Karsenty's Al-Durah Defamation Acquittal Overturned on Technicality -- Revealing Problems In the Media and French Legal System

On Wednesday, a French court found Philippe Karsenty guilty of defamation when he claimed that France 2's Charles Enderlin's video of the death of Mohammed Al Durah, was inaccurate and the death of the boy a hoax.

Typical of the media reporting of the case is the Associated Press report Frenchman convicted of defamation for saying film showing Palestinian boy’s death was faked:

In a report issued in 2004, Philippe Karsenty said the footage was orchestrated and there was no proof that the boy had been killed.

France-2 sued for defamation, and after a long legal battle, a Paris court fined Karsenty 7,000 euros Wednesday. He called the verdict “outrageous.”

The sloppiness of AP report is illustrated by the way it omits the fact that in 2008, Karsenty was actually acquitted of the charge of defamation.

Mideast Media Sampler 6/27/13: Karsenty Loses In Al-Durah Case, As French Court Refused To Hold Media Accountable

by David Gerstman, contributing blogger at Legal Insurrection

Karsenty, Accountability lose

A few weeks ago Israel's government released a critique of the Al Dura case. During the so-called "Aqsa intifada," Mohammed al-Dura was allegedly killed by the IDF during a shootout at the Netzarim Junction in Gaza. Or so it was reported by France's Channel 2 and its reporter Charles Enderlin. Al-Dura became a cause in the Arab world. His image was put on postage stamps to inflame the "Arab street" against Israel. The Palestinian Authority released a video starring "Al-Dura" encouraging other children to become martyrs




When the report was released, the Jerusalem Post's diplomatic correspondent Herb Keinon wondered:

But still. Israel, by releasing this report 13 years on, has put this picture back into people’s minds, and it is not entirely clear whose interests are served by resurrecting this potent image.

Richard Landes responded:

Video: Latma on Mohammed Al-Durah Muhammad and other PR victories

This week Latma takes a look at the Israel report on the Al Durah hoax -- presented 13 years after it took place. Also, a look at the questions raised over the cost of modest Netanyahu's lifestyle.

Here is the video:

Nidra Poller on The Muhammad al-Dura Hoax

This Wednesday, the French Court of Appeal is expected to rule in the defamation case brought by France 2's Charles Enderlin against French media analyst Philippe Karsenty who accused Enderlin of fabricating the story of Mohammed Al-Durah.

In light of that, I am reposting the following 2011 article by Nidra Poller with permission of Middle East Media.

For more background information on the Al-Durah hoax, check out The Al-Durah Project, which gives you the opportunity to check out evidence -- including comparing raw footage of what happened with the edited version broadcast on France2.

The Muhammad al-Dura Hoax and Other Myths Revived

by Nidra Poller
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2011, pp. 71-78 (view PDF)

On September 30, 2000, a day after Yasser Arafat launched his war of terror, euphemized as the al-Aqsa intifada, state-owned France 2 Television broadcast a news report, filmed by a Palestinian cameraman, of the fatal shooting of a 12-year-old Palestinian identified as Muhammad al-Dura. The dramatic voice-over commentary by the station's long-time Jerusalem correspondent, Charles Enderlin, described how the boy and his father Jamal were pinned down by Israeli gunfire at Netzarim Junction in the Gaza Strip. The father pleaded frantically with the soldiers to stop shooting, to no avail. "A last burst of gunfire," intoned Enderlin, "the boy is dead, his father critically wounded."

Despite a mountain of evidence disputing the charge of his intentional killing by Israeli soldiers in 2000, 12-year-old Muhammad al-Dura, seen cowering with his father, became the poster child of the "Second Intifada." As seen in this billboard, his image soon attained iconic status in the Arab world and helped refuel myths of bloodthirsty Jews.

The bloodless images of Jamal and Muhammad al-Dura were instantly seared into the public mind. Distributed free of charge to international media, repeated endlessly like a raucous war cry, the Dura video provoked anti-Jewish violence in Israel and, on a scale not seen since the Holocaust, throughout Europe.[1] The recently-created al-Jazeera television—founded in 1996—was significantly boosted by exploiting the Dura death scene.

