Word Games and Body Bags

Only an unbelievably brutal world can look at the remains of what was once home for 13,000 impoverished 1948 Palestinian refugees, scratch its head and say "we don't know what actually happened in the Jenin refugee camp."

The camp is now described by the media as an "earthquake zone" -- a natural disaster of sorts. Unlike real earthquake zones, you don't see massive search and rescue teams in this one (Israel's rescue team, which aided in Istanbul and Kenya, is probably busy doing something else). Only the survivors and a handful of Red Crescent workers are there to search the rubble for the corpses, guided by their stench. Man made earthquakes do not, apparently, warrant real relief efforts.

On April 9th, the Israeli daily Ha'aretz reported on its website that "Foreign Minister Shimon Peres is very worried about the expected international reaction as soon as the world learns the details of the tough battle in the Jenin refugee camp." It added that Israeli Defense Force (IDF) officers have similar worries: "The bulldozers are simply 'shaving' the homes and causing terrible destruction. When the world sees the pictures of what we have done there, it will do us immense damage."

"It will do us immense damage" is the closest that official Israel can come to expressing shock or remorse.

The next day, the London Guardian reported that Germany suspended arms sales to Israel. "The reports about the Israeli troops' conduct are shocking," said Schroeder's minister of development aid. On the same day, the European Parliament adopted a resolution that called for the suspension of trade agreements between the EU and Israel. Later, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said that "the situation is so dangerous and the humanitarian and human rights situation so appalling . . . an affront to the conscience of mankind" that the dispatching of an international force to the area under the auspices of the UN "can no longer be deferred." Schroeder supported discussing the idea, the US and Israel as usual opposed (Agence France Press, April 12). Even the British foreign minister summoned the Israeli ambassador and said he was "disturbed" by reports from Jenin (This Is London, April 13).

That was last week, when we knew what was happening in Jenin. But since then, the Israeli "damage control" apparatus has changed that. Now we don't know. We need a UN "fact finding" committee to find out why an Israeli tank and helicopter attack on a densely populated refugee camp ended up like an earthquake. As if Sharon was absolved merely by the decision to appoint the "fact finding" committee, the criticism from foreign governments seems to have faded into thin air.

The media, after a series of shocking reports ("A monstrous war crime," "The sickly sweet smell of death," "The camp that became a slaughterhouse"), gradually turned more technical, unemotional, formalistic, legislative. The mumbling began around April 16th. The Guardian's editorial that day, titled "The battle for truth: What really happened in Jenin camp?" describes at length the extensive destruction and death in the camp. It points out that "if the leaders of the 'international community' had been more resolute Mr. Sharon would have been no more able to mount his West Bank invasion than Hamas would have been allowed to pursue its suicidal attacks." But then it calls for an investigation to find out "is [Sharon] guilty, as the Palestinians claim, of a heinous and exceptional crime? In short, what really happened inside Jenin?"

What happened in Jenin? Was it a heinous and exceptional crime? Or just an ordinary one? The world needs to know. We need to find the exact definitions for what was done, and to identify which precise clauses of international law were violated. Before that is done, we cannot take a stand.