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Israel Blocks U.N. Inspection of Jenin Camp
In Jerusalem, Israel's security Cabinet decided not to cooperate with a U.N. inquiry into events at the Jenin camp until six Israeli demands had been met regarding the mandate and composition of the team.
Israel Blocks U.N. Inspection of Jenin Camp
JERUSALEM (AP) April 30, 2002 -- A defiant Israel decided Tuesday to block a U.N. inquiry into the fighting at the Jenin refuge camp, while 26 Palestinian civilians and policemen emerged from the besieged Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.
It was the largest number to exit the Bethlehem compound since a standoff between Israeli troops and armed Palestinians began nearly a month ago, but the core dispute over the fate of two dozen wanted gunmen remained unresolved.
In Hebron, columns of armored vehicles rumbled out of the Palestinian city after a two-day incursion during which nine Palestinians were killed and about 250 arrested, including 40 wanted men, the Israeli military said.
At Yasser Arafat's headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah, there was no sign that his confinement by Israel was over, despite such assertions by Israel's defense minister Monday. Tanks ringed the Palestinian leader's compound, and troops enforced a curfew in the adjoining neighborhood.
In Jerusalem, Israel's security Cabinet decided not to cooperate with a U.N. inquiry into events at the Jenin camp until six Israeli demands had been met regarding the mandate and composition of the team.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Tuesday he doubted the United Nations would agree to the Israeli conditions and expressed concern that it would now impose the inquiry on Israel. ``I think the immediate danger is that the Security Council will decide to establish this committee without taking into account Israel's opinion,'' Peres told Israel Army Radio.
Peres said he did not expect the United States to veto such a step, since Washington supports the inquiry in principle. Israeli officials had said Monday they expected U.S. support in a showdown with the United Nations in exchange for Israel's agreement to release Arafat from confinement. However, Peres denied the United States ever held out such a promise.
Israel initially agreed to the formation of the fact-finding team, but then raised a number of concerns. Israel wants a say over who can be called as a witness and what documents will be presented to the panel, and insists that Israeli soldiers be protected from prosecution. Israel wants more counterterrorism experts to be added to the group, and demands that activities by Palestinian militants in the camp also be scrutinized.
``As long as these conditions have not been met, there is no possibility of beginning the inquiry,'' the security Cabinet said in a statement.
Jenin was the scene of the fiercest fighting during Israel's April military offensive against Palestinian militias, and so far about 50 Palestinian bodies, most of them young men, have been recovered from the camp. Twenty-three Israeli soldiers were also killed in house-to-house combat with Palestinian gunmen in Jenin.
The Palestinians alleged troops carried out a massacre of civilians, while Israel said nearly all of those killed were armed men.
Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said Israel's decision ``is a clear indicator that the Israeli government committed war crimes in the Jenin refugee camp.'' Abed Rabbo demanded that the U.N. Security Council impose sanctions on Israel.
In New York, Annan was increasingly impatient. ``At this stage, it was very urgent that we go in, find out what happened (in Jenin), and put all the rumors and the accusations behind us,'' Annan said Monday.
Israel has kept the U.N. fact-finding team from arriving, saying it fears an anti-Israel bias that will produce a highly critical report on Israel's military operation in the Jenin camp. The team was to have been in place in Jenin on Saturday, but has been waiting in Geneva for several days for a go-ahead to fly to Israel.
In Hebron, an Israeli army commander, Col. Moshe Hager, said Israeli troops were beginning a gradual pullout, and reporters accompanying the troops saw soldiers packing their bags.
Earlier Tuesday, troops had searched for wanted Palestinians and tanks surrounded Al Ahli Hospital, barring ambulances from entering or leaving, hospital officials said. The Israeli military said there was suspicion a wanted Palestinian was hiding in the hospital.
Israeli forces entered Hebron on Monday, in response to a weekend attack on a Jewish settlement in which four Israelis, including a 5-year-old girl, were killed.