Recognized almost immediately as a staged scene by astute observers, denounced by others as an unfounded accusation against Israeli soldiers, the Dura video has been analyzed, investigated, dissected, exposed, taken to court, attacked, defended, exploited, and debated for almost ten years.[2]

Mideast Media Sampler 5/14/13: The Need To Blame Bush For Obama's Hesitancy In Syria

by David Gerstman, contributing blogger at Legal Insurrection

1) Syria considerations

Last week former executive editor of the New York Times, Bill Keller wrote Syria is not Iraq. The gist of his argument is that he trusts President Obama but shouldn't have trusted President Bush. It's a silly argument. However, as Dexter Filkins reports, Keller's thinking is mirrored in the administration. 

The Legal Battle Between Charles Enderlin and Phillipe Karsenty Over Al Dura Fraud Continues

The following by Jonathan Rosenblum is reposted here with permission:

Truth on Trial

by Jonathan Rosenblum
Yated Ne'eman
January 25, 2013


A trial of major importance took place last week in Paris, and my guess would be that even among American Jews best informed about matters relating to Israel few are aware of it. I refer to the fourth round in the legal battle between Charles Enderlin and France 2 on one side and media critic Phillipe Karsenty on the other. Ironically both Enderlin and Karsenty are Jewish, and the former is a dual French-Israeli citizen as well.

The subject of this legal battle is the alleged shooting by Israeli soldiers of a Palestinian boy identified as Mohammed al-Dura at the Netzarim junction on Sept. 30 2000. France 2 broadcast 55 seconds of footage, with a voice-over commentary by its chief Israel correspondent Enderlin (who was not at the Netzarim junction when the events in question took place), in which Enderlin solemnly intones that Israeli soldiers shot the boy. Enderlin generously provided the clip free of charge to any other news organization that wished to broadcast it, and the picture of the terrified boy crouching behind his father quickly assumed iconic status.

The picture of the cowering boy fanned Muslim hatred of Israel and Jews, not that much fanning is needed. When Daniel Pearl was beheaded by Islamists in Pakistan, the photo was prominently displayed in the background. The crowd that literally eviscerated two Israeli reservists in Ramallah at the outset of the Al-Aqsa Intifada chanted of their revenge for the blood of Mohammed Al-Dura. And Osama bin Laden made reference to the boy in the tape he released after 9/11. Palestinian TV has made a staple of Mohammed al-Dura beckoning to young children to join him as jihad martyrs in Paradise. And most recently, Mohammed Merah, the cold-blooded murderer of four Jews (three of them children) at point blank range, in a Toulouse Otzar HaTorah school, has proven to be obsessed with al-Dura.

That 55 second clip in fact consisted of six different segments spliced together from a total of 27 minutes of footage filmed by Palestinian cameraman Talul Abu Rahmeh, during what he claimed was 45 minutes of sustained Israeli shooting. Enderlin also spliced in a picture on an Israeli soldier firing a gun to suggest that he was firing at the boy and his father.

The legal battle commenced when Enderlin and France 2 sued Karsenty for defamation, after the latter published a series of pieces in which he charged that the former had perpetrated a fraud on the French public, and that the 55 second clip was staged.

The Return Of Charles Enderlin--Al-Durah Hoax Won't Die Without A Fight

It ain't over till...

Think Again: For once, the good guys win
by Jonathan Rosenblum
Jerusalem Post
June 12, 2008

Charles Enderlin is not going quietly into the night. On May 23 a French appeals court dismissed the libel suit he and France2 brought against media critic Phillippe Karsenty, arising out of the latter's charge that Enderlin and France2 had duped the French public with their September 30, 2000 broadcast of the "death of Muhammed al-Dura" at Netzarim Junction. In his voice-over that night, Enderlin, who was not at Netzarim Junction during the events in question, unambiguously claimed that the boy in the film clip had been killed by Israeli fire that deliberately targeted him.

