AP Wednesday, 26 July 2006
The UN secretary general Kofi Annan says an Israeli attack on a UN observation post was "apparently deliberate". Four unarmed military observers were killed in the air strike in southern Lebanon.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, spoke by phone to Mr Annan. Mr Olmert expressed his "deep regret" and said the peacekeepers were killed mistakenly. He expressed dismay over Mr Annan's accusation and promised a thorough investigation , saying the results would be presented to Mr Annan.
Mr Annan later called for participants at a Mideast conference to push for an immediate ceasefire to end fighting between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas.
Hizbollah must stop its "deliberate targeting of Israeli population centers". And Israel must put an end to all bombing, ground operations and blockades of Lebanese ports.
In a statement in Rome, Mr Annan said: "A key stipulation for such a halt in fighting would be that the parties must not, I repeat, must not take advantage of such a pause to conduct offense operations, redeploy or resupply." And he added that an international force will be vital to keeping peace.
Since fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militants began two weeks ago, there had been several dozen incidents of firing close to UN peacekeepers and observers, including direct hits on nine positions, some of them repeatedly, a UN official said.
As a result of these attacks, 12 UN personnel have been killed or injured, the official said.
Last night's bomb made a direct hit on the building and shelter of the observer post in the town of Khiam, near the eastern end of the border with Israel, said Milos Struger, spokesman for the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon known as Unifil.
Four unarmed military observers were in a bunker and the bunker collapsed as a result of the bombing, the UN official said.
Rescue workers were trying to clear the rubble, but Israeli firing " continued even during the rescue operation", Struger said.
Annan said two UN military observers were killed with two more feared dead. Later, the UN official confirmed that a third body was recovered from the rubble.
The victims included observers from Austria, Canada, China and Finland, UN and Lebanese military officials said.
Chinese foreign minister Li Zhaoxing said he was saddened by the news and that it showed "we should try harder to call on the parties to be restrained and to be calm and restore the peace process of the Middle East immediately".
China's official Xinhua News Agency identified the Chinese victim as Du Zhaoyu.
It was not immediately known which of the others were confirmed dead.
Annan said the "co-ordinated artillery and aerial attack on a long-established and clearly marked UN post at Khiam occurred despite personal assurances given to me by prime minister Ehud Olmert that UN positions would be spared Israeli fire."
Furthermore, he said, General Alain Pelligrini, the UN force commander in south Lebanon, had been in repeated contact with Israeli officers throughout yesterday "stressing the need to protect that particular UN position from attack".
But Gillerman said he was "shocked and deeply distressed by the hasty statement of the secretary general, insinuating that Israel has deliberately targeted the UN post", calling the assertions "premature and erroneous".
He said Olmert's assurances to the secretary-general were "a clear indication" of Israel's commitment to ensure the safety and security of UN personnel.
As reports of the attack emerged, Annan rushed out of a hotel in Rome following a dinner with US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and Lebanese prime minister Fuad Saniora.
"I am shocked and deeply distressed by the apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defence Forces of a UN observer post in southern Lebanon," Annan said in a statement later.
"I call on the government of Israel to conduct a full investigation into this very disturbing incident and demand that any further attack on UN positions and personnel must stop."
Gillerman said "Israel is carrying out a thorough inquiry into this tragic incident and will inform the UN of its results as soon as possible".
The UN Security Council is expected to receive a briefing on the bombing today.
Since Israel launched a massive military offensive against Lebanon and Hezbollah guerillas on July 12, a Nigerian civilian employee working with Unifil and his wife had been killed in the crossfire in the southern port city of Tyre.
Five Unifil soldiers and one military observer had also been wounded, Struger said. They included four Ghanaians injured by artillery fire on Monday and a peacekeeper shot through the back on July 23.
mercredi 26 juillet 2006
Four UN observers die in Israeli air strike as heavy fighting continues in Lebanon
By Donald Macintyre in Avivim, northern Israel
The Independent Wednesday, 26 July 2006
Four United Nations observers were killed last night in an Israeli raid on their post at the border town of Khiam in south Lebanon. The UN secretary general suggested last night that it had been deliberately targeted.
The observers, said by Lebanese officials to have been an Austrian, a Canadian, a Chinese and a Finn, were killed when the post's building and shelter were bombed.
Milos Struger, the spokesman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil), the 28-year old-year old peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, said rescue workers had to dig through the rubble but that Israeli fire " continued even during the rescue operation".
In Rome, where he had been discussing the 14-day-old conflict with Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, and Fouad Siniora, the Lebanese Prime Minister Mr Annan protested at what he called the "apparently deliberate targeting" by the Israel Defence Forces of the post and demanded a full investigation. There was no immediate comment from the IDF.
Israel has long criticised Unifil for being "innefective" and not standing up to Hizbollah. Beside triggering a probable wave of international protest, the deaths of the four observers may complicate further the search for a ceaefire agreement under which a multinational force would take over control of the southern border areas of Lebanon.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President, also warned that the conflict between Lebanon and Israel could trigger "a hurricane" of broader fighting in the Middle East. Iran is a major backer of Hizbollah and a sworn enemy of Israel. In his comments, he referred to a proverb that says: " He who raises the wind will get a hurricane." He added: "That proverb fully relates to the Middle East, which is a very volatile region. And it will be a strong hurricane which will strike really hard."
Egypt and Saudi Arabia, facing popular anger over Israel's offensive, toughened their stance yesterday warning the US that Israeli militarism could lead to a wider conflict in the region.
Meanwhile, Da'aa Abbas, 15, became the fourth Arab Israeli to die in the conflict killed in the Galilee village of Maghar as Hizbollah launched 90 to 100 rockets at northern Israel.
Amir Peretz, the Israeli Defence Minister, said Israel will enforce a " security zone" in southern Lebanon until such time as a multinational force moves in to control the Lebanese border area. The remarks by Mr Peretz appeared to set the seal on Israel's conversion to the idea of a Western-led international military deployment to keep Hizbollah guerrillas from threatening Israel, if and when the still slow-moving diplomatic efforts to broker a ceasefire succeed.
Beirut was heavily bombarded from the air yesterday after Israeli military aircraft killed six people in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh, and Israeli troops sealed off the town of Bint Jbeil, 15 miles farther south, which it regards as a Hizbollah stronghold.
Ms Rice said yesterday, after meeting Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, in Israel that any Lebanon ceasefire would have to be " enduring" as well as urgent, and that the US was seeking a "new Middle East".
