The Sunday Independent says there was No Jenin Massacre
In a report on April 11 headed "And now for Gulf War III", The Sunday Independent quoted Arab media equating an American assault on Fallujah, Iraq, with the Israeli army`s incursion into Jenin refugee camp on the West Bank in April 2002.The report quoted the Saudi Arabian newspaper Al-Jazeera: "m the first week of April 2002, Israeli troops committed a horrible massacre in Jenin. In the first week of April 2004, American occupation soldiers committed a human massacre in Fallujah that is still continuing."
Complaints by readers to the press ombudsman pointed out that claims of a massacre were later refuted by independent investigations by the United Nations and Human Rights Watch and others which established that no massacre took place. Israeli government officials have said that 54 Palestinians died, all but seven of them members of militant groups that had turned the camp into a terrorist haven. Twenty-three Israeli soldiers also died in the fighting.Human Rights Watch, in finding no evidence of a massacre, said it had uncovered very serious violations of the laws of war.
The purpose of quoting the Arab media in the report "And now for Gulf War III" was not to reiterate later discredited claims of a massacre involving hundreds of people, but to show how the Arab media equated the "liberating" Americans` actions in Fallujah with the Israeli incursion into Jenin.
Although the Arab press still refers to a massacre in Jenin, as a result of independent verification by international bodies The Sunday Independent distances itself from this allegation.
The Sunday Independent does not comment on what the "very serious violations of the laws of war were". Perhaps the violations of war are not the problem. The problem could be that the rules of war are possibly outdated when it comes to fighting terrorism. Read what Alan Dershowitz says on this issue: Rules of war enable terror
Comments