With the dismissal of his suit, Enderlin joined Oscar Wilde and Alger Hiss in the pantheon of those who brought libel suits and ended up destroying their own reputations. He has announced, however, that he will appeal to the French Supreme Court. And his friends in the French journalistic community are circulating a petition claiming that he is the victim of insane conspiracy theorists.

My friend Larry Derfner apparently shares that view. He wrote in these pages on May 28 that anyone who believes that France 2's broadcast was a hoax belongs in an asylum along with 9/11 deniers. According to Derfner, Karsenty, Boston University history professor Richard Landes, and Luc Rosenzweig, former editor-in-chief of Le Monde, are victims of Jewish paranoia.

Larry admits that every word Enderlin said in his voice-over was false: There is no evidence that the boy and his father were targets of Israeli fire. Nor was he killed by Israeli fire. Yet, he writes, evidence of a journalistic hoax does not amount to .001 percent of the evidence that Shimon Peres masterminded the Rabin assassination. At most, Karsenty, Landes, et al. have gathered a few of the "oddities" favored by wacked-out conspiracy theorists.

ENDERLIN DISTRIBUTED the France 2 clip free of charge, and it was subsequently broadcast thousands of times. The image of the terrified boy cowering behind his father quickly assumed iconic status. It featured prominently in mass anti-Israel demonstrations in Europe, where it was juxtaposed to the image of the Jewish boy with his hands raised in the Warsaw ghetto.

To heighten its impact, Palestinian TV cropped into the France 2-clip pictures of an Israeli soldier firing. The image of "Muhammed al-Dura" beckoning other Palestinian children to join him as martyrs in paradise features prominently in the Palestinian death cult. His name was invoked by the Ramallah mob that disemboweled two Israeli reservists, in Osama bin Laden's 9/11 video, and in that of Daniel Pearl's beheading.
One would have thought that those who doggedly exposed one falsehood after another and provoked Enderlin and France 2 into their ill-fated libel suit are deserving of praise, not ridicule. At the very least, we would expect their accusers to show some minimal familiarity with the evidence they have amassed and to make some attempt to refute it.

Let's consider some of the "oddities" that are firmly established. Palestinians regularly fake media images and lie shamelessly. Recall Hamas legislators meeting by candlelight with the curtains drawn in what turned out to be the middle of the day, or the 5,000 Palestinians reportedly massacred in Jenin, or the family of eight supposedly killed by Israeli fire on Gaza Beach, who turned out to have stepped on Hamas-laid mines. Professor Landes coined the name Pallywood for these Palestinian media hoaxes, and documents a slew of them at his Web site Second Draft.

For the Palestinians, media is a pure propaganda tool. Thus Riccardo Cristiano of Italian national TV felt compelled to compose a craven letter to the Palestinian Authority stating that his station would never have broadcast the Ramallah lynch because it fully understands the rules of reporting from the PA.

FROM THE general to the particular. The sole footage of "Muhammed al-Dura's death" was that of Palestinian cameraman Talul Abu-Rahmeh working for France 2. Abu-Rahmeh is a liar. On October 3, 2000, he testified under oath to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights that there had been 45 minutes of sustained Israeli fire directed at the man and boy. As an experienced war reporter, he could verify that they could have only been hit by Israeli fire. Abu-Rahmeh claimed to have filmed 27 minutes of the fusillade. Later he told German documentary filmmaker Esther Schapira that he had filmed six minutes.

We now know that the boy could have only been hit by Palestinian fire. The story of a 45-minute fusillade was on its face laughable: Had Israeli soldiers wanted to kill Palestinians, they had dozens of rioters immediately in front of the Israeli stockade from which to choose. Moreover, Abu-Rahmeh's entire footage of the man and boy consisted of 58 seconds comprised of six spliced scenes.

The rest of his 27 minutes of footage - only 18 minutes of which France2 produced when ordered to do so by the French appeals court - consists of obviously staged scenes, according to three veteran French journalists who viewed it. The "al-Dura" footage was shot in the same area that Abu-Rahmeh and other Palestinian cameramen spent the day shooting such staged scenes.

