Joe Biden: “for the past few weeks we have been hearing sensationalist claims of a massacre in the Jenin refugee camp. In recent…”

“for the past few weeks we have been hearing sensationalist claims of a massacre in the Jenin refugee camp. In recent days, hundreds of reporters and international relief workers have descended on the camp, and not one has verified these claims. In fact, the Washington Times today quotes the senior official in Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement in Jenin as saying that the death toll stands at fifty six. Other reports place the number around fifty one. Even one death is one too many, and there is still considerable excavation work to do in the camp. But it seems apparent that there was no massacre in Jenin. Let me say that again. It seems apparent that there was no massacre in Jenin. There are not 500 civilian dead, as the Palestinians initially claimed. What happened in Jenin was an intense battle fought at close quarters in which 23 Israeli soldiers also lost their lives in Jenin. And the leader of Fatah said today, trying to make the case that they 'won' the battle, that 'although we lost 56, they lost 23.' The relatively high number of Israeli casualties is in itself an indicator of what went on in the camp. Had the Israelis chosen, they could have easily sat back and pummeled the camp from afar, and starved the terrorists. Instead, they chose to do things the hard way. They went house to house to house, from booby-trapped house to booby-trapped house to booby-trapped house.”