Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, less than a month before he leaves his position, will “support” a civil libel suit against Muhammed Bakri, the director of the anti-Israel movie Jenin, Jenin - but he will not indict him on criminal charges.
Several reserve soldiers are suing Bakri for monetary damages for the libel that he allegedly perpetrated against them in his purported documentary; the film portrays the IDF in a very negative manner. After a lower court rejected their bid on the grounds that they have no legal standing as a group in such a suit, they appealed to the Supreme Court. Mazuz has now explained that as the State's representative, he will support the soldiers’ appeal, and that in fact the soldiers do have a right to personally sue Bakri for libel.
No Criminal Charges to be Filed
However, Mazuz said, for the State to actually indict Bakri on criminal charges would be a problematic precedent and would have negative international ramifications. A criminal case “is liable to intensify the matter by leading to the film’s repeated screening and public discussion of the false claims it makes,” Mazuz said. “It will also lead to claims that Israel does not allow freedom of expression and opposes those who criticize Israel.”
Mazuz further wrote that a criminal suit could serve as a “problematic precedent that might lead to mutual complaints by various population groups of libel against them – something that unfortunately is common in our society.”
Director Admitted: Film is Not Accurate
Jenin, Jenin is a controversial film that accused the IDF of committing atrocities during the IDF’s anti-terrorism Operation Defensive Shield in 2002. Bakri, the Israeli-Arab director of the film, admitted in a deposition in 2005 that it was not an accurate portrayal of the facts. He said he had falsified scenes and used unverified reports, and acknowledged that the film had been funded by Palestinian Authority leaders.
Operation Defensive Shield was launched in the spring of 2002, following a massive wave of Palestinian terrorism that left 178 Israelis dead in three months, including 130 in March alone. The final straw was the Passover Seder massacre in a Netanya hotel, which ultimately killed 30. The IDF campaign is credited with putting an end to the terrorism wave.
However, the PA fought back – via the media. PA spokesman Saeb Erekat announced to the world that Israeli forces had massacred “over 500 civilians” in the Jenin refugee camp, and this accusation was widely repeated and accepted – even after the figure was later rounded down to the 52 PA Arabs, most of them armed combatants, who were actually killed. The number of Israeli soldiers killed in the fighting was 23, nearly all of them the result of Israel’s refusal to bomb refugee camp targets in order not to harm civilians.
Army was Prevented From Using Full Force
In one battle, 13 IDF reserve soldiers were killed when they entered a building sprinkled with explosives, instead of destroying it; terrorists detonated the bombs by remote control, causing the building to collapse atop the soldiers. Gunfire was then directed at the force that went to rescue them, wounding seven soldiers. A TV military commentator said that night with strong emotion, “I would like to emphasize: The fighting in Jenin was so hard and so costly not only because of the high motivation on the Palestinian side, but also because the army was prevented from using its full force. It was prevented from blowing up buildings - something that the Palestinians did do; the army was prevented from collapsing buildings on their inhabitants - something that the Palestinians did do, without hesitation. This fighting, therefore, which was waged by trying to preserve [Arab] civilian lives, cost us many victims."
The United Nations later agreed, following in-depth investigations, that Israel had perpetrated no massacre in Jenin, and that the PA's claims were baseless.
Jenin, Jenin claims IDF troops killed a "large number" of Arab civilians, mutilated their bodies, randomly executed and bombed women, children and the mentally and physically disabled, and leveled most of the refugee camp, including a wing of the local hospital. The film shows no footage of the claimed atrocities, but does use the cinematographic technique of showing footage of IDF soldiers while "eyewitness testimony" of IDF “war-crimes” is narrated.
In addition, director Bakri admitted that he himself constructed a scene implying Israeli troops ran over Arab civilians as an "artistic choice."
Jenin Hospital manager Dr. Mustafa Abu Gali is cited in Jenin, Jenin as saying, "The whole of the west wing [of the hospital] was destroyed. Fighter planes launched their missiles every three minutes." However, Abu Gali was later interviewed by French director Pierre Rehov for the latter’s own film, The Road To Jenin, and showed him the extent of the damage to the hospital: a small hole on the outside of the building.
Dr. David Zangen, who served in Jenin during the Operation Defensive Shield battles as an IDF regional brigade doctor, has listed a series of lies in Bakri’s movie. Among them are the following:
* The film mentions a mass gravesite that IDF soldiers dug for Palestinian dead. Every international organization that investigated the matter concur that there were 52 Palestinian dead in Jenin, and that all the bodies were returned to the Palestinians for burial...
* One impressive part of the film is the interview with a male 75-year-old Jenin resident who mumbles and cries and tells how he was taken out of his bed in the middle of the night, shot in the hand, and after he failed to obey the soldiers' command to get up, was shot again in the foot. I [treated] this very same old man... He had indeed been lightly injured in the hand and was suffering from a minor scratch on the foot - but certainly not as the result of a bullet… We transferred him to Afula and he stayed there for three days in the internal medicine department for treatment of his heart problems...
* Another person who was interviewed spoke about a baby who suffered a chest wound from a bullet that entered through his chest and exited his body, creating a hole in his back. According to the film the baby died after IDF soldiers prevented his evacuation to hospital. A baby's body with this type of injury has never been found. Moreover, such an injury would have been fatal, and evacuation would not have saved his life. What is this baby's name? Where did his body disappear to?
* This same witness adds that tanks ran over living people many times until they were completely crushed... this never happened and is imaginary.
* Israeli planes that supposedly bombed the city are mentioned in the film. There were no such planes. In order to prevent civilian casualties, only focused helicopter fire was used.
* The film systematically and repeatedly uses manipulative pictures of tanks taken in other locations, artificially placing them next to pictures of Palestinian children.