Posted on 04/16/2002 11:51:41 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
In Jenin, the fighting is over for now and Israel has opened the area to the global press corps. Being shut out of the combat zones infuriated the media, who rejected Israel's explanation that it was for their own protection. Israel said much of Jenin was booby-trapped. In addition, it feared Palestinian fighters might kidnap some high profile media type.
A picture of Peter Jennings with a knife to his throat would give whoever held it some pretty powerful leverage. That is something Israeli military planners just didn't need.
But Israel also recognized the heavy price it would pay when the media got its chance to hit back.
But even Israel wasn't quite prepared for the fury of a press corps scorned. During the offensive, news agencies reported Palestinian accounts of Israeli atrocities verbatim. Often, the anchor would remind viewers that Israel closed the battlefield, suggesting the closure was to provide Israel cover for those alleged atrocities.
Now it's time for a little media payback.
The London Times ran a "news" story called "Inside the Camp of the Dead." The headline was only the beginning.
The column's author, Janine di Giovanni offered this objective observation:
"The refugees I had interviewed in recent days while trying to enter the camp were not lying. If anything, they underestimated the carnage and the horror. Rarely, in more than a decade of war reporting from Bosnia, Chechnya, Sierra Leone, Kosovo, have I seen such deliberate destruction, such disrespect for human life."
In reading carefully, the author admits everybody he saw was either an armed fighter or a male in his 20s.
He gives an account of Israel massacring and burying as many as thirty bodies in a mass grave, tamped down by a tank. He sees no bodies but reports the account as fact.
He writes, "But the hundreds believed dead were not all fighters. Buried under the rubble are the bodies of women and children whose houses caved in around them."
But he sees no women or children or mentions seeing any bodies other than fighters. He recounts seeing two male bodies in the ruins of a building. The rest are all armed and clearly combatants.
In point of fact, his description, viewed without the editorial flair, is a description of a battlefield following a fierce battle.
But the added hyperbole to the effect he had never seen "such deliberate destruction, such disrespect for human life" in a decade of covering wars in Bosnia, Chechnya, Sierra Leone and Kosovo completely demolishes any pretense of objectivity.
The rest is equally filled with editorial comment and unsubstantiated rumor masquerading as objective news.
The Palestinians say Israel killed as many as 500 people. Israel estimates the casualty count at between 100-150.
News agencies have seen less than 50 bodies in total yet are reporting the much greater Palestinian count as fact, with the much lower Israeli counterclaim as being suspect.
Another report in the BBC is equally biased. From an April 15 report, "Palestinians have alleged that a massacre took place during the battle in the camp, and have said the army had begun burying the dead to conceal evidence. The allegations have brought international condemnation."
No mention of any facts. Merely the allegations that "brought international condemnation." Hell hath no fury like a press corps scorned.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan asked rhetorically when demanding the U.N. Security Council take action against Israel, "Can the whole world be wrong?"
The U.N. subsequently passed a resolution accusing Israel of "gross violations" of international law, underscoring the obvious "truth" that surely the whole world can't be wrong.
Maybe the Palestinians are right. Maybe Israel did commit a massacre. Maybe there are hundreds of bodies buried in the rubble. And if it is true, the evidence will be found.
Israel exists under a microscope. A massacre of the scope and dimension alleged by the Palestinians and the British press cannot be hid. Especially since the alleged burial took place on land controlled by the Palestinians.
If it happened, we'll know. But to those reading the British press, it doesn't matter. If evidence is found, it will prove the allegations of the London Independent right when it reported, "A monstrous war crime that Israel has tried to cover up for a fortnight has finally been exposed."
One way or the other, Israel finds itself in a maddeningly familiar Catch-22. If no evidence of war crimes is found, it will "prove" the allegations of an Israeli cover-up.
The U.N. already accepts the allegations of Israeli atrocities as absolute truth, lack of evidence to support the allegations notwithstanding – just as it rejects or ignores the allegations of terrorism against Yasser Arafat, despite the mountain of documentary evidence captured and released by the Israelis bearing Arafat's signature. The whole world can't be wrong.
Imal
Now go blow yourself up.
Then, they continue to lie as long as they are alive or have the conversion to conservatism which is about as rare as a snowy 4th of July in the Arizona desert.
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