Ms Rice, who arrived in Rome last night to meet European and Arab leaders, supposedly to thrash out terms of a putative ceasefire, said there was " no desire" on the part of US officials to come back weeks or months after a ceasefire because, she implied, Hizbollah had again found a way to undermine it.
Her remarks came as Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign affairs envoy, said he would be calling for a "ceasefire process" at the summit, and added that European countries would have to take part. " Without European, without some Europeans, the force will not exist," he said.
There have been suggestions in Israel that such a force, which it would prefer to be under the aegis of Nato, would require 20,000 troops twice as many as the deployment being talked about in Western capitals. While Mr Solana did not say so, France has been seen as a potential contributor.
Mr Solana refrained from saying he would call for an "immediate ceasefire" apparently out of deference to Britain, which has joined the US in refraining from such a demand.
Israeli officials have suggested that the US has informally given licence to Israel to maintain its assault in Lebanon until at least the beginning of next week.
The death of the Arab Israel girl came amid continuing indications from Israeli officers, and troops at the border, of the stiff resistance put up by Hizbollah to the tank and infantry incursions into southern Lebanon over the past few days. Heavy fighting around the village of Maroun ar-Ras cost the lives of seven Israeli soldiers at the end of last week.
Brigadier General Shuki Shachar, the deputy head of the Israeli Defence Forces northern command, said the army had taken the "high positions" around Beit Jbeil to pursue its operations against Hizbollah rather than occupying the town itself after persuading most of its 20,000 civilians to leave. He said the civilians would not be allowed back as long as Hizbollah threatened Israel. Major Eran Carraso, who served in Lebanon before the Israeli withdrawal in 2000, said the effectiveness of Hizbollah forces had notably improved.
A 21-year-old tank commander who had just spent 80 hours in Lebanon and gave only his first name, Erez, said the operation had been very different from his service in the West Bank. But he insisted that Hizbollah fighters were "cowards" because they fired missiles and then went into hiding.
One of the more remarkable sights on the border yesterday was the return of a foot patrol with llamas, which the Israeli army recently decided were especially suitable beasts of burden for operations inside the hilly terrain of southern Lebanon.
The mounting toll
* Number of Lebanese people killed in the two-week conflict: 422, of whom 375 were civilians.
* A further 27 Hizbollah guerrillas have been killed and 20 Lebanese soldiers.
* Number of Israeli dead since the conflict began: 42, of whom 18 were civilians and 24 soldiers.
* Number of Palestinians killed by Israel in the Gaza Strip since the capture of Cpl Gilad Shalit: 121.
* Number of Israeli air strikes on Lebanon yesterday: 100.
* Hizbollah rockets fired yesterday: 80.
* The Israel Defence Force claimed yesterday to have hit 10 Hizbollah buildings.
* That adds up to an estimated $1bn ($600m) in damage to infrastructure.
* Number of Lebanese bridges destroyed: 105
* The number of Israeli bridges destroyed: 0.
* Number of Lebanese ports bombed: 3.
* Estimate of the number of Lebanese people displaced in the fighting: 750,000.
* Lebanon has 2,000 UN troops who have been in the south since 1978.
* The value of arms exported to Israel from the UK in the past 18 months: £25m.
* The number of Britons evacuated from Lebanon by yesterday evening: 2,526.
* Israel's military spending: $9.45bn (in 1995); Lebanon: $540
The Independent Wednesday, 26 July 2006
Four United Nations observers were killed last night in an Israeli raid on their post at the border town of Khiam in south Lebanon. The UN secretary general suggested last night that it had been deliberately targeted.
The observers, said by Lebanese officials to have been an Austrian, a Canadian, a Chinese and a Finn, were killed when the post's building and shelter were bombed.
Milos Struger, the spokesman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil), the 28-year old-year old peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, said rescue workers had to dig through the rubble but that Israeli fire " continued even during the rescue operation".
In Rome, where he had been discussing the 14-day-old conflict with Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, and Fouad Siniora, the Lebanese Prime Minister Mr Annan protested at what he called the "apparently deliberate targeting" by the Israel Defence Forces of the post and demanded a full investigation. There was no immediate comment from the IDF.
Israel has long criticised Unifil for being "innefective" and not standing up to Hizbollah. Beside triggering a probable wave of international protest, the deaths of the four observers may complicate further the search for a ceaefire agreement under which a multinational force would take over control of the southern border areas of Lebanon.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President, also warned that the conflict between Lebanon and Israel could trigger "a hurricane" of broader fighting in the Middle East. Iran is a major backer of Hizbollah and a sworn enemy of Israel. In his comments, he referred to a proverb that says: " He who raises the wind will get a hurricane." He added: "That proverb fully relates to the Middle East, which is a very volatile region. And it will be a strong hurricane which will strike really hard."
Egypt and Saudi Arabia, facing popular anger over Israel's offensive, toughened their stance yesterday warning the US that Israeli militarism could lead to a wider conflict in the region.
Meanwhile, Da'aa Abbas, 15, became the fourth Arab Israeli to die in the conflict killed in the Galilee village of Maghar as Hizbollah launched 90 to 100 rockets at northern Israel.
Amir Peretz, the Israeli Defence Minister, said Israel will enforce a " security zone" in southern Lebanon until such time as a multinational force moves in to control the Lebanese border area. The remarks by Mr Peretz appeared to set the seal on Israel's conversion to the idea of a Western-led international military deployment to keep Hizbollah guerrillas from threatening Israel, if and when the still slow-moving diplomatic efforts to broker a ceasefire succeed.
Beirut was heavily bombarded from the air yesterday after Israeli military aircraft killed six people in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh, and Israeli troops sealed off the town of Bint Jbeil, 15 miles farther south, which it regards as a Hizbollah stronghold.
Ms Rice said yesterday, after meeting Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, in Israel that any Lebanon ceasefire would have to be " enduring" as well as urgent, and that the US was seeking a "new Middle East".
Ms Rice, who arrived in Rome last night to meet European and Arab leaders, supposedly to thrash out terms of a putative ceasefire, said there was " no desire" on the part of US officials to come back weeks or months after a ceasefire because, she implied, Hizbollah had again found a way to undermine it.
Her remarks came as Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign affairs envoy, said he would be calling for a "ceasefire process" at the summit, and added that European countries would have to take part. " Without European, without some Europeans, the force will not exist," he said.
