On Monday night, December 6th, Israel Broadcasting Corporation Channel One screened Martin Himmel’s documentary “Jenin: Massacring the Truth” describing how the international media defamed the State of Israel by transmitting the accusation that the Israel Defense Forces murdered at least 500 Palestinian civilians during Operation Defensive Shield in April 2002

. The point of Himmel’s film was the great injury which Israel suffered as a result of this mendacious accusation. Among the people interviewed by Himmel were Ra’anan Gissen, Spokesman of the Prime Minister, and Gideon Meir in charge of Public Relations at the Foreign Ministry, both official Israelis of considerable experience and stature. In addition, Himmel interviewed Saeb Arekat of the P.A. Arekat gave us one of the great statements of the evening when he conceded that the figure of 500 victims was exaggerated and then added, “Martin you have known me for twenty-five years and you know that I have always told you the truth.”

This brings us to the fact that the accusation of massacre is really not new, because the very same thing happened nearly twenty-three years ago during the Lebanon war. On June 10, 1982, Dr. Fatchi Arafat, director of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, issued a statement declaring that “10,000 Palestinians have died and 600,000 have become homeless in the first few days of the war.” Subsequently, the International Red Cross and Middle East Action Committee of the American Friends Service spread the 10,000/600,000 figure to every media outlet in the world, and the major American networks picked up the story. No mention will be made here of the fact that the Palestinians distributed a doctored photograph of a Palestinian girl who supposedly lost an arm during the bombing in Lebanon, and President Reagan’s incensed phone call to Menachem Begin that followed. These precedents are of critical importance because they show that the libel of Jenin was not a unique event but part of a series. It is a tactic of political warfare. This becomes clear when we consider some other accusations: an affair that began in March 1983 with the accusation that Israel caused Palestinian girls in the disputed territories to become infertile. (Professor Raphael Israeli reported that Palestinian radio accused Jews of wanting to bring about genocide and called on the world’s conscience.) The Palestinians also have accused us of boring a tunnel under the Temple Mount in 1996, of murdering Muhammad a-Dura in 2000, and using exhausted Plutonium in artillery shells.

The fact that Israel’s enemies spread lies is not new. It is to be expected. The real question is how is it possible for these experienced media experts and civil servants not to grasp the issue in historical perspective and that they failed to point out the obvious precedent of Lebanon? Dr. Gissin worked with the media in Lebanon, Himmel was a war reporter in the region for at least twenty-five years. These professionals, however, do not seem to be the type of visionaries who believe that because we live the New Middle East the lessons of the past have become irrelevant. The most likely answer is that our society discourages people from seeking parallels and relationships. The time frame of the media has been reduced to the story of the hour. If people think in instants rather than years, it is not possible to develop a valid perspective.

What does this type of thinking which is trapped in the present tell about our society, our educational institutions, and the era in which we live? There is a failure to integrate information in order to expand our knowledge. Finding the parallels and organizing them rationally is basic to the process of building knowledge and an awareness of our surroundings. In his book, The Historian’s Craft, the great French scholar Marc Bloch told us of the need “to organize rationally what comes to us as raw material.” Very simply, we must learn to look for ways to understand the whole of a subject by rationally organizing the fragments of knowledge we have, identifying them, placing them in categories, and naming them.

If Mr. Himmel had looked for precedents, he might have been able to ask Saeb Arekat, “We know what you did in Lebanon. Mr Arekat, Why did you lie to us again?” If in 2002 Israeli civil servants had done the same, they could have placed the burden of proof on the other party, or at least been able to defend Israel against this libel. If, for example, Israel’s public relations experts had been mindful of what Dr. Fatchi Arafat did in 1982, they might have taken a different approach instead of apologizing for the death of Muhammad a-Dura before the facts became known. Such an awareness would also be of help in dealing with the Mary Robinson’s of the world. One of the important lessons of the Jenin libel is, that if we hope to relate effectively to our surroundings, we must regain our capacity to think and reason in historical terms.

Dr. Joel Fishman is a Fellow of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

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