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Thread ID: 5251 | Posts: 1 | Started: 2003-02-27
2003-02-27 17:35 | User Profile
[url=http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/267086.html]Reservists file libel suit against director of censored Jenin film[/url] By Haaretz Service
Five IDF reservists who took part in last year's IDF incursion into the Jenin refugee camp Wednesday filed a NIS 2.5 million libel suit against Israeli Arab actor-director Muhammad Bakri, claiming that Bakri's film "Jenin, Jenin" slandered the soldiers who fought there, and was falsely billed as a documentary.
In a rare step, "Jenin, Jenin" was banned for viewing by Israel's film censorship board. The lawsuit was also brought against the Tel Aviv and Jerusalem Cinemateques, which defied the ban and screened the film.
"We received an emergency call-up order and went out to fight in order to defend our homes," said one of the reservists who brought the lawsuit. "We fought slowly, day after day, in order to avoid harming the civilian population. This film portrays us as war criminals."
"This entire film is one large truth," Bakri said in response. The problem is, that [for Israelis] this is not 'our truth.' It's hard for us, because it's someone else's truth. It's time to open our eyes and begin to see the other truth."
"The UN's Middle East envoy Terje Roed-Larsen was shocked when he saw what the IDF had done in Jenin. "This is horrifying beyond belief," he said. A "blot that will forever live on the history of the state of Israel." For daring to criticize Israel -- the country that must never be criticized, no matter what depths of depravity it sinks to -- Roed-Larsen has been vilified by the Sharon government.
Peter Hansen, Commissioner General of the United Nations Relief and Works for Palestinian Refugees, said, "I have never seen such a human tragedy as that I saw in Jenin. A Swiss seismic expert who accompanied me to Jenin was also shocked and even said he had never seen such a destruction in any part of the world for decades. I think that such massacres will never be wiped out of the human memory and their effects will be remembered by several Palestinian generations."
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