There have been suggestions in Israel that such a force, which it would prefer to be under the aegis of Nato, would require 20,000 troops twice as many as the deployment being talked about in Western capitals. While Mr Solana did not say so, France has been seen as a potential contributor.
Mr Solana refrained from saying he would call for an "immediate ceasefire" apparently out of deference to Britain, which has joined the US in refraining from such a demand.
Israeli officials have suggested that the US has informally given licence to Israel to maintain its assault in Lebanon until at least the beginning of next week.
The death of the Arab Israel girl came amid continuing indications from Israeli officers, and troops at the border, of the stiff resistance put up by Hizbollah to the tank and infantry incursions into southern Lebanon over the past few days. Heavy fighting around the village of Maroun ar-Ras cost the lives of seven Israeli soldiers at the end of last week.
Brigadier General Shuki Shachar, the deputy head of the Israeli Defence Forces northern command, said the army had taken the "high positions" around Beit Jbeil to pursue its operations against Hizbollah rather than occupying the town itself after persuading most of its 20,000 civilians to leave. He said the civilians would not be allowed back as long as Hizbollah threatened Israel. Major Eran Carraso, who served in Lebanon before the Israeli withdrawal in 2000, said the effectiveness of Hizbollah forces had notably improved.
A 21-year-old tank commander who had just spent 80 hours in Lebanon and gave only his first name, Erez, said the operation had been very different from his service in the West Bank. But he insisted that Hizbollah fighters were "cowards" because they fired missiles and then went into hiding.
One of the more remarkable sights on the border yesterday was the return of a foot patrol with llamas, which the Israeli army recently decided were especially suitable beasts of burden for operations inside the hilly terrain of southern Lebanon.
The mounting toll
* Number of Lebanese people killed in the two-week conflict: 422, of whom 375 were civilians.
* A further 27 Hizbollah guerrillas have been killed and 20 Lebanese soldiers.
* Number of Israeli dead since the conflict began: 42, of whom 18 were civilians and 24 soldiers.
* Number of Palestinians killed by Israel in the Gaza Strip since the capture of Cpl Gilad Shalit: 121.
* Number of Israeli air strikes on Lebanon yesterday: 100.
* Hizbollah rockets fired yesterday: 80.
* The Israel Defence Force claimed yesterday to have hit 10 Hizbollah buildings.
* That adds up to an estimated $1bn ($600m) in damage to infrastructure.
* Number of Lebanese bridges destroyed: 105
* The number of Israeli bridges destroyed: 0.
* Number of Lebanese ports bombed: 3.
* Estimate of the number of Lebanese people displaced in the fighting: 750,000.
* Lebanon has 2,000 UN troops who have been in the south since 1978.
* The value of arms exported to Israel from the UK in the past 18 months: £25m.
* The number of Britons evacuated from Lebanon by yesterday evening: 2,526.
* Israel's military spending: $9.45bn (in 1995); Lebanon: $540
Robert Fisk: Israeli missiles had clearly pierced the very centre of the red cross on the roof of each ambulance
From Qlaya, Southern Lebanon
The Independent Wednesday, 26 July 2006
The battle for Southern Lebanon is on an epic scale but from the heights above Khiam, the Israelis appear to be in deep trouble. Their F-16s turn in the high bright sun - small silver fish whose whispers gain in volume as they dive - and their bombs burst over the old prison where the Hizbollah are still holding out; but beyond the frontier, I can see livid fires burning across the Israeli hillside and the Jewish settlement of Metullah billowing smoke.
It was not meant to be like this, 13 days into Israel's assault on Lebanon. The Katyushas still streak in pairs out of Khiam, white contrails that thump into Israel's hillsides and border towns. So is it frustration or revenge that also keeps Israel's bombs falling on the innocent? In the early hours of yesterday morning, a tremendous explosion woke me up, rattling the windows and shaking the trees outside and a single flash suffused the western sky over Nabatea. The lives of an entire family of seven had just been extinguished.
And how come - since this now obsesses the humanitarian organisations working in Lebanon - that the Israelis bombed two ambulances in Qana, killing two of the wounded inside and wounding the third civilian for the second time in a day. All the crews were injured - one with a piece of shrapnel in his neck - but what worried the Lebanese Red Cross was that the Israeli missiles had clearly pierced the very centre of the red cross painted on the roof of each vehicle. Did the pilots use the cross as their aiming point?
The bombardment of Khiam has set off its own brushfires on the hillside below Qlaya, whose Maronite Christian inhabitants now stand on the high road above like spectators at a 19th century battle. Khiam is - or was - a pretty village of cut stone doorways and tracery windows but Israel's target is the notorious prison in which - before its retreat from Lebanon in 2000 - hundreds of Hizbollah members and in some cases their families were held and tortured with electricity by Israel's proxy South Lebanon Army militia.
This was the same prison complex - turned into a 'Museum of Torture' by the Hizbollah after the Israeli retreat that was visited by the late Edward Said shortly before his death. More important, however, is that many of the Hizbollah men originally held prisoner here were captives in cells built deep underground below the old French mandate fort. These same men are now fighting the Israelis, almost certainly sheltering from their firepower in the same underground cells in which they once languished, perhaps even storing some of their missiles there.
In Marjayoun next to Qlaya - once the SLA's headquarters - Lebanese troops are desperately trying to present Hizbollah guerrillas using the streets of the Greek Catholic town to fire yet more missiles at Israel. Seven-man army patrols are moving through the darkened alleyways of both towns at night in case Hizbollah brings yet more Israel bombs down on our heads.
In war, all one's senses are quickened. Dawn, birds, music, flowers acquire a new meaning. A family is still living in the little villa opposite my house and I watched a woman at dusk, picking vegetables in her garden for supper, ignoring the howl of Israeli aircraft in the sky above her and the sinister changes in air pressure from their bombs.
In Beirut, one observes the folly of western nations with amusement as well as horror but sitting in these hill villages and listening to how US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to reshape Lebanon is clearly a lesson in human self-delusion.
According to American correspondents accompanying Ms Rice on her visit to the Middle East, she is proposing the intervention of a NATO-led force along the Lebanese-Israeli border for between 60 and 90 days to assure that a ceasefire exists, the deployment after this of an enlarged NATO-led force throughout Lebanon to ensure the disarmament of Hezbollah, and then the retraining of the Lebanese Army before it too deploys to the border. This plan - which like all American proposals on Lebanon is exactly the same as Israel's demands - carries the same depth of delusional conceit as that of the Israeli consul-general in New York who said last week that 'most Lebanese appreciate what we are doing.'
