There is no cycle of violence

[MGB8]

Luke said something along the lines of "I'm not saying the exremists on each side are extreme to the same degree."

The problem with this logic is that its only one word "extremist", which creates the IMPRESSION of equivalence between people who will, say, tie themselves to their homes so that they are not forcibly moved, versus people who will strap bombs and shrapnel to themselves so that they can kill as many people as possible.

So, is one side really all that "extreme?" Its the old propagandist trick of incorporating a word of the other side and then diluting it into meaning nothing - ala terrorism or genocide or holocaust or appartheid. Do you realize that the pal Arabs routinely accuse Israel of attempting genocide - when they know full well that if Israel wanted to committ genocide, it could?

If we are to use an accurate definition of extremist, and extremist being someone who denies the other sides right to exist, and maybe acts on it - then there have been a handfull of Jewish extremists - ie. Baruch Goldstein, who was a terrorist as well, and people who think like him, and tens of thousands of Pal Arab extremists.

[Leon]

Leon, claiming that this unsubstantiated allegation is a fact, might cast reasonable doubt on your own impartiality in arriving at this conclusion.

sorry, you've lost me. care to expand

[Leon]

[QUOTE]

Militant cleared of Bali bombings
Happy now?
The BBC online archives only go back to 1997 but in more recent stories on the Munich Olympics the attackers are described as militants and never commandos.

I think this is more representative of BBC's reporting. And this is just the BBC, there are many other culprits like CNN, Guardian, washington post, NTY etc.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/3253428.stm

Four London terrorist attacks 'foiled'

HOW CONVIENANT FOR THE BBC TO USE THE TERM "TERRORIST" WHEN LONDON ITSELF IS CONCERNED.I GUESS THEIR POLICY OF ONE MAN'S TERRORIST IS ANOTHER MAN'S FREEDOM FIGHTER WENT STRAIGHT OUT THE DOOR. AFTER ALL IF ONE WAS TO APPLY BBC'S GENERAL POLICY, WOUDLNT BLOWING UP LONDON LEAD TO SOMEONE'S LIBERATION? NO?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/4208533.stm

Service to combat terror threat

The new service will test Scotland's ability to respond to attacks
The creation of a service to help Scotland prepare for and deal with terrorist attacks has been welcomed by the Scottish Executive.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3997545.stm

Peers warn of port terror risks

Ports could be used to bring in terror material, warned peers
The government must be able to force ports and airports to install scanners for material which could be used for a terror attack, peers have insisted

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/...rt/default.stm

UK on terror alert

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3515312.stm

London terror attack 'inevitable'


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/4209327.stm

Anti-terror measures: Your reaction

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/news/7...d_120304.shtml

Terrorism in Europe

Yesterday's bombings in Madrid were western Europe's biggest terrorist atrocity in years. The 7 O'Clock News looks at the extent of the threat facing the continent.


Terror Groups
Several groups are active in Europe, among the most notorious of which are:

ETA
Real IRA
November 17
Al-Qaeda


http://newswww.bbc.net.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3563713.stm

The recent Madrid terrorist attacks have catapulted the EU into further action in considering a new package of anti-terrorist measures.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3504912.stm


The devastating terror attacks in Madrid saw 10 bombs explode on four trains in three stations during the busy morning rush hour.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/...li/default.stm

Bali Terror Attack (in depth)


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asi...ic/4097441.stm

The Australian government has warned that terrorists could be preparing to carry out an attack in Indonesia, possibly targeting a Hilton hotel.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/news/new...211_bali.shtml

Newsbeat's Trudi Barber went to Bali to see how the island is recovering after last year's terrorist attack which killed more than 190 people...

More on the Bali
terror attack from BBC News Online Inside Newsbeat - Trudi Barber,


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1537469.stm

Service to combat terror threat

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4204065.stm

the 11 September terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4184271.stm

On Tuesday the United Nations lifted a travel ban imposed in parts of Aceh, amid warnings of potential terrorist attacks and military clashes with separatist rebels in the area.

[Leon]

And when the BBC itself comes under attack from "militants"...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1201444.stm

BBC bomb prompts terror warning

Richard Sambrook, director of BBC News... said Terrorist attacks on the media were rare and so the bomb marked a significant change, he said.



enuf said.

