'Jenin, Jenin' director tells court film based entirely on truth

Haaretz 22:08 09/03/2008
By Ofra Edelman, Haaretz Correspondent

The director of the film "Jenin, Jenin," Mohammed Bakri, testified on Sunday in the libel suit brought against him by five Israel Defense Forces reserve soldiers that he would swear on all holy books that there were no falsehoods in the movie. Judge Michal Nadav of the Petah Tikva District Court recommended the parties reach an agreement. Their lawyers refused the judge's proposed agreement, but said they would try to compromise.
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Bakri's film critically depicts the IDF's Operation Defensive Shield in Jenin in 2002, and ascribes war crimes to the army. The five reservists argued that the movie had sullied their good name because the public knew they took part in the operation, after an interview they gave and another movie in which they appeared. One scene in "Jenin, Jenin" depicts an armored personnel carrier moving toward a group of Palestinians, and someone shouting, "It's going to run them over." The next scene shows bodies being removed, creating the false impression than the APC had killed the Palestinians. When asked by attorney Amir Tytunovich why he had edited the film this way, Bakri said he never imagined anyone would think the tank had run over the Palestinians. Bakri conceded that the tanks had not run over the Palestinians, although the photographer, whose excited voice can be heard in the background, obviously thought it was going to. Bakri said he had never admitted this editing was a mistake, but Tytunovich then showed the court a televised interview in which Bakri admitted he had made a mistake and would not do so again if he were to remake the film, "if only to avoid what you are now saying." Bakri said he would swear that everything in the film was true because he believed people, although he had not checked everything because he is "not an investigator, a policeman or a lawyer." The IDF's operation in Jenin stirred controversy after the Palestinians termed the event a massacre, suggesting that some 500 people had been killed during the raid. About five days after the foogjtomh. a Palestinian minister told the UPI news agency that the death toll had reached into the thousands, adding that Israel had buried the victims in mass graves under razed buildings. A subsequent UN investigation found that a total of 52 Palestinians had been killed during the clashes, most of them armed militants. Twenty-three IDF soldiers were also killed in the fighting.