Does Ms Rice think the Hizbollah want to be disarmed, albeit it under the terms of UN Security Council resolution 1559? By NATO? Wasn't there a NATO force in Beirut which fled Lebanon after a group close to the Hizbollah bombed the US marine base at Beirut airport in 1983, killing 241 US servicemen, and dozens more French troops a few seconds later? Does anyone believe that Shiite Muslim forces will not do the same again to any NATO 'intervention' force. The Hizbollah have been waiting and training and dreaming of this war for years, however ruthless we may regard their actions. They are not going to surrender the territory they liberated from the Israeli Army in an 18-year guerrilla war, least of all to NATO at Israel's bidding.
The problem, surely, is that the United States sees this bloodbath as an 'opportunity' rather than a tragedy, a chance to humble Hizbollah's supporters in Tehran and help to shape the 'new Middle East' of which Ms Rice spoke so blandly yesterday. In fact it will more likely to prove to be Syria's attempt to humble Israel and the United States in Lebanon.
Of course, the Hizbollah have brought catastrophe to their coreligionists. All the way down the Beka'a Valley to Southern Lebanon, the long, dangerous, bomb-cratered roads I had to travel to reach Qlaya were deserted save for cars driven by panicking men, crammed with families, trailing white sheets out of the windows in the forlorn hope - after all the Israeli air attacks on civilians - that this would provide them with protection.
The only civilian walking these frightening roads was a goatherd, shepherding his animals around the huge craters. Talking to him, it emerged that he was almost stone deaf and could not hear the bombs. In this, it seemed, he had a lot in common with Condoleezza Rice.
The Independent Wednesday, 26 July 2006
The battle for Southern Lebanon is on an epic scale but from the heights above Khiam, the Israelis appear to be in deep trouble. Their F-16s turn in the high bright sun - small silver fish whose whispers gain in volume as they dive - and their bombs burst over the old prison where the Hizbollah are still holding out; but beyond the frontier, I can see livid fires burning across the Israeli hillside and the Jewish settlement of Metullah billowing smoke.
It was not meant to be like this, 13 days into Israel's assault on Lebanon. The Katyushas still streak in pairs out of Khiam, white contrails that thump into Israel's hillsides and border towns. So is it frustration or revenge that also keeps Israel's bombs falling on the innocent? In the early hours of yesterday morning, a tremendous explosion woke me up, rattling the windows and shaking the trees outside and a single flash suffused the western sky over Nabatea. The lives of an entire family of seven had just been extinguished.
And how come - since this now obsesses the humanitarian organisations working in Lebanon - that the Israelis bombed two ambulances in Qana, killing two of the wounded inside and wounding the third civilian for the second time in a day. All the crews were injured - one with a piece of shrapnel in his neck - but what worried the Lebanese Red Cross was that the Israeli missiles had clearly pierced the very centre of the red cross painted on the roof of each vehicle. Did the pilots use the cross as their aiming point?
The bombardment of Khiam has set off its own brushfires on the hillside below Qlaya, whose Maronite Christian inhabitants now stand on the high road above like spectators at a 19th century battle. Khiam is - or was - a pretty village of cut stone doorways and tracery windows but Israel's target is the notorious prison in which - before its retreat from Lebanon in 2000 - hundreds of Hizbollah members and in some cases their families were held and tortured with electricity by Israel's proxy South Lebanon Army militia.
This was the same prison complex - turned into a 'Museum of Torture' by the Hizbollah after the Israeli retreat that was visited by the late Edward Said shortly before his death. More important, however, is that many of the Hizbollah men originally held prisoner here were captives in cells built deep underground below the old French mandate fort. These same men are now fighting the Israelis, almost certainly sheltering from their firepower in the same underground cells in which they once languished, perhaps even storing some of their missiles there.
In Marjayoun next to Qlaya - once the SLA's headquarters - Lebanese troops are desperately trying to present Hizbollah guerrillas using the streets of the Greek Catholic town to fire yet more missiles at Israel. Seven-man army patrols are moving through the darkened alleyways of both towns at night in case Hizbollah brings yet more Israel bombs down on our heads.
In war, all one's senses are quickened. Dawn, birds, music, flowers acquire a new meaning. A family is still living in the little villa opposite my house and I watched a woman at dusk, picking vegetables in her garden for supper, ignoring the howl of Israeli aircraft in the sky above her and the sinister changes in air pressure from their bombs.
In Beirut, one observes the folly of western nations with amusement as well as horror but sitting in these hill villages and listening to how US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to reshape Lebanon is clearly a lesson in human self-delusion.
According to American correspondents accompanying Ms Rice on her visit to the Middle East, she is proposing the intervention of a NATO-led force along the Lebanese-Israeli border for between 60 and 90 days to assure that a ceasefire exists, the deployment after this of an enlarged NATO-led force throughout Lebanon to ensure the disarmament of Hezbollah, and then the retraining of the Lebanese Army before it too deploys to the border. This plan - which like all American proposals on Lebanon is exactly the same as Israel's demands - carries the same depth of delusional conceit as that of the Israeli consul-general in New York who said last week that 'most Lebanese appreciate what we are doing.'
Does Ms Rice think the Hizbollah want to be disarmed, albeit it under the terms of UN Security Council resolution 1559? By NATO? Wasn't there a NATO force in Beirut which fled Lebanon after a group close to the Hizbollah bombed the US marine base at Beirut airport in 1983, killing 241 US servicemen, and dozens more French troops a few seconds later? Does anyone believe that Shiite Muslim forces will not do the same again to any NATO 'intervention' force. The Hizbollah have been waiting and training and dreaming of this war for years, however ruthless we may regard their actions. They are not going to surrender the territory they liberated from the Israeli Army in an 18-year guerrilla war, least of all to NATO at Israel's bidding.
The problem, surely, is that the United States sees this bloodbath as an 'opportunity' rather than a tragedy, a chance to humble Hizbollah's supporters in Tehran and help to shape the 'new Middle East' of which Ms Rice spoke so blandly yesterday. In fact it will more likely to prove to be Syria's attempt to humble Israel and the United States in Lebanon.