[Leon]

I searched for "Jenin Massacre" and none of the stories that come up took the accusations of a massacre at face value. They just reported heavy casualties which seems reasonable. They also gave plenty of coverage to UN and Human Rights Watch reports concluding that there wasn't a "massacre".
eg. 'No Jenin massacre' says rights group
UN says no massacre in Jenin

Luke the above headlines only came about after it was found that the Arab allegations were a lie. During Israel's operation in Jenin, however the matter was entirley different...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenin

"The Palestinians say hundreds more were killed and their information minister, Yasser Abed Rabbo, on Friday accused Israel of digging mass graves for 900 Palestinians in the camp." [3] (http://www.rense.com/general24/900.htm)


Many Western news agencies reported these claims uncritically and without confirmation.


http://www.honestreporting.com/artic...t_on_Jenin.asp

* The UK Guardian (April 17): Israel's actions in Jenin were "every bit as repellent" as Osama Bin Laden's attack on New York on September 11.

* London's Evening Standard (April 15): "We are talking here of massacre, and a cover-up, of genocide."

* Janine di Giovanni of the London Times (April 16): "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."

* Phil Reeves of the London Independent (April 16): "A monstrous war crime that Israel has tried to cover up for a fortnight has finally been exposed... The sweet and ghastly reek of rotting human bodies is everywhere, evidence that it is a human tomb. The people say there are hundreds of corpses, entombed beneath the dust."

And even after it was established that there was no massacer:

* The Independent's Justin Huggler still wants to believe that there was a massacre, under the headline: "UN Issues 'Seriously Flawed' Report on Jenin Killings." Huggler clings to old illusions: "An investigation by The Independent inside Jenin shortly after the fighting unearthed numerous corroborating accounts of atrocities... The UN report is carefully worded not to give offence to Israel or its allies."
http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=320656


To his credit, Phil Reeves of The Independent comes clean in a report entitled: "Even journalists have to admit they're wrong sometimes." Reeves admits that his report "was highly personalized" and writes: "It was clear that the debate over the awful events in Jenin four months ago is still dominated by whether there was a massacre, even though it has long been obvious that one did not occur." http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=320942


What does this tell us about journalists and their "objectivity" in reporting matters from the Arab-Israeli conflict.

pretty bloody awful is an understatement.

[Sumud]

So you are saying that the fighting in Jenin could be termed a massacre?
Voice of Hanan Ashwari/Saeb Erakat at the time:
"500 dead"
"200 dead"
"100 dead"
"woman and children murdered"
It turns out that 54 terrorists got wacked and unfortunately many Israeli soldiers had to die, 23 I believe.

THERE WAS NO MASSACRE IN JENIN. Repeat that several times to drown out the propaganda in your head.

This might answer Leon’s question as well.

I was questioning Leon’s claim that the media has “a tendency to report everything that the Arab side has to say as "fact"”. It appeared that this was at least partly based on a particular view of how the Jenin incursion was reported.

Media reports repeated the claims made by the Palestinians and then contrasted that with Israeli denials and also interviewed other ‘experts’.

As Luke showed above, the reports often came to the conclusion that there was no massacre. It seems that the basis for Leons’ claim is that the media asked the question and examined the competing versions. This is very different from claiming it was true. Are people confusing ‘Was there a massacre in Jenin?’ with ‘There was a massacre in Jenin’ ?

You could probably argue that it received more media attention than it deserved. On the other hand, at the same time the incursion in Nablus resulted in more deaths than in Jenin (estimates vary from 75-120), but this received very little news coverage.

There’s also a debate over when it’s appropriate to use the word ‘massacre’. I don’t think it’s a huge issue, but people here seem to think it is. So I was very surprised to find an article on the forum front page that referred to an attack in November, 2002, when 11 (mostly armed security personnel) were killed in Hebron.
The title of the article was “The Paper Tiger and the Hebron Massacre”.
11 dead in Hebron and it’s a massacre, 50 plus dead in Jenin and it’s concern over use of the term massacre.

I don’t know the source of the article as it doesn’t give a link. The author is a Michael Rand.
Leon, you were saying something about “the greatest journalistic blunder of all time”. Will you be sharing your thoughts with Mr. Rand?

[Leon]

Sumud, I suggest you read my last post to Luke - post #50. It puts forth an adequate case.

I remember how the events in Jenin were reported in the Australian and world wide media quite clearly -- and I remember when during one interview with an Israeli spokesperson, the interviewer was demanding a war crimes tribunal - this before a shred of evidence even came out. As soon as operation defensive shield was over, the UN and human rights groups investigated the facts on the ground...the media finally shut up...but only then. As for the report claiming that another massacer took place because 11 terrorists were killed in Hebron...more journalistic distortions and lies. But the level, scope, hype and intensity of the downright lies, distortions and hyperbole coming out of media reports during operation defensive shield makes it the biggest journalistic blunder of all times. The Jenin blunder is one example out of many blunders coming out from reports of the Arab-Israel conflict. However, Jenin certainly stands out as the biggest one.