Abu-Rahmeh once declared, "I went into journalism to carry on the fight for my people," and was certainly not above employing his camera for a bit of deception. A Reuters clip from the day shows him filming another staged scene involving a Molotov cocktail. That scene was inexplicably omitted from the rushes produced in the French court.

Whether Charles Enderlin knew from the first that his voice-over was false is unclear. That he lies is certain. He drew for gullible journalists a false map of Netzarim Junction, which wrongly placed the Israeli position in a direct line of fire to the man and the boy. Worse yet, he repeatedly claimed that he had edited out the last three seconds of the "al-Dura" footage because the boy's death throes were too painful to watch.

THERE WERE no such death throes. In those last three seconds, the boy lifts his head, peeks out from under his arm (with which he is shielding his eyes) prior to resuming a prone position - albeit with his leg still held aloft. A nearby mob chants, "the boy is dead, the boy is dead," before he even lies prone the first time. Enderlin drew twitters of laughter in the French courtroom when he offered that perhaps the crowd was anticipating the boy's death.

Not only is there no dead boy on the film. There is no sign of blood or wounds of any kind. In other footage from the scene, civilians are seen passing by the crouching man and boy - some running, some strolling but all apparently oblivious to any rifle fire. (See Nidra Poller, "Myth, Fact, and the al-Dura Affair," Commentary, Sept. 2005).

Over the years, more holes have developed in the al-Dura story. Phillipe Karsenty revealed that Jamal al-Dura had been treated many years earlier in an Israeli hospital for the same wounds later shown to journalists as corroboration. And Sami el-Soudi, a Palestinian journalist working for Metulla News Agency, found records of a boy named Muhammed al-Dura admitted to a Gaza hospital four hours before the filming at Netzarim Junction.

As his original tale unraveled, Enderlin adopted a fallback position: Even if his voice-over was totally wrong, it still reflects the "reality" of the Israeli occupation: Israelis killing Palestinian children. That too appears to be Derfner's position: Nothing must be allowed to absolve Israel of guilt for the occupation.
The al-Dura affair, it turns out, was not just about Israeli culpability, but about the very concept of Truth itself.

Fortunately, this time the good guys won.

For other articles by Jonathan Rosenblum, visit Jewish Media Resources

The authoritative source about the Al-Dura hoax and the trial is Professor Richard Landes of The Augean Stables.

Here are some of his more recent articles (from older to most recent:

• MOS meets Al Durah Forgery: Larry Derfner Weighs In
• Jerusalem Post Editorial: Lessons of Al Durah Scandal
• Help for the Drowning: Derfner Wrestles with the Data
• Circling the Wagons around Charles: Le Nouvel Obs calls for Solidarity with their colleague under attack
• What Checks and Balances to the Fourth Estate: Appeal for Charles Enderlin Poses the Question
• Endre Mozes Responds to Derfner
• The Impact of Al-Dura on the West
• JPost Publishes Our Response: Landes and Karsenty to Derfner
• Karsenty Appeal Ruling: Partial but Professional Translation
• Studies in Aggressive Masochism: Israeli Journalist on Muhammad al Durah

Technorati Tag: Israel and Al-Durah and Karsenty.

Al-Dura Case Is Overturned!

From Augean Stables:

Karsenty Wins Court Decision!!

More details to follow. But word from Paris is that the court dismissed charges against Philippe Karsenty today. Now we get to see how the French (and Western) MSM handle this. It’s a stunning victory for Karsenty and loss for Enderlin and France2 who initiated this case when they didn’t have to.

In order for an appeals court to reverse a decision, they must have strong evidence to the contrary.

The fact that they did indicates that their written decision will be very critical of France2. The implications of this decision are immense. We’ll be following up in the days, weeks and months to come.

I was thinking of using a title similar to what Augean Stables used, but considering the lack of attention from the media, I figured people would have no idea what I was writing about--or why it is so important.