Also Tuesday, Israeli troops briefly raided the village of Shawara, near Bethlehem and arrested six Palestinians before withdrawing, the army said.
In Bethlehem, Ibrahim Faltas, the Franciscan priest in charge of the Church of the Nativity, led the Palestinian men, including civilians and members of the Palestinian security forces, through the door and onto Manger Square, one at a time.
As they approached Israeli soldiers on the square, the Palestinians held open their jackets to show they were not carrying weapons. The men then got on an armored bus in the square.
Israel's army will verify their identities and then release them, said a Palestinian negotiator, Ibrahim Natche. A total of 26 Palestinian men, including one wounded man, came out of the church, said Israeli military spokesman Olivier Rafowicz.
The standoff began April 2 when Israeli troops invaded Bethlehem in search of Palestinian militants. Before Tuesday, about 50 people had come out of the church, and the largest group to emerge at any one time was nine youths who left last Thursday.
The core dispute is over the fate of about two dozen Palestinians wanted by Israel. In Washington, Secretary of State Colin Powell said that all the elements of an accord to end the Bethlehem church standoff were in place, though he said difficult issues remain.
U.S. and Israeli officials in Washington said privately the accord probably would be based on Israel's proposal to offer wanted men holed up in the Church of the Nativity a choice of exile or trial in Israel. However, Palestinian negotiators insisted the wanted men be transferred to the Gaza Strip, where accusations against them would be handled in the Palestinian legal system.
In Ramallah, the crisis at Arafat's headquarters appeared near conclusion.
Abed Rabbo, the information minister, said he expected arrangements to be in place within 24 hours that would allow the Palestinian leader to leave the headquarters.
Israel and the Palestinians agreed Sunday to a U.S. proposal that restores Arafat's freedom of movement, and in exchange, six wanted men inside the compound will be imprisoned in a Palestinian jail, watched over by U.S. and British officials. Once the prisoners have been transferred, Arafat would be able to move.
Arafat had been confined to Ramallah since December, and to his compound since January. Israeli troops took over most of Arafat's headquarters March 29, as part of a major military offensive against Palestinian militants.
Israel consented to the plan with the understanding that the United States would stand by Israel's side in its increasingly tense showdown with the United Nations.
A makeshift Palestinian court has convicted four of the men in the killing of Israeli Cabinet Minister Rehavam Zeevi last October. The fifth man leads the political faction that carried out the killing and the sixth is an Arafat aide suspected of orchestrating a large arms smuggling operation.
JERUSALEM (AP) April 30, 2002 -- A defiant Israel decided Tuesday to block a U.N. inquiry into the fighting at the Jenin refuge camp, while 26 Palestinian civilians and policemen emerged from the besieged Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.
It was the largest number to exit the Bethlehem compound since a standoff between Israeli troops and armed Palestinians began nearly a month ago, but the core dispute over the fate of two dozen wanted gunmen remained unresolved.
In Hebron, columns of armored vehicles rumbled out of the Palestinian city after a two-day incursion during which nine Palestinians were killed and about 250 arrested, including 40 wanted men, the Israeli military said.
At Yasser Arafat's headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah, there was no sign that his confinement by Israel was over, despite such assertions by Israel's defense minister Monday. Tanks ringed the Palestinian leader's compound, and troops enforced a curfew in the adjoining neighborhood.
In Jerusalem, Israel's security Cabinet decided not to cooperate with a U.N. inquiry into events at the Jenin camp until six Israeli demands had been met regarding the mandate and composition of the team.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Tuesday he doubted the United Nations would agree to the Israeli conditions and expressed concern that it would now impose the inquiry on Israel. ``I think the immediate danger is that the Security Council will decide to establish this committee without taking into account Israel's opinion,'' Peres told Israel Army Radio.
Peres said he did not expect the United States to veto such a step, since Washington supports the inquiry in principle. Israeli officials had said Monday they expected U.S. support in a showdown with the United Nations in exchange for Israel's agreement to release Arafat from confinement. However, Peres denied the United States ever held out such a promise.