Its no wonder that a majority of Germans surveyed think that "Israelis are worse than the Nazis" and majority of Europeans voted Israel as "the biggest threat to world peace" - ahead of Iran and North Korea. This is a direct result of the libel coming out of the international media - european media in particular.

[Sumud]

Sumud, I suggest you read my last post to Luke - post #50. It puts forth an adequate case.

Thanks, I read it. This passage below was interesting.

"The Palestinians say hundreds more were killed and their information minister, Yasser Abed Rabbo, on Friday accused Israel of digging mass graves for 900 Palestinians in the camp." [3]

I think that this demonstrates the fundamental misunderstanding some people have.
This is an example of reporting! This is what the media is supposed to do, – X said this , Y said that.
The same article that this quote was taken from, probably also reports what an Israeli spokesman said.

Unproven claims are often reported in the news. As long as they are reported as such eg “X said” there is no problem.

I remember how the events in Jenin were reported in the Australian and world wide media quite clearly -- and I remember when during one interview with an Israeli spokesperson, the interviewer was demanding a war crimes tribunal - this before a shred of evidence even came out. As soon as operation defensive shield was over, the UN and human rights groups investigated the facts on the ground...the media finally shut up...but only then.

While we agree that the term ‘massacre’ is probably inappropriate, the claims of war crimes are in fact well justified. The deliberate targetting of civilian infrastructure that is vital to survival is a war crime, as is preventing medical services from reaching the wounded. Israel did both of these in Jenin - the water was cut off for almost 2 weeks. So a question about a tribunal is relevant.

As for the report claiming that another massacer took place because 11 terrorists were killed in Hebron...more journalistic distortions and lies. But the level, scope, hype and intensity of the downright lies, distortions and hyperbole coming out of media reports during operation defensive shield makes it the biggest journalistic blunder of all times. The Jenin blunder is one example out of many blunders coming out from reports of the Arab-Israel conflict. However, Jenin certainly stands out as the biggest one.

The 11 killed were Israeli security personnel. Do you still think the description of it as a massacre, is lies and distortions? I don’t know if Mr Rand (who ever he is) will be too happy.
The article is archieved here on the forum and on looking at it again, it seems to be produced here (I can’t find it anywhere else), so I assume that the forum approves of such usage of the term.
I also did a quick search on the forums and found that you have used the term massacre to describe the killing of far fewer than 50 people.
I’m just asking for a little consistency.


I thought that the breathless reporting of vast piles of WMD in Iraq might have been a candidate for the biggest journalistic blunder of all time.

[Leon]

[QUOTE]

Thanks, I read it. This passage below was interesting.

"The Palestinians say hundreds more were killed and their information minister, Yasser Abed Rabbo, on Friday accused Israel of digging mass graves for 900 Palestinians in the camp." [3]

I think that this demonstrates the fundamental misunderstanding some people have.
This is an example of reporting! This is what the media is supposed to do, – X said this , Y said that.
The same article that this quote was taken from, probably also reports what an Israeli spokesman said.

Unproven claims are often reported in the news. As long as they are reported as such eg “X said” there is no problem.

Take note of what wilkipedia said at the end - "Many Western news agencies reported these claims uncritically and without confirmation."

Once again here are the examples:

* London's Evening Standard (April 15): "We are talking here of massacre, and a cover-up, of genocide."

* The UK Guardian (April 17): Israel's actions in Jenin were "every bit as repellent" as Osama Bin Laden's attack on New York on September 11.

* Janine di Giovanni of the London Times (April 16): "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."

* Phil Reeves of the London Independent (April 16): "A monstrous war crime that Israel has tried to cover up for a fortnight has finally been exposed... The sweet and ghastly reek of rotting human bodies is everywhere, evidence that it is a human tomb. The people say there are hundreds of corpses, entombed beneath the dust."


Mind you this was before the UN investigation and before a shred of evidence came out. Even after the investigation, many journalists claimed that the findings were flawed and that hundreds of massacred innocent Arabs were under the rubble.

It proves beyond reasonable doubt that the media just swallowed the lies and propaganda -- and it still does. It cant get enough of all the hype and propaganda.

