Accusations are all that count: Fiamma Nirenstein exposes U.N. role in Jenin 'massacre'

The battle in the refugee camp of Jenin was a gauntlet thrown at the simple, highly effective assumption that is the ace up the sleeve of Palestinian propaganda all over the world: The Israelis are Goliath and the Palestinians a poor weak David, crushed beneath the tanks, but strong in their just cause.

Even suicide terrorism has not totally dismantled this contention, which is still generally accepted by the media (except for a couple of hours before and a couple of hours after every attack). The perverse comment that follows in the wake is generally, "What else can those poor people do except use their bodies as a weapon against the Israeli army?"

Well, Jenin is a different matter entirely – or at least it would be if the truth were out. Jenin is the story of a terrible, two-week long battle and a fight to the death. It was a battle where one of the two contestants (Israel) chose the wrong tactics because it underestimated the enemy and had to rectify things, awkwardly abiding by its own principles.

Jenin is the story of large-scale use of the tactics of suicide terrorism, when instead of an individual, it is an entire country killing itself, setting booby traps to blow itself up, mindless of its own life as long as it can fight the enemy. It is also the story of how to avoid this sort of turning point. The media have taken the dangerous step of describing a massacre that it then had to disclaim – very slowly, without looking bad. Jenin is a tragic case study of a new war, where people did indeed suffer, not only because of the Israelis, but also because of a series of deceptions.

"I just spoke with my colleagues who were there and they told me of a slaughter." That is what CNN reporter Andrea Koppel said in the lobby of a Tel Aviv hotel, explaining to someone why she used that word speaking about the battle of Jenin.

"Oh, so they are all lying?" said Andrea. That has a certain philosophical importance that later on, in the same conversation, was intertwined with bias and vanity when, the diplomatic correspondent of the American news network confided her eschatological prediction to her listener who said, "We could lose our lives, our country." And Andrea answered, "Yes you could lose your country; yes I believe we are seeing now the beginning of the end of Israel."

Andrea Koppel denies it all, but it is hard to believe her. The things she said make her just a normal reporter. Janine di Giovani of the Times of London wrote, "The refugees ... were not lying. If anything, they underestimated the carnage and the horror. Rarely in more then a decade of war reporting from Bosnia, Chechnya, Sierra Leone, Kosovo, have I seen such a deliberate destruction, such disrespect for human life." The Washington Post: "Some of the most brutal urban battles, heaviest air barrages and most devastating ground tactics in more than two weeks of Israeli assault against Palestinian towns and communities across the West Bank have been waged here." The Independent: "A monstrous war crime that Israel has tried to cover up for a fortnight has finally been exposed."

Events in Jenin are a milestone in the history of the perception of the present Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In just two sentences, Koppel summarized the information she was passed on and what she was ready to convey to the world: supine acceptance of the version supplied by the Palestinians and their friends. Which means the perception of Palestinians as poor victims, with no exceptions.

It means the absence of feeling about the tragedy of a society assailed by the catastrophic terrorism like what has beset Israel day after day and that has caused around 500 deaths and thousands of injuries. It means total ignorance of Palestinian firepower and organizational capacity, despite the fact that it has been displayed in 18 months of war by the terrorist, paramilitary groups of Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. It reflects the unconscious desire that Israel, alas, should finally disappear from the scene, the instigator of a hate that ultimately affects everyone, Americans and Europeans alike and the conviction that Israel is a temporary phenomenon. Above all, that Israel is bad, bad, bad.

It is so bad that it strikes out against innocent civilians, committing a useless massacre. In September 2000, this message gushed out of descriptions of battles where Palestinians with bare hands, and even children, fought the super-armored and super-armed Israeli Goliath. The message was later enriched with pictures of poor Arafat sitting in candlelight in his rooms in Mukahta. That message painted the armed Palestinians who occupied the Church of the Nativity as medieval refugees who were the guests of its good-natured clerics.

Jenin contains all the symbols that confirm Israel's wickedness, which is why it became the media's battleground as well as a real one – a battleground where the Palestinian Authority shot its heaviest weapon: "a new Sabra and Chatila, a massacre with 500 people killed." Nothing was more appropriate. Israel enters a refugee camp, the real symbol of Palestinian oppression and whom does it kill? It shoots at civilians, families, women and children. It slaughters them … a massacre.

There was certainly a war, but there was no carnage. Still, the blemish of an attack on civilians will remain on the army. No matter if the refugee camp was turned into an organizational center for terrorism and guerrilla warfare or if the Israeli war count was 23 dead and 70 wounded. Setting aside important elements of judgment on this conflict to make room for bias and the virtue of judges is a specialty of international public opinion.

If Arafat refuses to give Colin Powell even a miserly cease-fire for the terrorist attacks, if documents prove that the office of the Palestinian Rais was the headquarters of financing and coordination of the Al Aqsa Brigades and the tanzim, if at Bethlehem, the Israelis tried to arrest dangerous terrorists, ultimately, the accusations are all that count.