Israel initially agreed to the formation of the fact-finding team, but then raised a number of concerns. Israel wants a say over who can be called as a witness and what documents will be presented to the panel, and insists that Israeli soldiers be protected from prosecution. Israel wants more counterterrorism experts to be added to the group, and demands that activities by Palestinian militants in the camp also be scrutinized.
``As long as these conditions have not been met, there is no possibility of beginning the inquiry,'' the security Cabinet said in a statement.
Jenin was the scene of the fiercest fighting during Israel's April military offensive against Palestinian militias, and so far about 50 Palestinian bodies, most of them young men, have been recovered from the camp. Twenty-three Israeli soldiers were also killed in house-to-house combat with Palestinian gunmen in Jenin.
The Palestinians alleged troops carried out a massacre of civilians, while Israel said nearly all of those killed were armed men.
Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said Israel's decision ``is a clear indicator that the Israeli government committed war crimes in the Jenin refugee camp.'' Abed Rabbo demanded that the U.N. Security Council impose sanctions on Israel.
In New York, Annan was increasingly impatient. ``At this stage, it was very urgent that we go in, find out what happened (in Jenin), and put all the rumors and the accusations behind us,'' Annan said Monday.
Israel has kept the U.N. fact-finding team from arriving, saying it fears an anti-Israel bias that will produce a highly critical report on Israel's military operation in the Jenin camp. The team was to have been in place in Jenin on Saturday, but has been waiting in Geneva for several days for a go-ahead to fly to Israel.
In Hebron, an Israeli army commander, Col. Moshe Hager, said Israeli troops were beginning a gradual pullout, and reporters accompanying the troops saw soldiers packing their bags.
Earlier Tuesday, troops had searched for wanted Palestinians and tanks surrounded Al Ahli Hospital, barring ambulances from entering or leaving, hospital officials said. The Israeli military said there was suspicion a wanted Palestinian was hiding in the hospital.
Israeli forces entered Hebron on Monday, in response to a weekend attack on a Jewish settlement in which four Israelis, including a 5-year-old girl, were killed.
Also Tuesday, Israeli troops briefly raided the village of Shawara, near Bethlehem and arrested six Palestinians before withdrawing, the army said.
In Bethlehem, Ibrahim Faltas, the Franciscan priest in charge of the Church of the Nativity, led the Palestinian men, including civilians and members of the Palestinian security forces, through the door and onto Manger Square, one at a time.
As they approached Israeli soldiers on the square, the Palestinians held open their jackets to show they were not carrying weapons. The men then got on an armored bus in the square.
Israel's army will verify their identities and then release them, said a Palestinian negotiator, Ibrahim Natche. A total of 26 Palestinian men, including one wounded man, came out of the church, said Israeli military spokesman Olivier Rafowicz.
The standoff began April 2 when Israeli troops invaded Bethlehem in search of Palestinian militants. Before Tuesday, about 50 people had come out of the church, and the largest group to emerge at any one time was nine youths who left last Thursday.
The core dispute is over the fate of about two dozen Palestinians wanted by Israel. In Washington, Secretary of State Colin Powell said that all the elements of an accord to end the Bethlehem church standoff were in place, though he said difficult issues remain.
U.S. and Israeli officials in Washington said privately the accord probably would be based on Israel's proposal to offer wanted men holed up in the Church of the Nativity a choice of exile or trial in Israel. However, Palestinian negotiators insisted the wanted men be transferred to the Gaza Strip, where accusations against them would be handled in the Palestinian legal system.
In Ramallah, the crisis at Arafat's headquarters appeared near conclusion.
Abed Rabbo, the information minister, said he expected arrangements to be in place within 24 hours that would allow the Palestinian leader to leave the headquarters.
Israel and the Palestinians agreed Sunday to a U.S. proposal that restores Arafat's freedom of movement, and in exchange, six wanted men inside the compound will be imprisoned in a Palestinian jail, watched over by U.S. and British officials. Once the prisoners have been transferred, Arafat would be able to move.
