Israeli war documentary causes uproar in Egypt
March 10th, 2007 by Zsofia
The standoff between Israel and Egypt continues over a controversial Israeli documentary film, which was screened two weeks ago on Israel’s Channel 1. The film “The Spirit of Shaked” alleges that the reconnaissance unit Shaked - whose leader at the time is now a member of the Israeli government - killed Egyptian prisoners of war at the end of the 1967 six day war.
However, the film’s director Ran Edelman said that this was not the intention and admitted inaccuracies in his film. He told the Jerusalem Post that he edited still pictures of an unrelated incident into the frames in question, showing enemy combatants in surrender and an Israeli soldier with a gun standing over dead bodies. But the prisoners and dead were taken and killed in unrelated battles elsewhere in the Sinai.
Apparently, the film also mistook the identity of the enemy combatants, by relying on the soldiers it interviewed who spoke of an “Egyptian unit.” The veteran members of the Shaked reconnaissance unit interviewed never said they shot unarmed or shackled POWs, but were debating a question whether they used “excessive force” by opening fire on enemy combatants who were on the retreat, some of whom had run out of ammunition.
Egypt’s parliament is holding a special session today to discuss demands by some parliamentarians to expel the Israeli ambassador. Israel’s Channel 1 television said the the controversy had also been fueled by inaccurate Egyptian media reports, which misquoted veteran Israeli soldiers as saying they killed Egyptian commandos “while they were shackled,” which the film does not allege.
