February 9, 2003
Jenin, a cesspool of Palestinian terrorism, was the subject of immense
Palestinian propaganda, ranging from claims of "massacre" to UN envoy
Terje Larson's deliberate lies that he saw piles of "rotting
flesh", to the trendy, obscenely false film Jenin, Jenin, made by
Israeli-Arab actor Mohammed Bakri,
whose nephew is a terrorist.
The most effective person countering these lies was Dr. David Zangen, who
went into Jenin with IDF forces, accompanied Terje Larsen, and debunked the
film. Below, is some more information on Dr. Zangen, and on what really happened
in Jenin. The next time "Jenin" comes up, you'll know what to say.
Naomi
Dr David Zangen, Consultant Pediatrician endocrinologist and Chief Medical
Officer of the unit that went into Jenin.
Dr Zangen's personal connection with terrorism began with the Sbarro Pizzaria
bomb, where one of the murdered Israelis was 16 year-old Michal Raziel,
the daughter of Aviva Raziel, a senior nurse and colleague of Dr
Zangen at Hadassah.
Dr Zangen's patient list is 50% Palestinian, and he feels that while his
Palestinian patients regard him personally with affection, this makes little
impact on the daily indoctrination of hate that they receive in radio and
television broadcasts from PA media sources. One day, when a suicide
bomber attempted to detonate a bomb in a restaurant in the German colony
that his children frequented, his wife called him during his clinic to say
that she couldn't contact the children. His Palestinian patients
just sat
and watched as he waited desperately for further news, before it was
finally announced that the bomber had failed to detonate the explosives.
He then turned his attention back to his patients and continued his work.
The turning point for terrorism in Israel was the series of bombings that took
place over Pesach 2002. The experience of the Park hotel massacre made
everyone realize that things were to take a new course, and he was
not surprised when the next day, he had to cancel his planned family
holiday with his wife and four children because of the call to report for
duty. He soon realized the change of mood amongst his unit when the usual queue
of people requesting leave on grounds of ill-health, normally his first
task as the unit's doctor, failed to materialize. Everyone knew that
something had to be done. By the end of Pesach, they were encircling
Jenin.
Although described as a refugee camp, Jenin, now 54 years old, is a residential
neighborhood which would have seemed ordinary except that it had been
transformed into a fortress of terror. Over half of all
suicide bombers at that time had come from Jenin, the centre for
recruitment and training. There were 3.5 tons of explosives in the area, with
200 armed men and about another 200 civilian involved in the Jenin
network. There had been no Israeli presence in Jenin since the Oslo
agreements 8 years previously. The excuse of "occupation" could not be
trotted out in Jenin to explain why booby traps festooned every building and
mines were sunk in every street, or why pipe bombs rained down from the
top stories of each building whilst snipers were set up on the second
floor.
The IDF had decided that only house-to-house fighting was permitted, to rule out
the casualties that would ensue from bombing or artillery. The final price for
this was 23 soldiers killed by sniper fire and booby traps. For Dr
Zangen, these were 23 men he knew well. Some soldiers he treated were shot
because they had hesitated to clear out buildings where they saw civilians
in the ground floor rooms. The price was a sniper's bullet from the floor
above. Three paramedics were shot dead whilst they were treating the
injured.
The soldiers, despite all their experience of terror, were still shocked by
what they found. Family photo albums, featuring pictures of teenage girls
proudly posing wearing explosive belts, the boys with both belts and
machine guns. A soldier found a child carrying a bag - it was filled with
pipe bombs. Each house was decorated with posters of the Palestinian
heroes - the suicide bombers who carried out the worst murders - at
Sbarro, Hadera and others. The outcome of the Jenin operation, in
security terms, was a success, paid for with 23 lives. The IDF
estimated that 200 suicide bomb attacks were prevented, and on Yom
Ha'atzmaut, the soldiers who served in Jenin received a letter of
congratulation, not from any military commander, but from a boy who had
recently celebrated his bar mitzvah who thanked them for making the
country safer. He used his bar mitzvah money to buy them all each a sunhat
that they could use when they went on hiking trips with their
families. What came to dominate the story of Jenin was the media battle.
Dr Zangen, a senior doctor with a full clinical practice coping with an
enormous burden of reserve duty, found himself unwittingly drawn
into a new fight. He came to realize that a hostility from the foreign
press and public opinion abroad, the like of which he had never
experienced, had taken center stage.
