Friday, May 26, 2006
Oprah's Jenin Week -- Day 5: Massacre
Oprah:
We're back. It's our fifth and final day here in Jenin, and we're taking a little stroll with a Palestinian spokesman to learn a little more about the massacre that is alleged to have occured here. I must say though, from here, Jenin actually looks pretty nice.
Spokesman:
First of all, Oprah, you have to realize that this horrible, horrible massacre was several years ago. Also, the Israelis failed in their attempt to decimate every last corner of Jenin, and we are standing in one of the places that our brave fighters managed to protect from Israeli attrocities.Oprah:
Very well. Can you give some idea of the scope of the destruction then? For instance, I read in a Wikipedia article that only 8-9% of the houses were destroyed.Spokesman:
Only? Only 8-9% of the houses? How would you like it if we came to Beverly Hills and destroyed ONLY 8-9% of YOUR houses?Oprah:
Aside from the fact that I live on a 42 acre estate in Monecito, not in Beverly Hills, well OF COURSE I wouldn't like it. But I'm not alleging that a massacre of historic proportions took place in which practically everything was demolished in acts amounting to war crimes. And also Beverly Hills is not sending wave after wave of suicide bombers into West Hollywood.Spokesman:
Oprah, please do not insult us by simply parroting Israeli talking points. The so-called suicide bombers from Jenin were not the terrorists Israel so brazenly claims, but freedom fighters willing to sacrifice their own lives -- whether in pitched street battles or crowded pizzerias -- to free their land from occupation. There was no justification for Israel to enter the Jenin camp at all. They should instead have sat down and negotiated with us the complete and immediate evacuation of all occupied lands.Oprah:
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.[They stroll a bit.]
Oprah:
The number of Palestinian dead in the 2002 Battle of Jenin has been alleged by your leadership to be as high as the hundreds or even thousands. Yet even the UN explicitly states there was no massacre in Jenin with a Palestinian death toll of only 52 of whom most were gunmen and combatants.Spokesman:
Who do you believe, the UN? Or me, standing right here, as well as the words of leading Palestinians who actually had information?Oprah:
So you don't believe the UN?Spokesman:
They are unreliable.Oprah:
Yet you consider them quite reliable when they put out reports critical of Israel.Spokesman:
Then they are reliable.Oprah:
What about Human Rights Watch? Are they reliable?Spokesman:
What did they say?Oprah:
They agreed with the UN that there was no massacre.Spokesman:
They are unreliable.Oprah:
Ok, I see the game. So just come out with it. Do you personally believe the allegations of an Israeli massacre in Jenin are true?Spokesman:
Well, they're certainly not not true. In fact, and more importantly, it's these outrageous Zionist allegations that we made these allegations that are the true crime here. These so-called allegations in which Saeb Erekat and Abdel Rahman are alleged to have alleged that 500 Palestinians were killed is in fact a blatant mistatement of their statements. If you read their words carefully, you will notice that the number of alleged dead is alway separated from the identification with Jenin by being in a different sentence, or at least by a comma separating them. Any sane observer would realize this means they left open the possibility that some of those 500 were killed elsewhere or at other times, or perhaps even died of natural causes soon after hearing the news of the ongoing massacre, or what have you. This is all very common, and happens all the time. When they report hurricane deaths, it is not just the people who died from having the wind blow on them, but also those who were crushed by falling trees, or drowned, or had heart attacks, or from eating diseased meat, and so on and so on. So please don't try to claim we alleged some huge lie. We are being unfairly attacked by the Israelis and their vast network of knee-jerk supporters for allegations which we only hinted at and never actually made, all for the purpose of concealing the Zionists' real crime. Oprah:
Their real crime? Which was?Spokesman:
The massacre, of course.Oprah:
Wait, are you alleging the real crime is the massacre or false claims that you allege a massacre? Spokesman:
Both of course. The Israelis commit many such real crimes every day. Why does this surprise you?Oprah:
It's just that if you are still alleging there was a massacre, you surely must realize that the Israelis consider the charge little more than yet another modern blood libel.Spokesman:
Blood libels? I am not here to discuss the Jews' conspiratorial past. What they choose to do on Passover with innocent non-Jewish blood is a separate matter. But in regard to the massacre, all I can say is that everything is relative: apparently one man's obfuscation is another man's blood libel. It really is that simple.[Oprah and the spokesman come across a small group posing for a photographer near a building with a hole in its wall]
Oprah:
What's this? Why is the photographer posing a little boy right by a damaged wall?Spokesman:
He's an AFP photographer. just doing a little... a little extra photography of local children. It's traditional. Whenever you have a hole in your house, or you're doing a little renovation, it's good luck to have a sad looking kid photographed in front of it. The photographers say the camera just eats it up.Oprah:
Why is an AFP photographer still hanging around here, years after the battle?Spokesman:
Oh, they are a godsend, AFP, Reuters, AP -- the whole lot of them. If it weren't for them, for their hard-hitting objective photographic evidence, who would know of the atrocities being perpetrated by the Israelis day after day?Oprah:
Why do they have an artillery shell in the middle of a good luck photo of a kitchen renovation? [** note below]Spokesman:
Eh? Oh, that. It's just symbolic of the intention of every Palestinian that their work and their effort should be in resistance to the rockets of occupation.Oprah:
They don't mind if I join in the picture do they? I'm sure an autographed photo taken with Oprah would be quite a keepsake to hang on their new kitchen wall.
Spokesman:
No, Oprah, they are looking for a certain authentic look to the photo, please, don't...oh well. They can always snap a few more after we've gone.Oprah:
Hey!! Mustafa, is that you?!![Oprah stares across the street, waving and trying to get the attention of a young man who is involved with something else and doesn't notice her.]
Oprah:
Do you see that boy across the street? The one with the toy gun on his shoulder?Spokesman:
That is no toy; that's a real RPG. And that is no boy, but a real freedom fighter!Oprah:
I guess the Power of Postive Thought pamphlets aren't working. Say, would you be willing to help me translate some self-help materials into Arabic? I really think it could make a difference.Spokesman:
Sure, I'd love to. We have our own print shop, and I'm a very quick and creative translator.Oprah:
Excellent. I'll have my people contact your people. Meanwhile, next week we'll be back in our studios for Celebrity Pet Makeovers Week. I hope you'll all join us. Bye now.Oprah's Jenin Week (best read in order)
Day 1: Mothers
Day 2: Poet
Day 3: Go Girl
Day 4: Snitch
Day 5: Massacre
Epilogue: Exposed
** NOTE: the original photo is a famous staged photo from Afghanistan that shows yet again how you cannot always count on the hard-hitting objectivity of news photographers. It is included in this parody as a representative of the complicit media's willingness to help perpetuate lies so long as those lies are harmful to the US or Israel. The "Jenin massacre" is such a lie, and the text reporters were as much a part of the sales team as the photographers this time, giving an open and uncritical channel for wildly untrue accusations on the part of Palestinians intimately involved in the conflict and with an obvious agenda that should have merited at least a little skepticism. The picture is not of any Palestinian house, nor is it intended to imply any specific act of photographic fakery in Jenin.
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