Arafat had been confined to Ramallah since December, and to his compound since January. Israeli troops took over most of Arafat's headquarters March 29, as part of a major military offensive against Palestinian militants.
Israel consented to the plan with the understanding that the United States would stand by Israel's side in its increasingly tense showdown with the United Nations.
A makeshift Palestinian court has convicted four of the men in the killing of Israeli Cabinet Minister Rehavam Zeevi last October. The fifth man leads the political faction that carried out the killing and the sixth is an Arafat aide suspected of orchestrating a large arms smuggling operation.
For more information:
http://senrs.com/israel_blocks_un_inspecti...
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The so-called "Jenin massacre" is a good point as any to start discussion about the Middle east.
The "massacre" prove one thing clearly: All that you read and hear on flashpoints and aplestinian sources is just pure propeganda lies. After you understand that you can start understanding better about all the rest you hear from these sources.
Have you read the story of Kurdi Bear, Ender?
How many people do you need to kill for the term 'massacre' to apply?
What is the definition of a "real" massacre?
Imagine that troops from a country that is illegally occupying another land move into an occupied town, where there are some resistance fighters among the civilian population. The occupying power uses helicopter gunships, tanks, missiles, and troops in its attack. Some prisoners taken by the occupying country's troops are executed in the streets while handcuffed. The troops use civilians as human shields when entering buildings. Bulldozers destroy homes, sometimes burying people still in them. And the occupying country's troops block ambulances and medical personnel from entering the town to care for the wounded, leaving civilians to die in the streets.
Would such an attack be a massacre if 63 people died, about half of them civilians? Or would it be something less, perhaps just a war crime? How many deaths does it take to turn a garden-variety atrocity into a massacre?
Perhaps the more important question is: How morally bankrupt is a world in which such arguments about whether such an attack is really a massacre overshadow the cries of the victims, the demands of justice, and the need for an international response?
The description above is of the Israeli assault on the Palestinian town of Jenin in April 2002, part of an ongoing Israeli offensive in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. Israeli forces won the battle, but just as important was Israel's public-relations victory for control of what the assault meant.
Early reports out of Jenin, including some from Israelis, speculated about a Palestinian death toll in the hundreds. The term "massacre" was used by observers, journalists, and Palestinians to describe the carnage, but after the attack it became clear that "only" 50 or 60 Palestinians had been killed. The Israeli spin machine then launched a campaign that emphasized not the criminal behavior of its military and the massive destruction to the town, but the early overestimates of casualties: Since the death toll was lower, it couldn't have been a massacre. And because Israel also successfully blocked a United Nations team from conducting an inquiry, that's how the story was played in the U.S. news media.
Subsequent investigation by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International -- both of which concluded the Israeli military committed war crimes -- have added to the understanding of the attack on Jenin. Now a new book -- "Searching Jenin," published by Cune Press in Seattle -- has supplied important eyewitness testimony of what happened in those two weeks in April. Under the direction of editor Ramzy Baroud, a Palestinian-American, teams of journalists interviewed Jenin residents to construct a detailed picture of the assault as it was experienced by the civilian population.
War is, of course, never pretty, and some aspects of these stories will be familiar to anyone who has confronted the realities of modern warfare. It is never easy to read about such horrors, especially when the victims include the weakest among us -- the sick, children, and the elderly. But along with those heart-wrenching stories, equally disturbing are the accounts of what the occupation has done to Israeli soldiers. Several witnesses talked of how the troops defecated and urinated in homes and mosques to express their contempt for the Palestinians. Racist anti-Arab slogans were written on the walls of people's homes. In one incident, reported by a man who works as a clerk in the Palestinian Ministry of Youth and Sports, Israeli forces broke into a home and one of the soldiers put the barrel of his gun to a baby's head and asked, "Should I kill him?" A woman screamed at the man to let go of the child. Another soldier answered, "You are a camp of animals. You are not human beings."
