Quote:Just because you aren't directly affected doesn't mean you shouldn't have an opinion.

Quote:Just because you aren't directly affected doesn't mean you shouldn't have an opinion.

Quote:Reporters Back Down From Jenin
"Massacre" Reports
In Jenin, too, the army has withdrawn its forces
from the terrorist stronghold neighborhood in which
the fierce battles of the previous two weeks took
place. The soldiers continue to surround the area.

After almost two weeks of "Jenin Massacre!"
headlines, the world press has been forced to face
the truth: There was none. Journalist David Bedein
of Israel Resource News Agency reports that
since Sunday, when the IDF began allowing
reporters into Jenin, the real story has turned out to
be somewhat less dramatic than that which some
of them had been reporting. Washington Post
correspondent Molly Moore wrote, "Interviews
with residents inside the camp and international aid
workers who were allowed here for the first time
today indicated that no evidence has yet surfaced
to support allegations by Palestinian groups and aid
organizations of large-scale massacres or
executions by Israeli troops."

This contrasted strongly, for instance, with the way
James Bennet opened his report from Jenin for
The New York Times last Friday: "Palestinians
here describe bodies cut in pieces, bodies scooped
up by bulldozers and buried in mass graves, bodies
deliberately concealed under collapsed buildings.
They describe people drinking out of sewers and
people used by Israeli soldiers as human shields."
Bedein notes that Bennet's report "did very little to
challenge the tendentiousness and questionable
nature of such 'eyewitness' testimony."

Col. Gal Hirsh, Head of Operations in the IDF
Central Command, explained that Jenin remained a
closed military zone even after the fighting was
over because, "We are trying to find all these
bodies and trying to remove the booby traps from
them... It is very complicated, very dangerous...
We are trying to take all the explosives, all the
hand grenades, all the booby traps from the bodies
and the houses..." Several bodies were in fact
found to have been booby-trapped.

The PLO's WAFA press service, however, took
advantage of Israel's refusal to allow the media
into Jenin, making unfounded claims of "500 dead
Palestinians piled up in the streets." Bedein notes
that organizations such as Physicians for Human
Rights and Amnesty International uncritically
believed these allegations, and were followed
dutifully by international media outlets, many of
which "devoted huge amounts of ink to such
unverified tales of conspiracies, rapes, executions,
and war crimes... The credibility of Palestinian
'eyewitness testimony' was barely questioned,
despite the PLO track record of fabricating false
claims. Who will ever forget the fallacious reports
from the Red Crescent in Lebanon back in June
1982 that the IDF had killed 10,000 people and
made 600,000 homeless?"

Bedein writes that tens of "European media outlets
and Arab foreign ministries described the fighting
in Jenin in terms of 'genocide,' 'unprecedented
humanitarian disaster,' 'Sabra and Shatilla #2,' 'A
campaign of revenge and murder, 'Nazi ethnical
cleansing,' and worse. European articles focused
mainly on the physical damage to buildings due to
Israeli tanks moving through the camp, and failed
to mention the fact that many of the buildings and
streets were rigged with explosives which were
set off by the many terrorist cells operating in the
refuge camp.

In general, Israel's comments on what was
actually happening in Jenin were mostly ignored by
world media. In a briefing last Friday, Col. Hirsh
said,
"When you think of the term refugee camp, you
think of poor and helpless people. This is not the
case! Jenin Refugee Camp was actually a strong
combat zone - a real military and terrorist
infrastructure. These people decided to fight, and
we had to fight back... I've heard the rumors of
500-600 Palestinians dead. These are lies. We had
no choice but to destroy the terrorist infrastructure
- everyday there were terrorists' acts dispatched
from Jenin Refugee Camp. The operation in Jenin
cost us the lives of 23 soldiers and many were
injured. I regret that some Palestinian civilians
were injured and some were killed. We were
fighting against armed terrorists. We asked the
Palestinian civilians to evacuate their homes so
they would not get hurt, some chose not to. Most
of the Palestinians that were killed were armed
terrorists; many had explosive devices strapped to
their bodies. We found a lot of evidence of
terrorist activity, for example, labs for explosive
devices. We are talking about an organized
terrorist infrastructure throughout Judea and
Samaria."

"The media were forced to cope with the fact that
a 'massacre' was turned into a few dozen
casualties," Bedein concludes, "but some reporters
just could not bring themselves to 'adjust' their
story to the facts on the ground."
Reporters Back Down From Jenin "Massacre"
Reports
In Jenin, too, the army has withdrawn its forces
from the terrorist stronghold neighborhood in which
the fierce battles of the previous two weeks took
place. The soldiers continue to surround the area.

