An Israeli court rejected a libel suit against a pro-Palestinian documentary about the battle of Jenin.
Petach Tikvah District Court on Sunday turned down the suit filed by five Israeli veterans of the 2002 fighting in the West Bank town against Mohammed Bakri, the director of the film “Jenin, Jenin.”
The plaintiffs alleged that Bakri, an Israeli Arab, had slandered them by including baseless allegations in the documentary about military atrocities in Jenin. He was further accused of providing skewed translations for some of his interviewees’ accounts.
The court found that while “Jenin, Jenin” did constitute slander, the plaintiffs could not sue Bakri because they had not been singled out in the film.
Twenty-three Israeli soldiers and some 50 Palestinians, many of them gunmen, were killed during the battle.
Palestinian propagandists alleged that Jenin was the site of deliberate massacres, turning the town into a symbol abroad of Israeli depredation.
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