Jenin and other anti-Israel lies

JACK CHIVO SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN

A Canadian documentary that aired on Global TV recently debunking the "massacre" at Jenin clearly demonstrates that anti-Israel propaganda is filled with distortions and lies. More disturbing is the attitude of millions around the world who blindly accept these distortions, along with the complicity of large segments of the world media who seem to have forgotten their core responsibilities of verification and accuracy.

In addition to the "massacre" at Jenin that never happened, two other examples of such fabrications are worth exploring.

A year ago, Washington State resident and activist Rachel Corrie died in Gaza under the weight of an Israeli army bulldozer. The whole world was outraged. To quote from one of the dozens of Web sites dedicated to her, "a horrifying murder was carried out by beasts in human uniforms," while she was in front of "a home scheduled for illegal demolition." The world media, from the Guardian to the New York Times, and from BBC to CNN, aired "before and after" pictures provided by her group, the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), showing Corrie firstly standing in front of an Israeli bulldozer and, a few minutes later, another photo of her body being removed from under the dirt. It was shocking!

If anyone, let alone a seasoned editor, had looked at the pictures for more than a few seconds, it would have been clear that Corrie and her fellow activists were not in front of a house, as they claimed, but in the middle of an open field, where the Israeli army was trying to demolish one of the tunnels used by terrorists to smuggle weapons. Nowhere in the photo was there any house to be seen. Moreover, the "before and after" shots are obviously not even from the same time of day, as the color of the sky indicates. An investigation followed and media, including CNN and the Times, ran corrections acknowledging that the two pictures involved two different incidents. While Corrie may have attempted to save a home from being destroyed, this is not what she was doing when she was killed.

Despite that Corrie seems to have been protecting a terrorist smuggling tunnel, rather than a Palestinian home, Web sites continue to carry the incorrect "before and after" pictures.

The second example is that of an erstwhile martyr of the Arab world, a 12-year-old boy called Mohammed al Dura – the Palestinian boy who died in 2000, allegedly killed by Israeli soldiers while hiding behind his father during a confrontation between Palestinian gunmen and Israeli soldiers.

The whole world was angry at Israel for shooting at an unarmed boy and even the Israeli army conveyed its regrets. Mohammed became the "poster boy" of the Palestinian sufferings, the world media expressed its outrage, streets were named after him in the Arab world, left-wing activists organized protests in Europe, and at the infamous Durban conference, thousands of delegates wore his picture on their T-shirts. Once again, Israel was the villain. Then, some level-headed people started looking at the situation with a critical eye. Shortly thereafter, the Israeli army ordered an inquiry, using both Israeli and foreign ballistic and weapons experts. Their job was made difficult because the family of the boy refused an autopsy and any co-operation, to determine the kind of bullets that killed the boy. Moreover, the Palestinian cameraman, Talal Abu Rachman, along with his employers from France 2 TV, denied repeated requests to provide the full tape of the incident, over 20 minutes long, instead releasing only a few edited scenes.

Despite the difficulties, several conclusions were reached by the inquiry. The Israeli army position was about 400 feet away. It was at an angle to the place where the boy and his father were crouching such that the bullets, if fired by Israelis, would have come from the side, grazing the wall, and not from the front. The round holes in the concrete blocks behind the boy are evidence that the bullets had to have come from the front. There was only one remote Israeli fortification, while Palestinians were firing from seven different positions, one of them only yards away. The father, as heard on the tape, was shouting, in Arabic, "don't shoot" to the gunmen, implying that they were in the immediate vicinity, not on the other side of six-lane highway, and the sound of the bullets that killed Mohammed were instant, almost drowning his yelling.

More evidence was provided by the German state television, ARD. In early 2002, the organization, known for its pro-Palestinian bias, decided to send a team to Israel to investigate the shooting, led by a Jewish left-wing producer, Esther Shapira. As she admitted, "I thought that it was clear it was an Israeli who fired the shot since we were talking about a Palestinian boy." Shapira's research would indicate otherwise.

When the program aired in March 2002, the results were stunning for German viewers. Accompanying news reports quoted the producer as saying that "according to our findings, it is much more likely that it was a Palestinian bullet that killed him."

The conclusion of the forensic experts was that the child "had been shot either from in front or from above, [which was] the direction from which the Palestinian gunmen had been firing. For it to have been IDF fire, the shots would have had to enter from the side."

One can find the same doubts in Alan Dershowitz's book, The Case for Israel, as well as in "Who shot Mohammed al Dura" by James Fallows, published in the Atlantic Monthly last June.

Unfortunately, ganging up on the Jewish state seems to have become a blood sport. A few years after the truth was revealed to the world, the bitter remarks of David Shek, a director with Israel's Foreign Ministry, expressed after viewing the German documentary, are still true: "Muhammad al Dura will remain part of the intifada's mythology, and it will not matter what kind of proof you bring to the contrary."

Jack Chivo has a PhD in the history of European journalism. He has worked as a reporter and editor, and as a radio correspondent. He lives in West Vancouver.

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