Solomonia Archive: The Lessons of Jenin

Tuesday, August 9, 2005

One of the greatest, and most difficult to erase, myths of the second Intifada was surely the so-called Jenin "massacre" -- an incident that had already become reality without any members of the press ever setting foot in the place. It's one of those litmus tests you can apply to any piece that mentions it. If the author uses the term "Jenin massacre" as a statement of fact, they are stating their politics up front (and you can likely dismiss much of the rest).

Here is a fascinating reminder of what happened and how the IDF screwed up the public relations effort written by one of the people responsible.

TNR: THE LESSON OF JENIN. Bad Information by Jacob Dallal

...While it soon became clear that there was no massacre, and while the U.N. and major human rights organizations put the number of Palestinians killed in Jenin at around 52, the impression of a massacre persists, and the association of "Jenin" and "massacre" cannot be fully erased from international consciousness. This teaches us something fundamental about shaping world opinion in a low-intensity conflict: It is, unfortunately, not always the reality--the actual facts--that matter, but rather the perception of the reality; and that perception is formed by the media, and the perception in the media is formed by the initial rendition of the event. An untruth cannot be allowed to linger--it has to be disproved, to a reasonable journalistic standard, immediately. Otherwise you can do all the damage control you want, but the initial impression will never be fully erased.

The IDF has learned this lesson the hard way. Had we sent a single representative of the foreign press into Jenin for half an hour every day of the week during the fighting, I can say with almost full certainty that the claims of a massacre would not have taken root. Specifically, the journalists on the ground would have been able to sort out the issue of estimated Palestinian casualties; and they would almost certainly have arrived at more accurate numbers than those relayed through the chain of command to the general staff...

Posted by Solomon at 9:30 PM on Tuesday, Aug 9, 2005
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