Of course, the Hizbollah have brought catastrophe to their coreligionists. All the way down the Beka'a Valley to Southern Lebanon, the long, dangerous, bomb-cratered roads I had to travel to reach Qlaya were deserted save for cars driven by panicking men, crammed with families, trailing white sheets out of the windows in the forlorn hope - after all the Israeli air attacks on civilians - that this would provide them with protection.
The only civilian walking these frightening roads was a goatherd, shepherding his animals around the huge craters. Talking to him, it emerged that he was almost stone deaf and could not hear the bombs. In this, it seemed, he had a lot in common with Condoleezza Rice.
Oren Ben-Dor: Who are the real terrorists in the Middle East?
What exactly is being defended? Is it the citizens of Israel or the nature of the Israeli state?
The Independent Wednesday, 26 July 2006
As its citizens are being killed, Israel is, yet again, inflicting death and destruction on Lebanon. It tries to portray this horror as necessary for its self-defence. Indeed, the casual observer might regard the rocket attacks on Israeli cities such as Haifa and my own home town, Nahariya, as justifying this claim.
While states should defend their citizens, states which fail this duty should be questioned and, if necessary, reconfigured. Israel is a state which, instead of defending its citizens, puts all of them, Jews as well as non-Jews, in danger.
What exactly is being defended by the violence in Gaza and Lebanon? Is it the citizens of Israel or the nature of the Israeli state? I suggest the latter. Israel's statehood is based on an unjust ideology which causes indignity and suffering for those who are classified as non-Jewish by either a religious or ethnic test. To hide this primordial immorality, Israel fosters an image of victimhood. Provoking violence, consciously or unconsciously, against which one must defend oneself is a key feature of the victim-mentality. By perpetuating such a tragic cycle, Israel is a terrorist state like no other.
Many who wish to hide the immorality of the Israeli state do so by restricting attention to the horrors of the post-1967 occupation and talking about a two-state solution, since endorsing a Palestinian state implicitly endorses the ideology behind a Jewish one.
The very creation of Israel required an act of terror. In 1948, most of the non-Jewish indigenous people were ethnically cleansed from the part of Palestine which became Israel. This action was carefully planned. Without it, no state with a Jewish majority and character would have been possible. Since 1948, the "Israeli Arabs", those Palestinians who avoided expulsion, have suffered continuous discrimination. Indeed, many have been internally displaced, ostensibly for "security reasons", but really to acquire their lands for Jews.
Surely Holocaust memory and Jewish longing for Eretz Israel would not be sufficient to justify ethnic cleansing and ethnocracy? To avoid the destabilisation that would result from ethical inquiry, the Israeli state must hide the core problem, by nourishing a victim mentality among Israeli Jews.
To sustain that mentality and to preserve an impression of victimhood among outsiders, Israel must breed conditions for violence. Whenever prospects of violence against it subside, Israel must do its utmost to regenerate them: the myth that it is a peace-seeking victim which has "no partner for peace" is a key panel in the screen with which Israel hides its primordial and continuing immorality.
Israel's successful campaign to silence criticism of its initial and continuing dispossession of the indigenous Palestinians leaves the latter no option but to resort to violent resistance. In the wake of electing Hamas - the only party which, in the eyes of Palestinians, has not yet given up their cause - the Palestinian population of Gaza and the West Bank were subjected to an Israeli campaign of starvation, humiliation and violence.
The insincere "withdrawal" from Gaza, and the subsequent blockade, ensured a chronicle of violence which, so far, includes Palestinian firing of Kasem rockets, the capture of an Israeli soldier and the Israeli near re-occupation of Gaza. What we witness is more hatred, more violence from Palestinians, more humiliation and collective punishments from Israelis - all useful reinforcement for the Israeli victim mentality and for the sacred cow status of Israeli statehood.
The truth is that there never could have been a partition of Palestine by ethically acceptable means. Israel was created through terror and it needs terror to cover-up its core immorality. Whenever there is a glimmer of stability, the state orders a targeted assassination, such as that in Sidon which preceded the current Lebanon crisis, knowing well that this brings not security but more violence. Israel's unilateralism and the cycle of violence nourish one another.
Amidst the violence and despite the conventional discourse which hides the root of this violence, actuality calls upon us to think. The more we silence its voice, the more violently actuality is sure to speak.
In Hebrew, the word elem (a stunned silence resulting from oppression or shock) is etymologically linked to the word almut (violence). Silence about the immoral core of Israeli statehood makes us all complicit in breeding the terrorism that threatens a catastrophe which could tear the world apart.
okbendor@yahoo.com
The writer teaches the philosophy of law and political philosophy at University of Southampton
The Independent Wednesday, 26 July 2006
As its citizens are being killed, Israel is, yet again, inflicting death and destruction on Lebanon. It tries to portray this horror as necessary for its self-defence. Indeed, the casual observer might regard the rocket attacks on Israeli cities such as Haifa and my own home town, Nahariya, as justifying this claim.
While states should defend their citizens, states which fail this duty should be questioned and, if necessary, reconfigured. Israel is a state which, instead of defending its citizens, puts all of them, Jews as well as non-Jews, in danger.
What exactly is being defended by the violence in Gaza and Lebanon? Is it the citizens of Israel or the nature of the Israeli state? I suggest the latter. Israel's statehood is based on an unjust ideology which causes indignity and suffering for those who are classified as non-Jewish by either a religious or ethnic test. To hide this primordial immorality, Israel fosters an image of victimhood. Provoking violence, consciously or unconsciously, against which one must defend oneself is a key feature of the victim-mentality. By perpetuating such a tragic cycle, Israel is a terrorist state like no other.
Many who wish to hide the immorality of the Israeli state do so by restricting attention to the horrors of the post-1967 occupation and talking about a two-state solution, since endorsing a Palestinian state implicitly endorses the ideology behind a Jewish one.
The very creation of Israel required an act of terror. In 1948, most of the non-Jewish indigenous people were ethnically cleansed from the part of Palestine which became Israel. This action was carefully planned. Without it, no state with a Jewish majority and character would have been possible. Since 1948, the "Israeli Arabs", those Palestinians who avoided expulsion, have suffered continuous discrimination. Indeed, many have been internally displaced, ostensibly for "security reasons", but really to acquire their lands for Jews.