Even in Israel, where this the importance of this story should be a appreciated, it is not getting the reaction it deserves. Israel Matzav writes:

I don't know how this has been reported elsewhere in the world, but here in Israel, I have not seen the story on any of the major newspapers' English-language websites (JPost, Haaretz and YNet) nor, more surprisingly, on Arutz Sheva. Other than the first report just after 3:00, I did not hear it on Israel Radio's 4:00 news (I was on a work call at 5:00). And the correspondent who reported from Paris was someone who - according to Yitzchak Noy, the host of the international news hour - 'is working with us on this case.' He is not Israel Radio's regular Paris correspondent. That would be Michel Zlatovsky.

The importance of this decision cannot be underestimated. Last year, Natan Sharansky wrote:

The defamation trial passed almost unnoticed in Israel, to the apparent detriment of Mr. Karsenty's case. In his ruling in favor of France 2, judge Joël Boyer five times cited the absence of any official Israeli support for Mr. Karsenty's claims as indication of their speciousness.

Israel's decision to stay on the sidelines was unfortunate because the truth always matters. The al-Dura incident wasn't the only media report to inflame passions against Israel in recent years, but it was the one with the highest profile. Moreover, if, as Mr. Karsenty and others have claimed persuasively, the al-Dura incident is part of the insidious trend in which Western media outlets allow themselves to be manipulated by dishonest and politically motivated sources (recall the Jenin "massacre" that never was, or the doctored Reuters photos from Israel's war against Hezbollah in 2006), then France 2 must be held accountable.

In a separate post, Israel Matzav addresses why the media in general has been ignoring this trial:

The bottom line is that the mainstream media outside France is ignoring the case because they know that they are guilty of the same fraud of which France 2 is guilty: They use 'Palestinian' stringers rather than their own real reporters in Judea, Samaria and Gaza and in other 'war zones' like Iraq.

Honest Reporting first addressed the problem of the media's reliance on stringers back in January 2005:

the Jerusalem Post reported that two of the largest wire services ― Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Associated Press (AP) ― have employed journalists with inappropriately close ties to the Palestinian Authority. Majida al-Batsh was a Palestinian affairs correspondent for AFP for many years, while simultaneously being on the payroll of the Palestinian Authority as a reporter for the PA's official organ, Al-Ayyam.

If this is not evidence enough of impropriety at AFP, last year Batsh announced she would actually run for the presidency of the Palestinian Authority. The Post reports:

Her colleagues claim that shortly before she joined the race [for PA president], Batsh resigned from the news agency, saying she wanted to devote her time to the election campaign. However, they add, this did not prevent her from seeking the agency's help in her campaign.

"One day she showed up and asked to use the fax machine to send some documents," reports one coworker. "The agency did not object."

Batsh isn't the only AFP reporter receiving a PA salary on the side:

One of the agency's correspondents in the Gaza Strip is Adel Zanoun, who also happens to be the chief reporter in the area for the PA's Voice of Palestine radio station.

The AFP bureau chief in Jerusalem, Patrick Anidjar, refuses to discuss the issue, saying, "I don't understand why you have to have the name of our correspondents." Pressed to give a specific answer, he says: "I don't want our correspondents' names to go into print. I don't want to answer the question. What is this, a police investigation?"

Meanwhile, Muhammad Daraghmeh ― who turns out near-daily reports from Ramallah or Jerusalem for the Associated Press ― also works for the PA's Al-Ayyam, according to the Jerusalem Post (and a pro-Palestinian site).

The overturning of the verdict against Karsenty is also an indictment against the media.
And they know it.

Note: Just keep in mind--the libel suit against Karsenty has been overturned. But that does not mean the court will rule that the film itself if a hoax. The damage done over the years by the Al-Dura incident will remain, and those with a personal interest in saying that the film is authentic will continue to do so.

Crossposted at Soccer Dad

Technorati Tag: Israel and Karsenty and Al-Dura.

Al-Dura Trial: Now We Wait For The Verdict (Correction)

The verdict itself will be delivered on March 21 May 22.

What are the prospects?
HonestReportings blog Media Backspin initially described Karsenty's presentation as persuasive, particularly when compared to France 2's case, which boiled down to a case of character assassination. By their last post, Media Backspin cautioned that Karsenty's presentation may have gotten too caught up in the details.

