Amazon.com Widgets

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

The lawsuit of the five Israeli soldiers who filed against the maker of the Palestinian Arab propaganda film, Jenin, Jenin is bearing fruit. In a court deposition, Producer Muhammad Bakri has admitted to fabricating scenes...and receiving funding from the Palestinian Authority. Your tax dollars at work.

A note to the "What's the big deal?" crowd: Films like Jenin, Jenin and the over-the-top things they say fuel the hatred and serve as direct incitement to violence. That is their purpose. They also make life harder for the people who are honestly doing the best they can under difficult circumstances and dishonor and make more dangerous their jobs - like the Israeli soldiers killed going house to house in Jenin in order to avoid causing unnecessary deaths. Why bother with it when Jenin, Jenin is the thanks you get?

WorldNetDaily: Palestinian producer: False film funded by PA

A Palestinian filmmaker who produced a documentary alleging Israeli troops committed war crimes in a refugee camp admitted in a deposition last week to falsifying scenes, using inaccurate information and obtaining financing for the project from the Palestinian Authority, WorldNetDaily has learned.

Muhammad Bakri, producer of "Jenin, Jenin," a documentary that claims Israel committed genocide in the Jenin refugee camp in April 2002, admitted in a deposition to inaccuracies throughout his film. The filmmaker is being sued by five Israeli soldiers visible in still footage in the film, which alleges IDF troops killed a "large number" of civilians, mutilated Palestinian bodies, randomly executed and bombed women, children and the mentally and physically impaired, and leveled the entire refugee camp, including a wing of the local hospital.

The documentary doesn't show footage of the alleged atrocities, but in some scenes, faces of the soldiers now suing Bakri were superimposed over "eyewitness testimony," and it was indicated they had committed "war crimes."

But Bakri, in a deposition obtained by WND, admitted he "believed" selected witnesses but didn't check the information they provided.

"I believed the things that I've been told. What I did not believe was not included in the film," said Bakri.

When asked about a scene in which it is implied Israeli troops ran over civilians, Bakri admitted to constructing the footage himself as an "artistic choice." He also answered "no" when asked if he believed "that during the operation in Jenin, the Israeli soldiers killed people indiscriminately."

In perhaps the most explosive element of the deposition, Bakri admitted his documentary, which was screened in theaters around the world, was financed in part by the Palestinian Authority. He said Yasser Abed Rabu, Palestinian minister of culture and information and a member of former PLO leader Yasser Arafat's executive committee, "covered a part of the film expenses." ...

At one time, the films of Pierre Rehov, including his antidote to the propaganda, his own film, The Road to Jenin, were being offered free for download. If you can find any of them, don't miss the opportunity to view them. Some of the debunking that the investigative reporting in The Road to Jenin features are described in the WND story above should you click through to read the whole thing.

(WND link via LGF)

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

Search


Archives
[an error occurred while processing this directive] [an error occurred while processing this directive]