According to WorldNet Daily, a Palestinian film-maker who produced a documentary alleging that Israeli troops committed war crimes in Jenin refugee camp has admitted to falsifying scenes, using inaccurate information -- and, most telling of all, obtaining financing for the project from the Palestinian Authority:

'Muhammad Bakri, producer of "Jenin, Jenin," a documentary that claims Israel committed genocide in the Jenin refugee camp in April 2002, admitted in a deposition to inaccuracies throughout his film. The filmmaker is being sued by five Israeli soldiers visible in still footage in the film, which alleges IDF troops killed a "large number" of civilians, mutilated Palestinian bodies, randomly executed and bombed women, children and the mentally and physically impaired, and leveled the entire refugee camp, including a wing of the local hospital...But Bakri, in a deposition obtained by WND, admitted he "believed" selected witnesses but didn't check the information they provided.

'"I believed the things that I've been told. What I did not believe was not included in the film," said Bakri. When asked about a scene in which it is implied Israeli troops ran over civilians, Bakri admitted to constructing the footage himself as an "artistic choice." He also answered "no" when asked if he believed "that during the operation in Jenin, the Israeli soldiers killed people indiscriminately." In perhaps the most explosive element of the deposition, Bakri admitted his documentary, which was screened in theaters around the world, was financed in part by the Palestinian Authority. He said Yasser Abed Rabu, Palestinian minister of culture and information and a member of former PLO leader Yasser Arafat's executive committee, "covered a part of the film expenses."'

This film was only one part of the extraordinary libel perpetrated against the Israelis over their attempt to clear out terrorists from Jenin -- an episode described by the western media, who were reporting Palestinian sources without checking them, as a 'massacre' and 'genocide', but in which only 56 mainly armed Palestinians died and no fewer than 23 Israeli soldiers.

The significance of Bakri's deposition, however, lies in the part played in disseminating this libel by the Palestinian Authority, whose utterances tend to be believed uncritically by British journalists while the Israelis -- who do not set out to deceive -- are assumed to be intrinsically and deliberately mendacious. Yet here is evidence that it is the Palestinian Authority which orchestrated a gross deception and libel.

This revelation needs to be set alongside an important article in the Jerusalem Post, which details shocking evidence of the extent to which apparently objective reporters for a variety of international press agencies are actually working for the Palestinian Authority.

One journalist for Agence France Presse actually announced last year that she would run in the election for the chairmanship of the Palestinian Authority, and one of the agency's correspondents in the Gaza Strip also happens to be the chief reporter in the area for the PA's Voice of Palestine radio station. These are not isolated examples. As the Jerusalem Post reports:

'AFP is not the only member of the international news media to employ "journalists" who see themselves as "foot soldiers" serving the Palestinian cause. Other parts of the foreign media frequently allow their stories to be filtered through such fixers-consultants. Meanwhile, the Associated Press and Reuters, which have their own TV production services, rely almost entirely on footage provided to them by Palestinian crews covering events in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The material, distributed to thousands of subscribers worldwide, mostly focuses on Palestinians as victims of IDF operations; the cameramen decide from which angle to film and which material to send at the end of the day to their employers in Jerusalem. The Associated Press also has a journalist – Muhammad Daraghmeh – who works for the PA's Al-Ayyam. "It's like employing someone from the [Israeli] Government Press Office or one of the Israeli political parties to work as a journalist," comments a veteran foreign journalist based in Israel.'

In addition, says the article, for many years CNN used senior Palestinian politicians Ziad Abu Zayyad (Fatah) and Ghassan Khatib (Palestinian Communist Party) as in-house analysts on Palestinian affairs. While as for our own dear BBC:

'Most recently, the BBC published on its Web site a story by correspondent Barbara Plett about the PA campaign to register voters for the election in east Jerusalem. Israel had closed down the six registration centers in the city because, under agreements signed with the PLO, the Palestinians are not permitted to carry out political activities inside Israel."When it comes to Palestinian democracy in occupied East Jerusalem, Israel is obstructing them, and the Americans have little to say," Plett concluded her report.Plett failed to mention in her story that most Arabs in Jerusalem had refused to register.Plett, who last year admitted that she had cried upon witnessing Arafat being airlifted from the Mukata in Ramallah for medical treatment in Paris, also ignored in her story complaints by Palestinians that the PA security forces were harassing and intimidating would-be voters and supervisors at the registration centers – a complaint made by the Palestinian Central Election Committee in a letter sent to the PA Minister of Interior and published in some Palestinian newspapers.'

Isn't it about time newsdesks and editors started asking some pointed questions about the bona fides and conflicts of interest among their Middle East reporters? And isn't it time they realised that the big news agencies, whose reports are syndicated across the world and sometimes tend to be regarded as more authoritative than a newspaper's own reporters, have on occasion disseminated distortions and falsehoods across their pages -- meaning that these editors have been used as unwitting dupes of a sophisticated propaganda campaign of lies?