Fearing the Palestinian narrative: why Israel banned ‘Jenin, Jenin’
A general view of the Jenin refugee camp, September 12, 2011.
On January 11 Bakri was ordered to pay Lt. Col. (res.) Nissim Magnagi $70,000 and the court seized 23 copies of the film and banned all future screenings.
The film captures Palestinians in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank during an Israeli military invasion at the peak of the second Intifada.
The case, as presented by Israeli media, dealt with defamation of character. Palestinians in the film describe an 11-day battle in the camp as the “Jenin massacre,” initially fearing hundreds had been killed in the invasion. Later human rights investigations revealed Israeli forces killed 52 Palestinians, of whom 22 were civilians, and demolished 300 of homes. The camp also sustained fire from helicopters. Twenty-three Israeli soldiers were killed during the fighting.
Human Rights Watch reported, civilians were killed in war crimes, but said there was no systematic massacre. That distinction was the basis for the lawsuit, even though Bakri was filming events as they unfolded and did not record a voiceover or add any external explanation.
To those familiar with the massive clash of narratives, the Israeli court verdict is not only political but historical and intellectual, as well.
Bakri, a native Palestinian born in the village of Bi’ina, near the Palestinian city of Akka, located in Israel, has been paraded repeatedly in Israeli courts and censured heavily in because he dared challenge the official discourse on the violent events which transpired in the Jenin refugee camp nearly two decades ago. In 2003 an Israeli judge dismissed an earlier defamation case where five Israeli soldiers who were not in the film, but claimed the presentation of the army in the documentary sullied their reputations, sought to sue Bakri.
Bakri’s documentary “Jenin, Jenin” is now officially banned in Israel. The film, which was produced only months after the conclusion of this particular episode of Israeli violence, did not make many claims of its own. It largely opened up a rare space for Palestinians to convey, in their own words, what had befallen their refugee camp when large units of the Israeli army, under the protection helicopters, pulverized much of the camp, killing scores and wounding hundreds.
To ban a film, regardless of how unacceptable it may seem from the viewpoint of the official authorities, is wholly inconsistent with any true definition of freedom of speech. But to ban “Jenin, Jenin,” to indict the Palestinian filmmaker and to financially compensate those accused of carrying out war crimes, is outrageous.
The background of the Israeli decision can be understood within two contexts: one, Israel’s regime of censorship aimed at silencing any criticism of the Israeli occupation and apartheid and, two, Israel’s fear of a truly independent Palestinian narrative.