This is the consequence of occupation, of oppression. The occupied live with inadequate resources and suffer most of the violence. But there is a cost to the occupier as well, not just when suicide bombers are successful, but also in the loss of their own humanity. One wins land at the cost of the soul.
This is an issue not simply for Israel and its soldiers, but for U.S. citizens as well. Those of us paying taxes in the United States are implicated in the occupation and the attack on Jenin because of the $3 billion a year in U.S. aid that flows to Israel, helping them pay for the occupation. U.S. political and diplomatic support makes it possible for Israel to resist the international consensus for a peaceful settlement of the conflict. When we in the United States do not act to end that aid and support, and therefore allow the occupation to continue, we share in that loss of humanity. Morally, we are responsible for those soldiers' actions.
How long can we ignore that? Perhaps more important, how long can the people of Jenin and Palestine survive while we ignore it?
Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin, a member of the Nowar Collective www.nowarcollective.com and author of "Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream." He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.
I read and talked to people who were in jenin. Including palestinians.
The army gave any one that wanted to leave a warnning and time to leave. This is not a massacre.
Is this the description of a massacre:
The Egyptian government-sponsored Al-Ahram Weekly ran an interview with "Omar," a young, one-armed Islamic Jihad bomb maker known as an 'engineer' who discussed how the Palestinians booby-trapped Jenin, including the participation of women and children in the battles.[11] "He is a member of the Islamic Jihad, but says in Jenin all the factions were loyal to only one cause: liberation or death…' Of all the fighters in the West Bank we were the best prepared,' he says. 'We started working on our plan: to trap the invading soldiers and blow them up from the moment the Israeli tanks pulled out of Jenin last month.'"
The newspaper explained: "Omar and other 'engineers' made hundreds of explosive devices and carefully chose their locations. 'We had more than 50 houses booby-trapped around the camp. We chose old and empty buildings and the houses of men who were wanted by Israel because we knew the soldiers would search for them,' [Omar] said. 'We cut off lengths of main water pipes and packed them with explosives and nails. Then we placed them about four meters apart throughout the houses – in cupboards, under sinks, in sofas.' The fighters hoped to disable the Israeli army's tanks with much more powerful bombs placed inside garbage bins on the street. More explosives were hidden inside the cars of Jenin's most wanted men. Connected by wires, the bombs were set off remotely, triggered by the current from a car battery."
"According to Omar, everyone in the camp, including the children, knew where the explosives were located so that there was no danger of civilians being injured. It was the one weakness in the plan. 'We were betrayed by the spies among us,' he says. The wires to more than a third of the bombs were cut by soldiers accompanied by collaborators. 'If it hadn't been for the spies, the soldiers would never have been able to enter the camp. Once they penetrated the camp, it was much harder to defend it.'"
"And what about the explosion and ambush last Tuesday which killed 13 soldiers? 'They were lured there,' he says. 'We all stopped shooting and the women went out to tell the soldiers that we had run out of bullets and were leaving.' The women alerted the fighters as the soldiers reached the booby-trapped area. 'When the senior officers realized what had happened, they shouted through megaphones that they wanted an immediate cease-fire. We let them approach to retrieve the men and then opened fire. Some of the soldiers were so shocked and frightened that they mistakenly ran towards us.'"
Jamal Huweil, an Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades commander in the Jenin camp, told the London-based Arabic-language daily Al-Hayat that "four Israeli soldiers were killed and [the Palestinians] took their automatic weapons. The youths with the explosive devices also put four Israeli tanks out of commission."[12]
http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=ia&ID=IA9002#_edn11
Have you read the story of Kurdi Bear, Ender?
He drove a culldozer through Jenin.
If not, you can find it by clicking on the link to Gush-Shalom in my Gideon Levy flash presentation above.
Additional question - please don't ignore the first.
2) Did you like my interactive flash presentation?
You are relying ona testimony of a person that admits being drunk and without sleep for 72 hours - is that you proof ?
