The "Virtual Destruction" of Jenin

TruthNews Commentary, April 23, 2002

The United Nations, which has remained silent as 2 million Sudanese Christians were murdered by the Muslim rulers of Sudan, is up in arms because the Israeli army killed several dozen Palestinian terrorists in a "massacre" in a West Bank refugee/terrorist camp near Jenin.

Norwegian diplomat Terje Larsen, one of the architects of the Oslo accords, and now deputy secretary general of the U.N., was the first out of the chute. Touring the Jenin camp, Larsen said, "I saw children, women, and fathers are digging through the ruins to find the bodies of their loved ones... What I saw is unbelievable. This is a sad, shameful chapter in Israel's history."

Larsen neglected to comment on why the Israelis had taken over the camp in the first place. The Jenin operation was part of an Israeli campaign, codenamed "Operation Defensive Shield," that was launched on March 29 in the midst of a horrific wave of Palestinian terrorism that killed 129 Israelis in the month of March alone, capped by a suicide bombing at a Netanya hotel on the first night of Passover that claimed 27 lives.

In the Palestinians' own words, Jenin was the "suicide-bomber capital" of the West Bank. But Larsen did not see fit to acknowledge this, as he also did not see fit to explain that the part of the camp that was destroyed was only 70 by 100 yards in size, or slightly larger than a football field. Larsen also failed to point out that, despite Palestinian claims that "hundreds of civilians" were killed, only 46 Palestinian bodies have been recovered, only 2 of which were civilians.

Even the New York Times, not known for its pro-Israel stance, reported, "Dozens of interviews with residents of the camp, hospital officials, Israeli soldiers and officials, and Palestinian fighters produced no solid evidence of large-scale, deliberate killing of civilians in the camp. Palestinian claims of hundreds of dead appear to be exaggerated." Since Larsen toured the camp to see for himself what really happened there, it's interesting that he made no reference to numbers of bodies but instead fell back on unquantifiable generalities.

While Larsen made a point of noting the buildings that had been destroyed in the refugee camp, he did not mention that the Palestinians had booby-trapped many of these buildings, which is what in many cases resulted in their destruction. Larsen also failed to recognize that the fighting in the Jenin camp was so intense that 23 Israeli soldiers perished in a single Palestinian ambush attack.

Larsen accused Israeli troops of barring entry to rescue teams over recent weeks, but the Israeli Army's Col. Didi Yedidya explained that, during the entire period, the army permitted rescue and evacuation teams to enter the camp subject to inspection. He noted that few teams accepted these conditions and that the army once again discovered wanted terrorists hiding in evacuation vehicles.

Larsen might also have acknowledged his own guilt for the mess in the Mideast. As part of the Oslo "peace process," Larsen helped set up the situation that allowed the Palestinians to turn the West Bank into one huge terrorist base for conducting acts of wanton homicide against Israeli civilians. The Oslo deception is what led to the Palestinian suicide bombings and ultimately made the Israeli incursion into Jenin necessary.

Peter Hansen, Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, did his best to outdo Larsen's hyperbole. "It was hell in the camp, and we will not exaggerate if we say that a massacre was carried out there," Hansen said. "Having seen the reality with my own eyes, I cannot call what happened there by any other name."

We have two questions for Hansen, a Dane who has defended anti-Semitic statements in Palestinian textbooks. First, where are the bodies? Second, how many bodies does it take to make a massacre? In the Battle of Gettysburg, there were over 50,000 casualties in just three days of fighting, but no one calls the battle a massacre. The dictionary definition of "massacre" is, "the savage killing of many victims." At Gettysburg, the dead were soldiers, not victims, and hence the battle is not considered a massacre. At Jenin, the dead were wanted terrorists who were trying, with some success, to kill the Israeli soldiers who were trying to arrest them. Perhaps the Danish Hansen does not understand the English word "massacre." Or, perhaps in Danish, massacre means "46 Palestinian bodies have been recovered, only 2 of which were civilians." Or, perhaps Hansen is lying.

The UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, fresh from leading the Durban hatefest against Israel and Jews in general, leapt into the fray without even traveling to Israel by saying, "The international community cannot permit the indiscriminate killings of Israeli civilians or the wanton killings of Palestinian civilians and the destruction of the civilian infrastructure to support life. It cannot be right to wage war on civilian populations."

Excuse me, but when did "wanton killings of Palestinian civilians" occur? According to Mrs. Robinson, "...extraordinary military measures have been taken by the Israeli Defense Force in West Bank towns and cities which have left hundreds dead, thousands displaced and which has created enormous physical damage. The unresolved stand off in Bethlehem and the virtual destruction of Jenin are of deep concern to us all."

The use of the phrase "virtual destruction of Jenin" by Mrs. Robinson was indeed a Freudian slip. She meant, of course, "virtually complete destruction," because she's buying into the Palestinian lie that hundreds of civilians were killed in the Jenin fighting. Perhaps in Mrs. Robinson's native Ireland, hundreds means, "46, of which 2 were civilians." Besides, the refugee camp IS NOT THE SAME THING AS THE CITY OF JENIN, but rather is on the outskirts of the city, which itself was almost untouched by the fighting. Mrs. Robinson made it appear that the city itself was almost completely destroyed.

We should also note that Mrs. Robinson's reference to the "unresolved stand off in Bethlehem" refers to the seizure of the Church of the Nativity by several hundred armed Palestinian terrorists who are holding priests and nuns as hostages. Maybe Mrs. Robinson should change her title to "High Commissioner for Palestinian Terrorist Rights," since she seems to believe that her job description does not extend to caring about the human rights of priests, nuns, or Israeli civilians.

Mrs. Robinson's choice of the term "virtual destruction of Jenin" is interesting because virtual means "existing in fact or essence though not in actual fact, form, or name." Thus, "virtual reality" refers to something that isn't real but appears real. In Jenin, the UN is doing its best to make it appear that the Israelis committed a terrible massacre, but the destruction does not exist in "actual fact, form, or name."

The fact is that the Israeli army carried out an operation to arrest terrorists in a refugee camp containing 15,000 people. The terrorists fought back with savage intensity, hiding among women and children, booby trapping buildings and themselves, and killing 23 Israeli soldiers. The America way to handle this situation would have been to call in the Air Force and obliterate the camp. The Israelis, sensitive to the possible civilian casualties of such an approach, instead went house-to-house to root out the terrorists. That out of 15,000 people, only 2 civilians were killed, attests to their success in avoiding civilian casualties. For this, they deserve commendation, not blame.

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