Surely Holocaust memory and Jewish longing for Eretz Israel would not be sufficient to justify ethnic cleansing and ethnocracy? To avoid the destabilisation that would result from ethical inquiry, the Israeli state must hide the core problem, by nourishing a victim mentality among Israeli Jews.
To sustain that mentality and to preserve an impression of victimhood among outsiders, Israel must breed conditions for violence. Whenever prospects of violence against it subside, Israel must do its utmost to regenerate them: the myth that it is a peace-seeking victim which has "no partner for peace" is a key panel in the screen with which Israel hides its primordial and continuing immorality.
Israel's successful campaign to silence criticism of its initial and continuing dispossession of the indigenous Palestinians leaves the latter no option but to resort to violent resistance. In the wake of electing Hamas - the only party which, in the eyes of Palestinians, has not yet given up their cause - the Palestinian population of Gaza and the West Bank were subjected to an Israeli campaign of starvation, humiliation and violence.
The insincere "withdrawal" from Gaza, and the subsequent blockade, ensured a chronicle of violence which, so far, includes Palestinian firing of Kasem rockets, the capture of an Israeli soldier and the Israeli near re-occupation of Gaza. What we witness is more hatred, more violence from Palestinians, more humiliation and collective punishments from Israelis - all useful reinforcement for the Israeli victim mentality and for the sacred cow status of Israeli statehood.
The truth is that there never could have been a partition of Palestine by ethically acceptable means. Israel was created through terror and it needs terror to cover-up its core immorality. Whenever there is a glimmer of stability, the state orders a targeted assassination, such as that in Sidon which preceded the current Lebanon crisis, knowing well that this brings not security but more violence. Israel's unilateralism and the cycle of violence nourish one another.
Amidst the violence and despite the conventional discourse which hides the root of this violence, actuality calls upon us to think. The more we silence its voice, the more violently actuality is sure to speak.
In Hebrew, the word elem (a stunned silence resulting from oppression or shock) is etymologically linked to the word almut (violence). Silence about the immoral core of Israeli statehood makes us all complicit in breeding the terrorism that threatens a catastrophe which could tear the world apart.
okbendor@yahoo.com
The writer teaches the philosophy of law and political philosophy at University of Southampton
lundi 26 juin 2006
Israel may provide counsel to officials in war crimes trials overseas
Haaretz 08:57 26/06/2006
By Yuval Yoaz, Haaretz Correspondent
The state will provide the legal defense for state and defense establishment employees prosecuted in foreign countries or international courts for action they took as representatives of the State of Israel, according to a regulation approved Sunday by the ministerial committee for legislation. The decision comes in the wake of arrest warrants issued in Britain against senior Israel Defense Forces officials. About nine months ago, Major General Doron Almog (res.) returned from London without disembarking an El Al flight when he found out there was an arrest warrant for him in England related to the IDF's demolition of 60 homes in Rafah. Haaretz later reported that complaints were also filed in Britain against IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz and his predecessor, Moshe Ya'alon, for their involvement in the deaths of 14 Palestinian civilians when Israel assassinated Salah Shehada in July 2002. T
he chairman of the legislation committee, Justice Minister Haim Ramon, said it was essential to defend Israelis facing prosecution for carrying out their duties. "This is crucial regulation to defend to the highest office-holders who were carrying out the state's instructions - first and foremost heads of the security establishment - from hostile elements that want to harm the State of Israel by putting these office-holders on the defendant's bench." The regulation calls for the establishment of a committee to determine the extent of the state's involvement in the legal defense. In addition, the state has reserved the right to reject certain legal arguments that could be used in the individual's defense but might hamper the state's desire "to safeguard the national interest of the state in any way it deems correct."
By Yuval Yoaz, Haaretz Correspondent
The state will provide the legal defense for state and defense establishment employees prosecuted in foreign countries or international courts for action they took as representatives of the State of Israel, according to a regulation approved Sunday by the ministerial committee for legislation. The decision comes in the wake of arrest warrants issued in Britain against senior Israel Defense Forces officials. About nine months ago, Major General Doron Almog (res.) returned from London without disembarking an El Al flight when he found out there was an arrest warrant for him in England related to the IDF's demolition of 60 homes in Rafah. Haaretz later reported that complaints were also filed in Britain against IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz and his predecessor, Moshe Ya'alon, for their involvement in the deaths of 14 Palestinian civilians when Israel assassinated Salah Shehada in July 2002. T
he chairman of the legislation committee, Justice Minister Haim Ramon, said it was essential to defend Israelis facing prosecution for carrying out their duties. "This is crucial regulation to defend to the highest office-holders who were carrying out the state's instructions - first and foremost heads of the security establishment - from hostile elements that want to harm the State of Israel by putting these office-holders on the defendant's bench." The regulation calls for the establishment of a committee to determine the extent of the state's involvement in the legal defense. In addition, the state has reserved the right to reject certain legal arguments that could be used in the individual's defense but might hamper the state's desire "to safeguard the national interest of the state in any way it deems correct."
lundi 12 septembre 2005
IDF general escapes arrest by London police's anti-terrorist unit
Haaretz 08:05 12/09/2005
By Aluf Benn, Amira Hass and Ruth Sinai, Haaretz Correspondent
General (res.) Doron Almog, former head of the Israel Defense Forces' Southern Command, escaped arrest Sunday by the London police's anti-terrorist and war crimes unit, when he remained on an aircraft that had landed in Heathrow airport and returned with it to Israel several hours later. Almog had arrived in London on an El-Al flight. Israel Ambassador Zvi Hefetz learned of a plan to arrest him for allegedly perpetrating war crimes during the intifada, and quickly informed Yaki Dayan, head of the political department in Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom's bureau. In Jerusalem no one knew whether Almog was to be handed a subpoena or an arrest warrant, or who was behind the move, but they decided not to take a chance. The Foreign Ministry sent a message to Almog, through the airplane's communication systems, warning him that he could be arrested if he entered the U.K.