While we agree that the term ‘massacre’ is probably inappropriate, the claims of war crimes are in fact well justified. The deliberate targetting of civilian infrastructure that is vital to survival is a war crime, as is preventing medical services from reaching the wounded. Israel did both of these in Jenin - the water was cut off for almost 2 weeks. So a question about a tribunal is relevant.

The only people who were committing the war crime were the Arab terrorists who delibratley launched their war from civilian infrastructure - using civilian homes, hospitals and other civilian buildings for their bases, bomb making factories and firing positions...booby trapping every single one. This is a pure war crime -- and only they are responsble for committing war crimes as a result. Once the terrorists use these buildings, the infrastructure ceases to be civilian and automatically becomes a military target. This is basic international law.

The fact that you fail to acknowledge this one basic fact, absolves the Arab terrorists from their war crimes and is worrying to say the least. It certainly sets a very dangerous precedent. Cries of "war crimes" is just more evidence that people like yourself and the mass media are willing to take Arab propaganda at face value.

The 11 killed were Israeli security personnel. Do you still think the description of it as a massacre, is lies and distortions? I don’t know if Mr Rand (who ever he is) will be too happy.

How were they killed?

The article is archieved here on the forum and on looking at it again, it seems to be produced here (I can’t find it anywhere else), so I assume that the forum approves of such usage of the term.
I also did a quick search on the forums and found that you have used the term massacre to describe the killing of far fewer than 50 people.
I’m just asking for a little consistency.

wilfully and intentionally murdering unarmed innocent people in cold blood is a massacer - be it two, three, four, five, etc. killing armed terrorists who use civilians as human shields in armed active combat is not. There's your difference.

Additionally, the lie centered around the claim that hundreds if not thousands of innocent people were massacred in Jenin. And the media swallowed it -- they loved it. In the end around 53 people were dead - including 23 Israelis soldiers. The deaths of the Israeli soldiers was uncessary, since the Israelis could have bombarded from the air (like all other countries do in those situations). Yet they didnt, making any "war crimes" claims ridicolous and insulting - insulting to the 23 Israeli dead soldiers and their families. The others who were dead were armed Arab terrorists who died in the fighting. Civilian casualities were few and intevitable since they occur in any war zone. By all definition what happened could not be termed a 'massacer' and anything otherwise is a lie -- simple fuel for cheap propaganda.

I thought that the breathless reporting of vast piles of WMD in Iraq might have been a candidate for the biggest journalistic blunder of all time.

Trouble is, even before the war the mass media was sceptical of the WMD claims.

[Sumud]

Take note of what wilkipedia said at the end - "Many Western news agencies reported these claims uncritically and without confirmation."

Once again here are the examples:

*[COLOR=Red] London's Evening Standard (April 15): "We are talking here of massacre, and a cover-up, of genocide."

* The UK Guardian (April 17): Israel's actions in Jenin were "every bit as repellent" as Osama Bin Laden's attack on New York on September 11....

I don't know much about wilkpedia, but on the page you got this stuff from has a headline banner warning that "The neutrality of this articel has been disputed".

This is the offending part of the Gaurdian,
“Its concrete rubble and tortured metal evokes another horror half a world away in New York, smaller in scale but every bit as repellent in its particulars, no less distressing, and every bit as man-made”

The title of the article was “What Really Happened in Jenin?”

It went on to say,
“In short, what really happened inside Jenin? The world needs to know. To that end, Jenin must be treated like a crime scene, investigated without delay, before the evidence disappears or is destroyed.”

There was no mention of OBL.

The article in the Evening Standard is one that is certainy guilty as charged. Maybe Luke could tell us if this is it’s usual standard.

The others are little more than correspondents correspondents relaying what they have seen for themselves – another time honoured practice in journalism.

The only people who were committing the war crime were the Arab terrorists who delibratley launched their war from civilian infrastructure - using civilian homes, hospitals and other civilian buildings for their bases, bomb making factories and firing positions...booby trapping every single one. This is a pure war crime -- and only they are responsble for committing war crimes as a result. Once the terrorists use these buildings, the infrastructure ceases to be civilian and automatically becomes a military target. This is basic international law.

The fact that you fail to acknowledge this one basic fact, absolves the Arab terrorists from their war crimes and is worrying to say the least. It certainly sets a very dangerous precedent. Cries of "war crimes" is just more evidence that people like yourself and the mass media are willing to take Arab propaganda at face value.