Roger L. Simon, reporting for Pajamas Media also seems to have had a change of heart. Initially he writes:

The first trial went against Karsenty, but the appeal is looking better for him, according to Richard Landes, a Boston University history professor who has been covering the Al Dura affair.

but at the end of the post has an update:

In the latest podcasts from Richard Landes, news is not as good for Karsenty. At the end of today’s session - the last before the reading of the verdict iin a few weeks - the Avocat Générale gave a closing statement unfavorable to the French media gadfly. Very rarely, said, Landes are the opinions of the A. G. overturned by the judges in a French court.

We'll have to wait till March 21 May 22 to find out.

Check out Simon's 3-part podcast and overview of the trial coverage.

Technorati Tag: Al-Dura.

Al-Dura Trial Today Going On Longer Than Expected

From the HonestReporting blog

Endre Mozes, our Take A Pen colleague attending today's legal proceedings...described Philippe Karsenty's presentation on al-Dura as "excellent with lots of sources" and Karsenty himself as "cool and articulate."

Not so the France 2 lawyers. "In the last hour and-a-half, they were trying to use handwriting analysis to try showing Philippe's a megalomaniac," said Mozes. "Philippe was shocked by the personal attacks, and twice, the judge stopped the proceedings to address the lawyers."

The presentation is still continuing despite the late hour.

The purpose of the proceedings is supposed to be to rule on the original raw footage.
(Someone tell France 2)

See Al-Dura Trial: Now We Wait For The Verdict

Technorati Tag: Al-Dura.

Update On Today's Al-Dura Trial

HonestReporting is closely following the Al-Dura trial that resumed its proceedings between Philippe Karsenty and France 2. Karsenty is currently making a lengthy and detailed presentation.

It is too soon to know whether the trial will finish today or continue tomorrow.

Check out HR's Al-Dura resource page.
Check out the exclusive interview with Mideast expert and media analyst Tom Gross about the al-Dura controversy.

See Al-Dura Trial: Now We Wait For The Verdict

Technorati Tag: Al-Dura.

Al-Dura Trial Resumes Tomorrow--Here Is A Primer

The Al-Dura Trial resumes February 27. Mideast analyst and media expert Tom Gross reviews the facts. A transcript of his comments is also available.

See Al-Dura Trial: Now We Wait For The Verdict

Technorati Tag: Al-Dura.

Another Palestinian Hoax. Hint: Arafat Hated Needles

Joel Pollak was at Harvard to hear Charles Enderlin of Al Dura fame:

France 2 TV journalist Charles Enderlin told a small audience at Harvard’s Center for European Studies today that Yasser Arafat had faked his blood donation to the victims of the September 11th attacks. Enderlin said the event had been staged for the media to counteract the embarrassing television images of Palestinians celebrating in the streets after the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.

The blood donation story made headlines around the world. It was reported by esteemed news agencies like the BBC, and photographs of Arafat lying with an outstretched arm ran on many front pages. But the whole scene was staged, Enderlin said. Arafat didn’t like needles, and so the doctor put a needle near his arm and agitated a bag of blood. The reporters took the requisite photographs.

Both Pollak and Richard Landes challenged Enderlin on Al Dura as well.

Read the whole thing.

Technorati Tag: Charles Enderlin and Al Dura.

Why Bother Refuting The Al Dura Hoax?

At Pajamas Media, there is video of the Roger Simon interview Philippe Karsenty, who was sued for slander by France2"Why Pajamas Media Pays So Much Attention to Al Dura"

Why are we paying so much attention to this legal battle in France, which is based on a disputed event in Gaza over seven years ago (2000)? Well, certainly not to gain clicks or attention on the Internet, I regret to say.

We are following this because part of the mission of Pajamas Media is to examine the errors and omissions of mainstream media and try to understand why they occurred and to correct them. This began with the Dan Rather affair, which gave this company its name.

The Al Dura affair is arguably more important than Rather. The American anchorman lost his job for promulgating false documents about Bush’s National Guard service.

The France 2 news footage - shot by Palestinian cameraman Talal Abu Rahma and then produced and narrated by the French-Israeli anchorman Charles Enderlin – blames the Israeli army for child murder. What could be worse than that?