After almost two weeks of "Jenin Massacre!"
headlines, the world press has been forced to face
the truth: There was none. Journalist David Bedein
of Israel Resource News Agency reports that
since Sunday, when the IDF began allowing
reporters into Jenin, the real story has turned out to
be somewhat less dramatic than that which some
of them had been reporting. Washington Post
correspondent Molly Moore wrote, "Interviews
with residents inside the camp and international aid
workers who were allowed here for the first time
today indicated that no evidence has yet surfaced
to support allegations by Palestinian groups and aid
organizations of large-scale massacres or
executions by Israeli troops."

This contrasted strongly, for instance, with the way
James Bennet opened his report from Jenin for
The New York Times last Friday: "Palestinians
here describe bodies cut in pieces, bodies scooped
up by bulldozers and buried in mass graves, bodies
deliberately concealed under collapsed buildings.
They describe people drinking out of sewers and
people used by Israeli soldiers as human shields."
Bedein notes that Bennet's report "did very little to
challenge the tendentiousness and questionable
nature of such 'eyewitness' testimony."

Col. Gal Hirsh, Head of Operations in the IDF
Central Command, explained that Jenin remained a
closed military zone even after the fighting was
over because, "We are trying to find all these
bodies and trying to remove the booby traps from
them... It is very complicated, very dangerous...
We are trying to take all the explosives, all the
hand grenades, all the booby traps from the bodies
and the houses..." Several bodies were in fact
found to have been booby-trapped.

The PLO's WAFA press service, however, took
advantage of Israel's refusal to allow the media
into Jenin, making unfounded claims of "500 dead
Palestinians piled up in the streets." Bedein notes
that organizations such as Physicians for Human
Rights and Amnesty International uncritically
believed these allegations, and were followed
dutifully by international media outlets, many of
which "devoted huge amounts of ink to such
unverified tales of conspiracies, rapes, executions,
and war crimes... The credibility of Palestinian
'eyewitness testimony' was barely questioned,
despite the PLO track record of fabricating false
claims. Who will ever forget the fallacious reports
from the Red Crescent in Lebanon back in June
1982 that the IDF had killed 10,000 people and
made 600,000 homeless?"

Bedein writes that tens of "European media outlets
and Arab foreign ministries described the fighting
in Jenin in terms of 'genocide,' 'unprecedented
humanitarian disaster,' 'Sabra and Shatilla #2,' 'A
campaign of revenge and murder, 'Nazi ethnical
cleansing,' and worse. European articles focused
mainly on the physical damage to buildings due to
Israeli tanks moving through the camp, and failed
to mention the fact that many of the buildings and
streets were rigged with explosives which were
set off by the many terrorist cells operating in the
refuge camp.

In general, Israel's comments on what was
actually happening in Jenin were mostly ignored by
world media. In a briefing last Friday, Col. Hirsh
said,
"When you think of the term refugee camp, you
think of poor and helpless people. This is not the
case! Jenin Refugee Camp was actually a strong
combat zone - a real military and terrorist
infrastructure. These people decided to fight, and
we had to fight back... I've heard the rumors of
500-600 Palestinians dead. These are lies. We had
no choice but to destroy the terrorist infrastructure
- everyday there were terrorists' acts dispatched
from Jenin Refugee Camp. The operation in Jenin
cost us the lives of 23 soldiers and many were
injured. I regret that some Palestinian civilians
were injured and some were killed. We were
fighting against armed terrorists. We asked the
Palestinian civilians to evacuate their homes so
they would not get hurt, some chose not to. Most
of the Palestinians that were killed were armed
terrorists; many had explosive devices strapped to
their bodies. We found a lot of evidence of
terrorist activity, for example, labs for explosive
devices. We are talking about an organized
terrorist infrastructure throughout Judea and
Samaria."

"The media were forced to cope with the fact that
a 'massacre' was turned into a few dozen
casualties," Bedein concludes, "but some reporters
just could not bring themselves to 'adjust' their
story to the facts on the ground."

Quote:I guess having an opinion about world events is a bad thing.

Quote:And cunt I agree

Quote:PA Cabinet Minister Hanan Ashrawi said: 'It's not up to israel to decide or define who is our enemy. Hamas is not the enemy, it's part of the political fabric.'
Abbas Zakai of Fatah said: '[Hamas's attacks] strengthen the Palestinian position... It would be dangerous to stop these actions, because the accords will crumble if there is nothing to make Israel go forward.'
PA Justice Minister Freih Abu Medein stated: 'The PA and the [Hamas] opposition complement eachother...We regard Hamas and Islamic Jihad as national elements... The main enemy, now and forever, is Israel.'

Quote:Kid was right. Let's get things straight here in the US before we worry about anywhere else. Then when our mess is cleaned up, we can provide support or supervise the clean up of someone else's mess.

Quote:arpi, i'm dissappointed in you. the people who've posted in this thread definitely don't appear to be attacking the jews, or supporting the palestinians. i understand that it's a very emotional subject, but for you to call them and/or their parents "jew haters" is just fucking ridiculous.