big build up by media around the world and then nothing. The massacre was a subject of serious debate in a number of threads on this board. Now there’s nothing. Does that mean it didn’t happen and was all propaganda or what?
It would imply either there is a big Jewsish-sympthizers-in-the-Media conspiracy to cover it up or there was a big Palestinians-sympthizers-in-the-Media conspiracy to tar the Israelis in the international press.
PC
You know, if you want to do a massacre, you do it from the air. Lots of bombs means lots of dead guys, and almost zero risk to your soldiers.
When you send soldiers in, it’s to limit civilian casualties. The whole thing about tanks going through walls – that’s straight from the US military guidelines. Doorways can be boobytrapped, so you go through the walls to avoid getting your soliders killed with bombs.
And as for the whole “refugee camp” thing – why the hell was there a refugee camp in Jenin to begin with? The area has been under Arafat’s control for 9 years, 7 of them predating the latest uprising. Arafat has gotten hundreds of millions of dollars to help fix the area up. And he’s got several personal helicopters, but he decided to leave the camp area in its slum state because it’s great propaganda for him.
I don’t buy the massacre one bit.
The American media, at least, seems to have lost interest. I can’t comment on whether it’s still in the news in other countries.
The Israelis prevented an international team from coming into Jenin and making an investigation, so the even the basic facts are in dispute. I suppose it’s now a case of the word of the Israelis vs. the word of the Palestinians. Who knows what actually happened there?
I’m not saying the Israelis committed a massacre. As filmyak points out, if the Israeli army just wanted to kill a lot of Palestinians, they could have done it at less risk to themselves. It is disappointing that the international investigation never got started.
Re: The refugee camp. I may be mistaken, but I believe many refugee camps in the region have existed since the wars of 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973. The camps exist on a more-or-less permanent basis, but the people there still consider themselves refugees since they’re not living on their ancestral lands.
Jenin ‘massacre’ reduced to death toll of 56
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020501-5587072.htm
The ‘Jenin Massacre’ was propaganda, put out by the Palestinians and swallowed whole by the media. There have been retractions since, but as is typical with the media, the sensational stories make the front page, and the retraction is buried on page 55 next to the ad for Crazy Joe’s Stereo Emporium.
The last ‘official’ count I heard was 56 dead Palestinians, the vast majority of which were gunmen actively resisting. Something like 12 or 13 civilians were killed.
Given that Israel lost 26 soldiers by fighting house-to-house instead of bombing by air or using armor to blast open suspect houses, it should be clear now that they went to extraordinary lengths to minimize civilian casualties.
It also served as a convenient straw man behind which the Israelis could hide the numerous other war crimes that were reported in Jenin. The Palestinains may have made the initial claims of a massacre, but the Israelis made sure that the numbers were inflated beyond reason, and then reaped obvious benefits when those inflated figures could not be confirmed.
Cite, please, Squink? All the reports that I saw with wild casualty figures in Jenin came from Palestinian, Egyptian and Saudi news sources, not from the Israelis. The Israelis maintained all along that the final Palestinian casualty number would be around 50-60. And they were right.
Dittoe pldennison. There needs to be a cite for any conspiracy statements, not only for the Israelis putting out this disinformation, but for the other many “war crimes” they were covering up.
The truth was there were no other bodies other than the ones they had found. When the Palestinians had claimed there was a massacre, they immediately placed some bodies into a mass grave:
Then of course there is this video that the Palestinians made, they couldn’t even keep the “dead” person from falling off the strecther. The dead body proceeded to get up and walk and get back on the stretcher a few differant times, finally they just gave up.
Here is the video from CNN website.
Kim
Sorry, it’s an impression I formed from reading the Jerusalem Post, and many other news sources from the region. You’re correct that Israel maintained low official estimates for the ‘massacre’ throughout. What I found interesting was the Israeli reports that emphasized Palestinian claims for large numbers of deaths.
Sure there was Palestinian Propaganda about the massacre, but Sam’s implication that the Palestinians were the only ones to milk the situation to suit their own ends was pretty naive. The Israelis are neither angels, nor stupid.
If some of you wish to go looking for reports of war crimes, just go back to the newspaper stories about the first relief agencies that got into Jenin after the battle. Buried behind the ‘no evidence of a massacre’ headlines are tales of summary executions and massive destruction of civilian property. AFAIK these have not been investigated. Of course, now that the massacre’s been debunked, there’s not much chance that they ever will be is there ?
…and you are certainly entitled to your opinion, however, you shouldn’t report your “impressions” as if they are facts.
Haj
Especially if they make you uncomfortable ehh ? Most things we consider facts are ultimately based on observations, impressions. They gain no particular validity by being put through a democratic polling process.
Actually, I didn’t have to go back to the stories about the first relief agencies getting in to Jenin. BBC reports about the factitious “massacre” continued to cite individual examples of crimes.
I also found this more recent report on NPR in which the “UPI senior news analyst Martin Sieff” says:
Kind of icky.
I have to say that it would have surprised me if Israeli reports ignored it. If it were you who was being slandered, wouldn’t you call attention to it? Or should they have just not commented?
I would like to see a more indepth and (mostly) unbiased analysis of what happend and how various NGOs and media organizations acted.
PC
At the end of the day, there have been no impartial investigations. Scratch the word impartial. There were no international investigation that would have provided generally acceptable findings.
BTW, inflating body counts so as to discredit what actually happened has been done throughout history. Think Nanking Massacre for one. Not saying that Israel deliberately did this vis-a-vis Jenin, but it is not implausible that some spin doctors decided on this course of action either.
Again, we don’t “know” what happened, and we’re never going to know at this point because Israel neither allowed the UN team in nor offered alternatives to the UN team.
>> inflating body counts so as to discredit what actually happened has been done throughout history. Think Nanking Massacre for one.
Not to hijack this thread but I hope you are not implying the Rape of Nanking is not an historical fact.
In other words, we should make an exception when you do it? Brilliant.
Off to Great Debates.
Actually Israel had said that they would allow an inspection team if it didn’t have Terje “Quisling” Larsen and one other (what Israel considered to be a) Palestinian sympathizer on it. The UN refused and no action was taken.
If you read early accounts of Jenin, you’ll notice that most of the correspondants who claim a massacre took place base that on the smell of the place and not anything that they had witnessed. Derek Pounder of Amnesty International claimed that the lack of bodies (or “proof” as others might call it) was actually evidence that a truly horrible massacre had occurred.
I hope this doesn’t come across as incredibly insensitive, but - can something like this be judged on a smell? I understand the “stink of death” aspect, but what was the overall condition of the camp before the fighting? Assuming (and I don’t) that it had little to no sanitation/waste management, inadequate sewers, etc. - could that have contributed the overall smell that was attributed to a high death count?
Secondly, regarding the Amnesty quote - I thought this sounded a little unfair, and then read the article - and it still sounds unfair. Let’s see - hundreds or thousands of bodies found? Evidence of a massacre. Very small number of bodies found? Apparently, also evidence of a massacre. Using this analysis, is there any way that Israel could possibly prove a massacre DIDN’T happen?
Of course not. Don’t you know that I personally massacared hundreds of thousands of people in my living room. What’s that you say? There’s no evidence? THAT’S EVIDENCE!!
Zev Steinhardt