35,000 in the city and 15,000 in the adjust neighberhood called "refugee camp"
200 homes - home to about 1,000 people were taken over by terrorist sand were destroyed during the fighting.
Is that a total destruction ?
In one Ataack alone, in my home town of netnya a palestinian suicide bomers destryoyd an hotel and killed more civilians than the civilains killed in jenin. This is a massacre - it was done with out warnning (unlike the Army opertion in Jenin which allow anyone who wanted to to leave the fighting area)
The Palestinian massacre in the Netnya hotel was just one out of many massacres of civilians that caused israel to attack the terrorist base camp in jenin.
while bulldozing Palestinian homes........!!!!!!
What sort of government allows this?
Did you interact with the flash?
Did you watch the footage of Israeli terrorists-in-uniform shooting a Palestinian woman and preventing an ambulance from attending while her children watched her dying? Did you note the response of the terrorists when her husband begged for an ambulance?
What do nazis do, Ender?
The method of killing isn't the issue.
The nazis used propganda to dehumanise their victims (eg: "nests of terror" = vermin) as a pretext for murder and ethnic cleansing.
Not to mention that zionists collaborated with the nazis because it was in the interest of Der Judenstaat to do so.
Would you like some supporting evidence?
Keep compering as much as you want. I guess this is your attempt to purify what the Nazis did.
Every time you use Nazi as an example it tels us more exactly what YOU ARE.
IS IT TRUE that in 1941 and again in 1942, the German Gestapo offered all European Jews transit to Spain, if they would relinquish all their property in Germany and Occupied France; on condition that:
a) none of the deportees travel from Spain to Palestine; and
b) all the deportees be transported from Spain to the USA or British colonies, and there to remain; with entry visas to be arranged by the Jews living there; and
c) $1000.00 ransom for each family to be furnished by the Agency, payable upon the arrival of the family at the Spanish border at the rate of 1000 families daily.
IS IT TRUE that the Zionist leaders in Switzerland and Turkey received this offer with the clear understanding that the exclusion of Palestine as a destination for the deportees was based on an agreement between the Gestapo and the Mufti.
IS IT TRUE that the answer of the Zionist leaders was negative, with the following comments:
a) ONLY Palestine would be considered as a destination for the deportees.
b) The European Jews must accede to suffering and death greater in measure than the other nations, in order that the victorious allies agree to a "Jewish State" at the end of the war.
c) No ransom will be paid
IS IT TRUE that this response to the Gestapo's offer was made with the full knowledge that the alternative to this offer was the gas chamber.
IS IT TRUE that in 1944, at the time of the Hungarian deportations, a similar offer was made, whereby all Hungarian Jewry could be saved.
IS IT TRUE that the same Zionist hierarchy again refused this offer (after the gas chambers had already taken a toll of millions).
IS IT TRUE that during the height of the killings in the war, 270 Members of the British Parliament proposed to evacuate 500,000 Jews from Europe, and resettle them in British colonies, as a part of diplomatic negotiations with Germany.
IS IT TRUE that this offer was rejected by the Zionist leaders with the observation "Only to Palestine!"
IS IT TRUE that the British government granted visas to 300 rabbis and their families to the Colony of Mauritius, with passage for the evacuees through Turkey. The "Jewish Agency" leaders sabotaged this plan with the observation that the plan was disloyal to Palestine, and the 300 rabbis and their families should be gassed.
IS IT TRUE that during the course of the negotiations mentioned above, Chaim Weitzman, the first "Jewish statesman" stated: "The most valuable part of the Jewish nation is already in Palestine, and those Jews living outside Palestine are not too important". Weitzman's cohort, Greenbaum, amplified this statement with the observation "One cow in Palestine is worth more than all the Jews in Europe".
There are additional similar questions to be asked of these atheist degenerates[!] known as "Jewish statesmen", but for the time being let them respond to the ten questions.
Jew Not Zionists
It is the Muslim Grand Moufty of Jerusalem (a relative of Arafat) that cooperated with the nazis.