I don’t have a problem with anyone condemning terrorism. It has been suggested that a new definition of terrorism would be based on the war-crimes definition.
But one war-crime doesn’t cancel out the other. I never suggested such a thing, but having implied that I did, you then go and do exactly that yourself – claiming that the “Arabs’ acts absolve the Israelis of what followed.

Trouble is, even before the war the mass media was sceptical of the WMD claims.

I must have missed all that scepticism, I mostly saw cheerleading.

[Reffo]

But one war-crime doesn’t cancel out the other. I never suggested such a thing, but having implied that I did, you then go and do exactly that yourself – claiming that the “Arabs’ acts absolve the Israelis of what followed.

I don't want to jump to conclusions but I get the impression that you are accusing the Israelis with war crimes ? Tell me if I am wrong.

[Reffo]

While we agree that the term ‘massacre’ is probably inappropriate, the claims of war crimes are in fact well justified. The deliberate targetting of civilian infrastructure that is vital to survival is a war crime, as is preventing medical services from reaching the wounded. Israel did both of these in Jenin - the water was cut off for almost 2 weeks. So a question about a tribunal is relevant.

Having looked back in this thread, I was able to find an answer to my own question. The answer is "yes". OK then, could you please explain to me how you would you fight against a ruthless enemy who hides behind it's civilians and kills your civilians ? I am sure that a lot of people would rather fight a totally sanitized war without any chance of hurting some civilians. Now, before you go and accuse me that I condone violence against civilians just because the other side does it, I will tell you that I don't condone it. I just want to know a realistic way of avoiding it in such a situation.

[Luke90]

I think Sumud has defended the coverage of Jenin very sensibly. Yes there were mistakes and yes some sources of a left-ish persuasion would have been more critical than others.
However, the media as a whole reported claims of a massacre and reported the defense, investigations and conclusions that there wasn't, as they should do. You can take isolated quotes where the accusations were reported but that proves nothing about the overall reporting.

I'm afraid I can't really comment on the Evening Standard as it's not a paper I'm very familiar with.

I think it would have been legitimate to ask for a war crimes investigation because the accusations were made by some reasonably credible sources. If the claims were unjustified then Israel would be acquitted and would be better off for that as the acquital would then be a defense against the accusations. If the claims were upheld then the investigation would likewise have been justified.
An investigation doesn't imply guilt.

[Ahava]

About Jenin (massive sigh, when will this myth about a massacre there stop?) this article that at the time appeared in the Guardian, not the most Israel-friendly newspaper, to put it mildly.

'We fight like girls and we are accused of a massacre'

As Israeli tanks begin to withdraw from Jenin they leave behind claim and counter-claim over what really happened out of sight of the cameras. Guardian reporters talk to both sides.

Ewen MacAskill in Jerusalem
Guardian

Saturday April 20, 2002


Sergeant Israel Kaspi is a combat veteran, having seen service in the Yom Kippur war in 1973 and in the Lebanon in 1982. But he said yesterday that the most intense firefight he had ever been involved in took place this month in Jenin, in the West Bank.

Sgt Kaspi, who returned home from Jenin on Thursday night, described scenes of ferocious resistance by the Palestinians as the Israeli army fought street by street, house by house, room by room. He said the Palestinians had been preparing for weeks and had turned the refugee camp into a "military fortress".

Although it pained him to praise men he believed were behind suicide attacks on Israel, he paid tribute to the Palestinian defenders of Jenin for their professionalism and skill as fighters. "They were no doubt brave and I appreciate any man that is fighting for the things he believes in," he said.

The Israeli attack on Jenin began on Wednesday April 3 and lasted until the surviving Palestinian gunmen surrendered in the early hours of Thursday April 11. The army only finally pulled out in the early hours of yesterday morning.

There are conflicting accounts of what happened in Jenin, which for most of that period was cut off by the Israeli army. Few ambulances were allowed through and journalists were kept out until just a few days ago.

For the Israelis, it was a fierce battle in which they lost 23 dead. For some Palestinians, Jenin is a symbol of pride, a place where a small group of its fighters took on the might of the Israel army and kept them at bay for a week. For other Palestinians, it is a symbol of Israeli brutality, the scene of a massacre.

Emmanuel Nahshon, a spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry, said in Jerusalem yesterday: "We can speak of a battle but not a massacre. The Palestinians are trying to create a mythology. There are two myths. One is Massada, or the Alamo, a small group of fighters against the odds. This is one myth. The other is Sabra and Shatila. But you cannot have both. If it was a fight, it was not a massacre. If it was not a massacre, it was a fight."

