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IDF reservists who fought in Jenin last year charged that director Muhammad Bakri slandered them and presented the film incorrectly as a documentary.
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| By Ellis Shuman February 26, 2003 |
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Five IDF reservists, who participated in the army's Operation Defensive Shield last year in Jenin, today filed a 2.5-million shekel ($514,000) libel suit against Muhammad Bakri, the director of a banned film portraying events in the Jenin refugee camp.
In the lawsuit, which also named the Tel Aviv and Jerusalem cinematheques, which defied the Israeli Cinema and Theater Review Committee's ban and screened the film, the reserve soldiers said Bakri's film was incorrectly portrayed as a documentary and slandered the soldiers who fought in Jenin and all Israeli soldiers.
"Jenin, Jenin" was banned in December for its portrayal of fictional events as truth. The film is "propaganda that represents a biased view of the group with whom Israel finds itself at war," a spokeswoman for the board said, explaining the decision.
"The film portrays itself as a documentary, and presents so-called testimonies and facts," the reservists charged in their lawsuit. The soldiers claim the film includes scenes of alleged cruelty on their part, including unjustified gunfire and the harming of innocent children, and that all these incidents are fabricated.
"We received an emergency call-up order and went out to fight in order to defend our homes," said one of the reservists who brought the lawsuit, quoted in Haaretz. "We fought slowly, day after day, in order to avoid harming the civilian population. This film portrays us as war criminals."
The reservists said the screening of the film in the Tel Aviv and Jerusalem cinematheques humiliated them, mocked their good intentions and caused irreparable damage to them and their families. The soldiers said Bakri never verified the 'facts' in his film and did not present an Israeli response to the charges he raised.
"This entire film is one large truth," Bakri responded. "The problem is, that [for Israelis] this is not 'our truth.' It's hard for us, because it's someone else's truth. It's time to open our eyes and begin to see the other truth."
The film "Jenin, Jenin" was screened on Monday in Lawrence, Kansas, as part of a Middle East Film Festival. It was also screened this month on several American university campuses.
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