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Almog decided to remain on the plane. Because he had not passed border control, he was not considered to have entered Great Britain and therefore could not be handed an arrest warrant. He had been planning to raise funds in the country for a children's village for severely disabled children that he plans to build in the Negev. The request for Almog's arrest was issued by Judge Timothy Workman in London, at the request of the firm of Hickman and Rose, which specializes in human rights law. Almog was apparently suspected by the London authorities of gravely violating the Geneva Convention, a criminal violation according to British law. The warrant was issued based on one incident - demolition of a home in Rafah - but the attorneys also seek to investigate allegations concerning Almog's involvement in three other cases: the killing of a woman in her ninth month of pregnancy (Nouha al-Maqadam, March 3, 2003); the killing of three young men in northern Gaza on December 30, 2001; and the bombing of the Daraj neighborhood in Gaza on July 22, 2002, which killed Hamas' military head Salah Shehadeh and 14 other Palestinians. Last month Hickman and Rose learned of Almog's planned visit to Britain, and it submitted to Judge Workman information about the Israeli's alleged involvement in various crimes. As representatives of the families of the victims, Hickman and Rose decided to arrange for Almog to be arrested. The firm worked closely over the past months with the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza, which documents IDF operations there. One of the partners in the firm is Daniel Machover, who has dual British and Israeli citizenship. Machover told Haaretz on Sunday that his clients and his firm "were deeply sorry that Almog slipped away from the British justice system, but the fact that he feels that he cannot stand up to it, is at least significant in showing that there is no immunity for war criminals in Britain." Three years ago the Israeli embassy in Britain spirited Shaul Mofaz out of the country to evade an arrest warrant for war crimes, which was issued at the instigation of a Muslim organization. Israel later managed to terminate the legal process against Mofaz, who visited the U.K. as defense minister.
By Aluf Benn, Amira Hass and Ruth Sinai, Haaretz Correspondent
General (res.) Doron Almog, former head of the Israel Defense Forces' Southern Command, escaped arrest Sunday by the London police's anti-terrorist and war crimes unit, when he remained on an aircraft that had landed in Heathrow airport and returned with it to Israel several hours later. Almog had arrived in London on an El-Al flight. Israel Ambassador Zvi Hefetz learned of a plan to arrest him for allegedly perpetrating war crimes during the intifada, and quickly informed Yaki Dayan, head of the political department in Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom's bureau. In Jerusalem no one knew whether Almog was to be handed a subpoena or an arrest warrant, or who was behind the move, but they decided not to take a chance. The Foreign Ministry sent a message to Almog, through the airplane's communication systems, warning him that he could be arrested if he entered the U.K.
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Almog decided to remain on the plane. Because he had not passed border control, he was not considered to have entered Great Britain and therefore could not be handed an arrest warrant. He had been planning to raise funds in the country for a children's village for severely disabled children that he plans to build in the Negev. The request for Almog's arrest was issued by Judge Timothy Workman in London, at the request of the firm of Hickman and Rose, which specializes in human rights law. Almog was apparently suspected by the London authorities of gravely violating the Geneva Convention, a criminal violation according to British law. The warrant was issued based on one incident - demolition of a home in Rafah - but the attorneys also seek to investigate allegations concerning Almog's involvement in three other cases: the killing of a woman in her ninth month of pregnancy (Nouha al-Maqadam, March 3, 2003); the killing of three young men in northern Gaza on December 30, 2001; and the bombing of the Daraj neighborhood in Gaza on July 22, 2002, which killed Hamas' military head Salah Shehadeh and 14 other Palestinians. Last month Hickman and Rose learned of Almog's planned visit to Britain, and it submitted to Judge Workman information about the Israeli's alleged involvement in various crimes. As representatives of the families of the victims, Hickman and Rose decided to arrange for Almog to be arrested. The firm worked closely over the past months with the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza, which documents IDF operations there. One of the partners in the firm is Daniel Machover, who has dual British and Israeli citizenship. Machover told Haaretz on Sunday that his clients and his firm "were deeply sorry that Almog slipped away from the British justice system, but the fact that he feels that he cannot stand up to it, is at least significant in showing that there is no immunity for war criminals in Britain." Three years ago the Israeli embassy in Britain spirited Shaul Mofaz out of the country to evade an arrest warrant for war crimes, which was issued at the instigation of a Muslim organization. Israel later managed to terminate the legal process against Mofaz, who visited the U.K. as defense minister.
mardi 24 août 2004
UN agent: Apartheid regime in territories worse than S. Africa
Haaretz 02:21 24/08/2004
By Aluf Benn
South African law professor Prof. John Dugard, the special rapporteur for the United Nations on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, has written in a report to the UN General Assembly that there is "an apartheid regime" in the territories "worse than the one that existed in South Africa."
As an example, Dugard points to the roads only open to settlers, from which Palestinians are banned. In his report presented early this month, Dugard is highly critical of Israel for its "continuing violations of human rights in the territories." He said Israel is blatantly violating the International Court of Justice's ruling on the separation fence, and has declared it will not obey it. The report was disseminated among the member countries ahead of the September General Assembly session meant to discuss the fence. Dugard, a law professor from South Africa, was a member of a Truth Commission at the end of the apartheid regime, and was appointed by the UN in 2001 as special rapporteur for human rights in the West Bank and Gaza. He called for a general arms embargo against Israel in May, in response to the IDF operations in Rafah, similar to the arms embargo imposed on South Africa in 1977. According to government sources in Jerusalem, Israel is currently leaning toward cooperating with the various rapporteurs of the UN, and responding to their questions and requests.
But there are two exceptions to that rule: Dugard, and the special rapporteur for food, Jean Zigler. Israel refuses to cooperate with them because of the language of their mandates, and what it regards as their unfair approach. According to the sources, Dugard's assignment was phrased in a way that discriminates against Israel. But the government does not prevent Dugard from traveling in the territories and Israel, to meet people and to report as he wishes
By Aluf Benn
South African law professor Prof. John Dugard, the special rapporteur for the United Nations on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, has written in a report to the UN General Assembly that there is "an apartheid regime" in the territories "worse than the one that existed in South Africa."
As an example, Dugard points to the roads only open to settlers, from which Palestinians are banned. In his report presented early this month, Dugard is highly critical of Israel for its "continuing violations of human rights in the territories." He said Israel is blatantly violating the International Court of Justice's ruling on the separation fence, and has declared it will not obey it. The report was disseminated among the member countries ahead of the September General Assembly session meant to discuss the fence. Dugard, a law professor from South Africa, was a member of a Truth Commission at the end of the apartheid regime, and was appointed by the UN in 2001 as special rapporteur for human rights in the West Bank and Gaza. He called for a general arms embargo against Israel in May, in response to the IDF operations in Rafah, similar to the arms embargo imposed on South Africa in 1977. According to government sources in Jerusalem, Israel is currently leaning toward cooperating with the various rapporteurs of the UN, and responding to their questions and requests.