His public relations battle began when he accompanied the UN envoy Terje Roed
Larsen, who visited immediately after the fighting had stopped. He was present
throughout Larsen's entire visit to the Jenin hospital and scenes of the
fighting. The next day, Larsen began making entirely false claims,
and when Dr Zangen, driving back to Jerusalem, heard Larsen repeat these
during a radio interview with Israeli radio, he stopped and called the
station. He was put on air, and was able to challenge Larsen's main
assertions. The first false claim was that the IDF invaded the
hospital causing damage, and prevented medical aid being administered. In
fact, Larsen had seen that the hospital remained untouched, even though it
was
occupied by the terrorists who used it as a snipers outpost. Far
from medical aid being denied, all supplies of electricity, water and
oxygen were maintained, including the installation of generators. Dr
Zangen described how he had treated an injured 22 year old man with Hama
tattoos on his arms. An elderly man injured in the hand by a ricochet had
been taken by the IDF to the hospital who had turned him away.
The IDF then transported him to Afula, where he received treatment not only for
his injuries but for heart failure and anemia. There was unexpected confirmation
of this during Dr Zangen's lecture, when a young Israeli, Yossi
Greenfield, present in the audience, who is in London as the BA shaliach,
commented that he had served in Jenin, where he had stood guard by the
hospital and witnessed no attacks by the IDF. He had also been on
the transport vehicle that had carried the elderly man to the Jenin
hospital and then to Afula. Larsen also claimed that the scene of fighting
looked like an earthquake, whereas in fact 40 houses had been destroyed and
further 40 damaged - out of a total of 1100 in the area. Larsen also described
the camp as stinking of rotting flesh.
During his visit, he had not complained or worn a mask. A French reporter
for Le Nouvel Observateur who interviewed Dr Zangen claimed that soldiers had
placed children over booby traps and then stepped on them to protect
themselves from explosion. When Dr Zangen challenged these absurd stories,
the journalist merely said "It's your word against theirs"
and when asked to consider that many claims, such as the stories of
hundreds massacred, had been shown to be untrue, shouted "It's all
occupation - get
out of the territories!". The journalist was quite unable to
conceal his agenda or his bias. Only some months later did the same
journalist contact Dr Zangen to apologies, and subsequently interviewed
two of his daughters as part of a story on the effects of terror on children.
A particular and ongoing source of media bias centers around an hour long
film "Jenin Jenin" made by the Palestinian actor Mohammed Bakri, whose
nephew was the organizer of the Meron junction bus bombing. The film
purports to be a documentary with eye-witness testimony of Israeli
atrocities. It has become a cause celebre in Israel, feted by the Israeli
left, and has been shown in film festivals in Germany and Holland.
Dr Zangen saw the film in November, and wrote an article "Seven lies about
Jenin" for Ma'ariv, the Israeli newspaper, which is available on
several websites, including the Israeli Foreign Ministry site
://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH0mus0). The film confirmed his worst
fears. The director of the hospital in Jenin, Dr. Abu-Rali (who had
falsely stated that thousands had been killed), claimed the western wing
of the hospital was shelled and destroyed, and that the IDF purposely
disrupted the supply of water and electricity to the hospital. In fact, no
such "western wing" existed, no part of the hospital was shelled
or bombed. No footage is shown of the "destroyed wing" and
Bakri himself admitted that
he had not filmed there before later contradicting his story. Supplies of
water, electricity and oxygen had been maintained throughout, including setting
up an electricity generator. The elderly man who had been treated by the
IDF for a hand injury and then transported to Afula for treatment
for heart failure and anemia appeared in the film claiming that he had
been taken from his bed in the middle of the night and shot in the hands
and feet. Other claims included claims of mass graves, none of which
were shown, and bombing from the air, which has not been claimed by any
other source.
When the film was first due to be shown in the Jerusalem Cinematheque, families
of soldiers killed in Jenin asked Dr Zangen to intervene. Lia van Leer,
the director of the Jerusalem Film Centre who was promoting the
film, invited him to attend a private screening, along with several
Israeli journalists including Vered Berman, a documentary producer. Dr
Zangen outlined his criticisms, to which Berman refused to give any
credence, instead retorting "If you cannot accept the facts in
the film, you apparently do not understand anything, and how can you be a
doctor?" Lia van Leer decided to continue with the public screening,
but invited Dr Zangen to attend and speak after the showing. The film
received a standing ovation from the audience of three hundred, mostly
Israeli with a small number of Palestinians. When he stood up to speak and began
to list the film's fraudulent claims, the audience started to shout
"War criminal" "Murderer", and then someone went up to
him and forcibly grabbed the microphone from his hand. Only one member of
the audience registered any protest at this conduct.
Dr Zangen finished his lecture by reading a letter written by one of the
soldiers killed in Jenin. The man had written it to be delivered to
his fiancée if he died, and his family asked Dr Zangen to make it
public.
"There will be a terrible price", the letter runs, "I am
willing to be this price. My only sorrow is the sorrow caused to you. Always be
happy. I am always with you".