He added: "War is ugly but there is a huge difference between war and massacre. I would say that a massacre is when innocent civilians are killed by an armed people like Srebrenica, when you have defenceless people butchered by an army."

The Israeli army said it had expected Jenin to be tough and had deliberately sent in reservists in their 30s and 40s, those who had the maturity to cope. Among them was Sgt Kaspi, 48, a lawyer from Herzliyya, near Tel Aviv, who is married with four children.

He was in the command bunker at Jenin and was unhappy with the way the operation was run: not because the Israel army was too tough but because it was not tough enough. He mourns his 23 dead comrades and argues that the high casualty rate could have been avoided by different tactics.

"I am an old soldier. If there is something I can blame the army for in Jenin, it was that it did not use its force. It put too many restraints on its power and by this put its soldiers in big danger," Sgt Kaspi said. "This is why we lost so many casualties. If we had used only a small part of our real power - planes, cannons and tanks, though we did use tanks, though only hesitantly - if we had used all that power, we could have saved the lives of our soldiers. [/COLOR]

"I remember when we got near Beirut, we began training to get in there. We trained for bulldozers to go in on their own and 155mm cannon to go in there. Only after that, it was the infantry.

"This time, the infantry went first and put their heads on the block. We went to clear the camp house by house with infantry."

He quarrelled over the tactics, urging that the Beirut pattern should be adopted. "But the army did not want to do that. We paid a high price. I call it stupid."

He added: "We do all the things we should do [to fight humanely] and we get blamed for it. We fight like girls and we are accused of a massacre."
As the infantry fought its way into the Jenin camp, they were confronted by "boobytraps, in the houses, in the yards, in the roads, in places between the houses, in the garbage cans. They had put dynamite in the walls and sealed them up again. They activated them and it came down on the heads on the soldiers. A built-up area is the most difficult place to fight. You cannot identify where you are being shot from. They built special holes for their guns for firing from."

The army lost 10 dead in shooting incidents and 13 in an ambush that saw a combination of a suicide bombing, a booby trap and gunfire on Monday April 8.

The next day the army abandoned the tactic of infantry taking the lead and sent in the bulldozers.

Sgt Kaspi said loudspeaker announcements had been made before the attack saying that civilians could leave and that there had been regular such announce ments at two-hour intervals after that. Most left but he said that the civilians who remained did so from their own free will to help provide shelter, food and medical treatment for the fighters, and he praised them for it, saying he would expect the same from Israeli civilians if he had been fighting in Israel.

Early on Thursday morning, April 11, the final group of about 36 "waved their hands and came out without shirts to show they did not have dynamite belts." His estimate of Palestinian casualties was no more than 100. His estimate of the damage was 3% of the camp, 150 houses destroyed out of 2,500.

Why had the Red Cross and Red Crescent been denied access? He said that they were told they could only use one entrance and that the vehicles would have to be checked going in and out in case they were taking in ammunition or taking fighters out. "There were very few times vehicles went in to take people out." he said.

Where were the Palestinian bodies? He did not know but an army spokesman dismissed as "" reports that they had been buried in secret in the Jordan Valley or in Israel.

Mr Nahshon said: "Those Palestinian bodies in our hands we put in bodybags and identified and buried. We had no other choice because we could not leave them strewn on the streets."

Sgt Kaspi woke up yesterday morning and, like other Israeli soldiers who took part in the fighting in Jenin, said he was surprised and angry to find they were being accused of a massacre. "It drives me crazy that we are being blamed," Sgt Kaspi said.

'Fierce battle'
· It was a fierce battle, not a massacre
· Civilians were offered repeated chance to leave. Those who stayed did so of their own free will to help the fighters
· Red Cross and Red Crescent were offered chance to go into camp but there was a restriction: only one entrance and all vehicles going in or out had to be checked by Israeli army. Few vehicles used it
· There are no missing Palestinian bodies, other than those under the rubble. There is no secret grave in the Jordan Valley or Israel. Palestinian dead in Israeli hands identified, put in bodybags and buried
· Estimate of Palestinian dead is no more than 100, and probably less. Damage to houses about 6% of the camp

[Sumud]

About Jenin (massive sigh, when will this myth about a massacre there stop?) this article that at the time appeared in the Guardian, not the most Israel-friendly newspaper, to put it mildly.

As Luke and I have both pointed out, the general consensus in the media, was that there was no masssacre.

So, when (even more massive sigh) will this myth about the myth of a massacre stop?