The media completely erased the fact that the origin of the conflict lies in Arafat's refusal at Camp David and then transferring all responsibility to Sharon for walking on the Temple Mount. In the same way, it confused, simplified and switched causes for effects in the battle of Jenin.

Jenin was the battlefield where Palestinian forces decided to test their war skills. From a strategic point of view, they spared none of the lessons learned in the months of intifada: over time Fatah, the Al Aqsa Brigades, Hamas and Jihad mastered the art of working together. Arafat and Barghouti have directed, more or less from close range, most of the suicide terrorism, without taking away from Hamas and Jihad the glory of their own suicide attacks. Suicide terrorism and the use of explosives is a distinctive sign of this war, and Jenin is a leading center.

Fifty percent of the last wave of attacks – and even one with eight victims after the army encircled the city – came from Jenin. All in all, 24 terrorist attacks originated from the refugee camp that hosted about 13,000 people before the attack. Besides that, the civilian population (which did suffer terribly, because a child is a child, and an old man is an old man), was a strategic, and fundamental pawn of this war, from primary school to the tomb. Some soldiers narrate that when the guerrillas came out into the open with their hands up, they made sure that a couple of old men were following right behind, one on the right and one on the left.

Every Palestinian is a fighter, the wall of the houses inside and out are papered with colored pictures of the shahid. A reserve solider told me that he stopped a 6-year-old boy with a sack in his hand. "What's inside?" he asked. The boy dropped the sack and fled: It held 2.5 kilos of explosives.

I saw a tailor's shop smashed in amidst the ruins: There were two Singer sewing machines, bobbins of colored thread, a large box of tea next to a gas stove, and the torment of people looking at the demolished roads from inside. I hear the women's cries, as they spoke to me in rapid-fire Arabic, pointing to under the ruins, there below, there below. On the wall of the shop, a large picture stood out. It was the portrait of a terrible terrorist, Ra'ed Karmi, one of the men responsible for the Dolphinarium massacre.

For a dose of truth:
WSJ: The Massacre That Wasn't - Part I http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/668601/posts Non-evidence and Pali fabrication of evidence	Steyn: The UN is running out of blind eyes to turn http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/669411/posts Interesting link on UN backpedaling
WSJ: The Massacre That Wasn't - Part II http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/669632/posts Palestinians drop their hyped-up "massacre" charges	Atrocities of the British Press http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/669206/posts Huge amounts of ink devoted to unverified Pali tales
WSJ: The Massacre That Wasn't - Part III http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/672189/posts Hey, Jimmy Carter has an opinion too!!	Reporters Back Down From Jenin "Massacre" Reports http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/668509/posts World press forced to face the truth: No Massacre
WSJ: The Massacre That Wasn't - Part IV http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/672160/posts Yet more non-evidence and Pali fabrication of evidence	NY POST: THE MASSACRE THAT WASN'T http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/667529/posts Peres: There wasn't a house that wasn't booby-trapped
WSJ: The Massacre That Wasn't - Part V http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/673145/posts The Pali's contradict themselves and blame it on Israel	Steyn: It's time to snap out of Arab fantasy land http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/669063/posts Some great Oriana Fallaci quotes/links as well
WSJ: The Massacre That Wasn't - Part VI http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/678521/posts Pali grave-digging and UN jury-rigging	Jenin's 'Massacre' Death Toll Reduced to 56 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/675752/posts Say it slow: Israel told the truth; Palis did not
An interesting juxtaposition of tales:
Message From An Israeli On The Front Lines http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/673234/posts "Entire families exploded themselves! It was horrific."	Palestinian Fighter admits: No Massacre in Jenin http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/671903/posts 2,000 bombs and booby-traps placed in the camp
Pediatrician: terrorists used children in Jenin camp http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/670962/posts Doc: IDF did everything possible to avoid civilian harm	Palestinians Booby-Trap Wheelchair in Jenin http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/670810/posts NOTE: The wheelchair was occupied!!
Jenin War Diary of a Hasidic Soldier - Part I http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/672951/posts Israeli citizen-soldier describes what went on in Jenin	Palestinian fighter's version of the Jenin battle http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/672896/posts Pali Plan: Trap Israeli soldiers, then blow them up
Jenin War Diary of a Hasidic Soldier - Part II http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/678298/posts There is no army as humane as the IDF	Massacre Claims Unsupported by Pali Fighters http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/675129/posts Pali eyewitnesses all support the Israeli version
And so, in conclusion:
The 'Jenin Massacre' Hoax http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/677148/posts Living in a world of monstrous moral inversion	The Phantom Massacre http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/672761/posts War Crimes in Jenin were committed by the Palis
The Jenin Probe Ends http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/675737/posts UN unhappy about Israel's possible exhoneration	Jenin's War Criminals http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/675340/posts What the Palestinians did was the real war crime

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