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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dan Boger writes:
> http://www.time.com/time/2002/jenin/story.html
That seems a fairly even-handed telling of the sad story. Israeli soldiers
killed number 23, Palestinians killed number 54, 22 of which were civilians.
Israelis wounded number 75, Palestinians wounded number 220. 49
Palestinians are missing.
FWIW, I didn't notice any great explanation in the delays insisted on by the
Israelis before allowing anyone into the camp to investigate what had
happened. At the same time, there seemed a very clear underlying assertion
that the Palestinians have nowhere near the same sort of military power
employed by the Israeli army:
"An internal document of Arafat's Fatah organization, written in September
last year and captured by the Israelis during a recent sweep, characterized
the camp's people as "ready for self- sacrifice with all their means ... It
is not strange that Jenin has been termed the capital of suicide attackers."
And:
"David Holley, a British military expert working in the camp for Amnesty
International, deduces from the bomb craters and tank tracks that Tawalbe
and the two fighters who accompanied him went into the house to get close
enough to a tank or D-9 to plant explosives on it; the Palestinians' bombs,
says Holley, were useless unless they were placed directly on the armor of a
vehicle."
There was also this:
"Palestinians say Israelis frequently used camp residents to knock on doors
to persuade people to come out into the street. Israeli army sources
confirmed to Time that they used this practice, which Human Rights Watch
condemned in its report as a violation of international humanitarian law."
But the final assessment was this:
"No matter whose figures one accepts, 'there was no massacre,' concludes
Amnesty's Holley."
The most important stuff came at the end:
"That said, Jenin was awful; all wars are.
<snip>
He will remember Jenin. So will countless others, both Israeli and
Palestinian. And in the Middle East, memory is the fuel that nourishes
violence, revenge and unending hate."
Such is the madness of war.
Fighters on both sides should be condemned. And speaking as one U.S.
citizen, I'd like to see the U.S. withdraw all support, all trade, all
humanitarian aid, all money, everything from that region of the world --
until such time as an ongoing cease fire exists and vigorous peace talks are
underway. I really don't care who is "wrong" or "right" any more -- I am
not sure it is the focus of my thoughts in any way. All I want is peace
over there. The fighting simply must stop. If they will head the withdrawal
of all funds, then the international community, and particularly the U.S.,
should use such a technique.
The other side of me thinks that such a small place in the world doesn't
deserve this amount of attention. I bet many more people die each year on
the highways local to me than died during this entire conflict at Jenin.
One must keep things in perspective. The problem with the M.E. is that the
violence is INTENTIONAL on both sides, and it takes place near a religious
center for many different kinds of believers in the world. If not for the
latter religious focus, I bet no one else but the Israelis or the
Palestinians would even care about the conflict.
-- Hop-Frog (frustrated by the infinite cycle of violence in the M.E.)
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Jenin
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| If anyone is actually trying to understand what happend, as opposed to some of the claims floating around, I found this article very interesting: (URL) Dan Boger dan@peeron.com (23 years ago, 7-May-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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