The Israeli Supreme Court, on Monday, rejected a petition by Arab film director Mohammed Bakri to ban the Channel 1 screening of “The Road to Jenin” - the Israeli perspective of what happened during the April, 2002 anti-terror operation “Defensive Shield” in the slums of PLO-controlled Jenin. Bakri had directed his own narrative of what occurred, entitled “Jenin, Jenin” - which was banned in Israel because of the way it portrayed the fighting in Jenin as an “Israeli massacre of innocent Arabs.”

Channel 1 plans to air “The Road to Jenin” on Monday evening as part of its “Second Look” series.

High Court of Appeals Justice Ayala Procaccia explained in her decision that, “freedom of speech exists in full force [for “Road to Jenin”] even when a differing viewpoint is forbidden [as in “Jenin, Jenin”] due to a legislative arrangement.”

The Supreme Court has recently heard an appeal from Bakri regarding the banning of his film, “Jenin, Jenin.” The state argued that the movie purported to be a documentary, but instead portrayed, in a distorted manner, Israeli soldiers as brutal war criminals. The film depicts the IDF battles in Jenin as acts of murder against an innocent civilian population.

The State further maintained that Bakri’s Jenin, Jenin totally ignores the reasons that brought about the IDF retaliation in Jenin. ”The movie,” said the state attorneys, “does not comment on the Palestinian terrorist organizations operating in the camp, their use of women and children, how they use suicide bombers, booby-trapped houses and bodies, and their cynical use of medical facilities and holy sites for their terrorist purposes.”

Bakri himself, is in fact a cousin of Ibrahim and Yassin Bakri- two Arabs from the western Galilee who were recently convicted of nine counts of murder for helping a Palestinian suicide bomber blow himself up on a bus last summer at the Meron Junction. The two convicts found the murderer a place to sleep prior to the attack, gave him clothing and batteries for the explosives, recommended the target, and drove him to the bus stop where he boarded the bus.

Despite the fact that many Human Rights organizations traditionally critical of Israeli military action have dismissed the claim that a massacre was perpetrated at Jenin, Bakri’s film claims otherwise. Carefully spliced footage weaves abstract screaming and blurry violence into footage of Arabs standing next to rubble. The film cites rumors of mass graves based on second or third hand sources.

Miriam Delman, a student who went to see a screening of “Jenin, Jenin” at the left-wing Alternative Information Center in Jerusalem, is excited that “The Road to Jenin” will finally be shown on television. “It was so painful to sit there with a group of people who were actually buying the lies that were being perpetuated in that amateur blood libel through the most devious of propogandist tacticts,” said Delman. She added, “I am relieved that “The Road to Jenin” will be broadcast, thereby redeeming the memories of the IDF soldiers who died there trying to defend the Jewish state.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 15th, 2003 and is filed under hotnews.