But there are two exceptions to that rule: Dugard, and the special rapporteur for food, Jean Zigler. Israel refuses to cooperate with them because of the language of their mandates, and what it regards as their unfair approach. According to the sources, Dugard's assignment was phrased in a way that discriminates against Israel. But the government does not prevent Dugard from traveling in the territories and Israel, to meet people and to report as he wishes
mardi 15 avril 2003
Supreme Court refuses to halt Channel One's screening of Jenin documentary
Haaretz 15.4.2003
By Moshe Reinfeld
Supreme Court Justice Ayala Procaccia yesterday rejected a petition filed by move director Mohammed Bakri, against the screening of "The Road to Jenin" on the Israel Broadcasting Authority's Channel One. Bakri, the director of "Jenin, Jenin," a controversial documentary on the IDF's operation in the West Bank refugee camp, had asked the court to prevent Channel One from airing its documentary until a ruling on his appeal against a censorship ban on his own documentary. Bakri's attorney, Avigdor Feldman, claimed in court that as long as his own documentary was banned, on the grounds that it falsified events in the refugee camp, the IBA should not be allowed to broadcast "The Road to Jenin," which portrays equally one-sided but opposing view of events. According to Bakri, "The Road to Jenin" was directed by a French-Jewish filmmaker who adopted a false identity and was known only as Pierre Rechov. Bakri argued that the IBA's film was "the crushing Jewish-Zionist answer" to "Jenin, Jenin." In her ruling, Justice Procaccia wrote that she was denying the petition since Bakri had not first approached the IBA over the film, nor had he contacted any of the other parties who would have been affected by any decision to bar screening. She added that, had the IBA considered the possibility of not screening the film, the lack of balance in the flow of opinions and viewpoints could have served as a legitimate basis for postponing the screening. Since the IBA did not consider this possibility, however, she ruled that the Supreme Court could not interfere to the detriment of the freedom of expression of the IBA. Procaccia was one member of the three-member panel that recently heard Bakri appeal against the ban on his documentary. A ruling is expected in that case within the coming days.
By Moshe Reinfeld
Supreme Court Justice Ayala Procaccia yesterday rejected a petition filed by move director Mohammed Bakri, against the screening of "The Road to Jenin" on the Israel Broadcasting Authority's Channel One. Bakri, the director of "Jenin, Jenin," a controversial documentary on the IDF's operation in the West Bank refugee camp, had asked the court to prevent Channel One from airing its documentary until a ruling on his appeal against a censorship ban on his own documentary. Bakri's attorney, Avigdor Feldman, claimed in court that as long as his own documentary was banned, on the grounds that it falsified events in the refugee camp, the IBA should not be allowed to broadcast "The Road to Jenin," which portrays equally one-sided but opposing view of events. According to Bakri, "The Road to Jenin" was directed by a French-Jewish filmmaker who adopted a false identity and was known only as Pierre Rechov. Bakri argued that the IBA's film was "the crushing Jewish-Zionist answer" to "Jenin, Jenin." In her ruling, Justice Procaccia wrote that she was denying the petition since Bakri had not first approached the IBA over the film, nor had he contacted any of the other parties who would have been affected by any decision to bar screening. She added that, had the IBA considered the possibility of not screening the film, the lack of balance in the flow of opinions and viewpoints could have served as a legitimate basis for postponing the screening. Since the IBA did not consider this possibility, however, she ruled that the Supreme Court could not interfere to the detriment of the freedom of expression of the IBA. Procaccia was one member of the three-member panel that recently heard Bakri appeal against the ban on his documentary. A ruling is expected in that case within the coming days.
lundi 10 mars 2003
State urges High Court to uphold ban on Bakri's film, `Jenin, Jenin'
Haaretz 10.3.2003
By Moshe Reinfeld
Prosecutor argues the movie `purports to be a documentary'
The State Prosecutor's Office, representing the film censorship board, yesterday asked the High Court of Justice to reject a petition by actor/director Mohammed Bakri and the Documentary Creators Forum to lift the censorship board's ban on the public showing of Bakri's movie, "Jenin, Jenin," and to revoke the Mandate-era law that empowers the panel. The petitioners claimed that the ban on the film was a violation of Bakri's freedom of speech and artistic expression and undermined the public's right to be exposed to the message of the film. The petitioners, represented by attorney Avigdor Feldman, argued theboard did not have the authority to issue the ban and was not in possession of all the facts when it made its decision. The state argued that the movie purported to be a documentary, but instead portrayed, in a distorted manner, Israel Defense Forces soldiers as brutal war criminals who are committing a genocide, depicting the battles in Jenin as acts of murderers against an innocent civilian population. It argued that the movie totally ignores the reasons the IDF entered Jenin. The movie, said the state, does not comment on the Palestinian terrorist organizations operating in the camp, their use of women and children, how they use suicide bombers, booby-trapped houses and bodies, and their cynical use of medical facilities and holy sites for their terrorist purposes. The state's attorney said the decision to ban the film was made after several meetings of the censorship board, including a session at which Bakri's lawyer presented his case
By Moshe Reinfeld
Prosecutor argues the movie `purports to be a documentary'
The State Prosecutor's Office, representing the film censorship board, yesterday asked the High Court of Justice to reject a petition by actor/director Mohammed Bakri and the Documentary Creators Forum to lift the censorship board's ban on the public showing of Bakri's movie, "Jenin, Jenin," and to revoke the Mandate-era law that empowers the panel. The petitioners claimed that the ban on the film was a violation of Bakri's freedom of speech and artistic expression and undermined the public's right to be exposed to the message of the film. The petitioners, represented by attorney Avigdor Feldman, argued theboard did not have the authority to issue the ban and was not in possession of all the facts when it made its decision. The state argued that the movie purported to be a documentary, but instead portrayed, in a distorted manner, Israel Defense Forces soldiers as brutal war criminals who are committing a genocide, depicting the battles in Jenin as acts of murderers against an innocent civilian population. It argued that the movie totally ignores the reasons the IDF entered Jenin. The movie, said the state, does not comment on the Palestinian terrorist organizations operating in the camp, their use of women and children, how they use suicide bombers, booby-trapped houses and bodies, and their cynical use of medical facilities and holy sites for their terrorist purposes. The state's attorney said the decision to ban the film was made after several meetings of the censorship board, including a session at which Bakri's lawyer presented his case
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