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Coming Clean
David Horovitz
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A more efficient Israeli mechanism for updating journalists about controversial incidents is manifestly overdue. In the latest case in point, it took the army a scandalous two full days to issue an official response to the tragic deaths in Khan Yunis on November 22 of five Palestinian boys, apparently killed after triggering a booby-trapped device planted to counter Palestinian gunmen firing from the area. Speedy, efficient investigation, and implementation of lessons learned, would also help prevent the recurrence of incidents where troops have acted in breach of regulations.
Winston Churchill�s observation that truth is the first casualty of war has been reinforced on an almost daily basis throughout the more than 14 months of intifada violence. On the Palestinian side, a consistent policy of lying about specific incidents and issuing generalized falsehoods � such as the assertions that Israel distributes �poisoned candies� or uses �depleted uranium� ammunition � surely reached its apogee in New York on November 11. There, from the podium at the United Nations General Assembly, Yasser Arafat brazenly misinformed the world about the number of Palestinian fatalities, asserting that �1,800 Palestinians were killed.� That total is more than double the highest figures of any medical database, news agency or human-rights group.
But Israel�s track record is far from unblemished either.
An example that is now being widely cited in the foreign press corps as proof that the army lies as a matter of routine � and that it is failing to bring its own offenders to book � arises from a slip-up last month by the military advocate general�s office. It accidentally sent internal documents to the Israeli human-rights watchdog B�Tselem, concerning the killing last July of an 11-year-old Gaza boy, Khalil Mughrabi. In them, the army�s own investigator revealed that Mughrabi had been resting on a sand dune after a game of soccer, and had been hit in the head by a bullet from a tank-mounted machine gun at a time when neither he nor anyone else in the vicinity posed any threat to the troops. Clearly, the officer wrote, the fatal shot was fired in breach of all regulations. In a formal letter to B�Tselem, however, that same officer blithely ruled out any criminal investi-gation of the case, asserting that there was no evidence to justify such a probe.
Attempting to faithfully report the intifada, journalists must frequently struggle to reconcile a welter of contradictory Israeli and Palestinian claims. Take the deaths of at least a dozen Palestinian civilians during Israel�s two-week incursion into parts of Bethlehem following the October 17 assassination of tourism minister Rechavam Zeevy. After the army withdrew from the city, The Report asked the Army Spokesman�s Office to respond to allegations concerning the first four of the deaths:
� According to an eyewitness account, Musa George Abu Aid was shot in his living room on October 19 by an Israeli sniper.
� A Christian source in Bethlehem, in an e-mail forwarded to me, claims that Maryam Sabih and her unborn child died the same day after being barred by soldiers at the checkpoint near Rachel�s Tomb from getting to a hospital in Jerusalem.
� Seventeen-year-old Johnny Thaljiah was shot dead on October 20 by an Israeli sniper a few meters from the entrance to the Church of the Nativity in Manger Square, according to his family and local clergymen.
� Also that day, Rania Kharofah, 22, was shot dead in Beit Jala � �while buying diapers,� according to B�Tselem.
Three of these cases were not widely reported; the death of Johnny Thaljiah was covered in numerous newspapers, and cited as the cause for a papal lament about violence in the Holy Land. Thaljiah�s family told me by telephone that he was hit by a single bullet �that went from the left-hand side of his back into his heart� and that the source of fire was a clearly visible Israeli position on a nearby hillside.
The spokesman's office declined to have someone meet with The Report to discuss the incidents and took almost a week to provide a written response, which I was asked to publish in full, as follows: �The IDF deployed in the village of Beit Jala and parts of the city of Bethlehem between the 18th and 29th of October, 2001, following continuous fire from these areas on the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo, in order to protect the security of the citizens of Israel�s capital. While the IDF deployed its forces they were under continuous fire, forcing them to return fire.
�IDF forces throughout the area of Bethlehem do not fire at civilians. The only case among all of the incidents of civilian deaths the reporter mentioned the IDF has information about was that of Yusuf Abayat, who attacked a soldier inside an IDF post and was therefore shot (in which case his body was transferred to Palestinian correspondents via the DCO [District Coordinating Office]). Each case in which a Palestinian is killed reaches the DCO offices and is investigated and dealt with in the proper manner. Yet the IDF has no information regarding any of the other incidents mentioned by the reporter of Palestinian deaths in this sector, and these incidents cannot be linked to any incidents in which shots have been fired.
�The IDF does everything it can to prevent harming civilians or shooting towards populated areas. The Palestinians, however, tend to shoot at IDF soldiers and Israeli civilians from within the hearts of civilian populations and close to religious places, endangering the lives of Palestinian civilians.�
I expressed surprise to the Spokesman�s Office at the generalized nature of this response; the only individual case it addressed � that of Yusuf Abayat � was one that The Report had not raised. But no more information was forthcoming. So I contacted a senior government official whose job involves liaison with the media.
He issued an impassioned defense of Israeli troops: �As far as the Palestinians are concerned,� he said, �there are never any natural deaths when the army can be blamed. They make up stuff all the time. It is in their propaganda interest to besmirch Israel, and the families� financial interest too to blame Israel for any deaths, since that makes families eligible for financial assistance from the U.N. and/or the Palestinian Authority. Many of these cases might well have been deaths caused by Palestinian gunfire. They never, ever acknowledge that. We investigate any case where a complaint is filed; none was filed about deaths in Bethlehem. No bodies were made available to us for pathologists� analysis. No bullets were presented for ballistics reports.
�Remember,� he added, �this was a war zone, a minister had been assassinated, we knew that further bombings were being prepared, we were try-ing to neutralize dangerous men who were being allowed by the Palestinian Authority to walk around free, we were coming under fire, and we had told the local population to stay inside.�
Incidentally, the official then added, Johnny Thaljiah could not have been killed by Israeli fire, since Israeli forces had no direct line of sight to the spot where he died.
Sifting through the claims and counterclaims regarding these deaths and others, in a context where it seems foolish to rely on anything but firsthand information, it is impossible to establish many certainties. And that only underlines the urgency of General Ya�alon�s call to root up the truth, do so quickly, and disseminate credible information. The army needs to quickly acknowledge when soldiers have acted improperly, and take action against them. That, in turn, would enable it to start rebuilding the credibility of its relations with journalists. In many instances, accusations against the army are thoroughly unjustified. In others, the army is in the wrong. As things stand at present, there is often no way for a reporter, and by extension the public, to know one from the other.
(December 17, 2001)
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