This Al Dura video, and the subsequent photo excised from it of the supposedly dead boy, has been called the “Mother of All Fauxtography.” And that could be so – at least for our time. (False photos, art and documents incriminating nations and ethnic groups are an ancient phenomenon.)

The phony photograph went round the world, inspiring Muslims everywhere to hatred of Israelis and Jews and helping to foment and justify the second Intifada. The photo appeared on postage stamps and on billboards throughout the Islamic world and Western Europe. Public squares and streets were named for the “martyred” boy. The murderers of Daniel Pearl claimed they were avenging young Mohammed’s death at the very moment they slit the American journalist’s throat.

When I was in Paris in 2004, I saw the fake photograph blown up on posters and displayed all over the Left Bank and at historic locations like the Luxembourg Gardens. No one thought to question it. The Israelis had killed the boy. It was as potent a piece of propaganda for our time as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was for an earlier epoch, perhaps more so, because it was virtually uncontested.

Pajamas Media will stay on this case until this calumny is corrected and France 2 publicly admits its errors.

The former may actually be easier than the latter.

Pajamas Media has an overview of the Al Dura video and the ongoing story.

[Hat tip: Instapundit]

Technorati Tag: Philippe Karsenty and Al-Dura and France2.

The Father In The 2000 Al-Dura Hoax Got His Wounds 8 Years Earlier

Nidra Poller has been covering the developing story of the Al-Dura Hoax for Pajamas Media. Looks like one more chain supporting the hoax has been broken:

Jamal al Dura, who claims that Israelis fired at him and his son in 2000, was in fact injured by axe blade and not bullets in 1992, according to an Israeli surgeon who performed reconstructive surgery on the wounds two years later. PJM’s Nidra Poller reports on the latest startling development in the mother of all fauxtography cases.

The wounds purportedly sustained on September 30 2000 by Jamal al Dura “target of gunfire from the Israeli positions”—in the words of France 2 bureau chief Charles Enderlin—were in fact incurred in 1992. Jamal, identified as the father of the shahid [martyr] Mohamed al Dura, is one of the two living witnesses to the incident that triggered the “Al Aqsa Intifada.” The al Dura news report has been the subject of controversy for seven years.

Read the whole thing.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Al-Dura.

Al Dura and The UN Zionism = Racism Resolution: A Pattern Of Israeli Reluctance

Back in October, Natan Sharansky wrote about the Al Dura trial, especially about the defamation trial of Philippe Karsenty, who called for the firing of two of the France2 journalists--and one of the things that apparently hurt his case:

The defamation trial passed almost unnoticed in Israel, to the apparent detriment of Mr. Karsenty's case. In his ruling in favor of France 2, judge Joël Boyer five times cited the absence of any official Israeli support for Mr. Karsenty's claims as indication of their speciousness.

Israel's decision to stay on the sidelines was unfortunate because the truth always matters. The al-Dura incident wasn't the only media report to inflame passions against Israel in recent years, but it was the one with the highest profile. Moreover, if, as Mr. Karsenty and others have claimed persuasively, the al-Dura incident is part of the insidious trend in which Western media outlets allow themselves to be manipulated by dishonest and politically motivated sources (recall the Jenin "massacre" that never was, or the doctored Reuters photos from Israel's war against Hezbollah in 2006), then France 2 must be held accountable.

But finally, after 7 years, the Israeli government did finally come out with an official statement that the death of Al Dura was staged. Just keep in mind that although the statement was made in a letter by Government Press Office Director Daniel Seaman, Haaretz reported that the Prime Minister's Bureau said that not only was it not informed of the letter--it did not grant its approval for the letter either.

Still, it only took 7 years.

It took longer than that for Israel to actively push for the repeal of the UN resolution that equated Zionism with racism. In his book, Nations United: How the United Nations Undermines Israel and the West, historian Alex Grobman writes about the Israeli miscalculation:

Most Israeli diplomats and government officials believed that the resolution was so outrageous and embarrassing to the majority of the UN member states that it would shortly cease to be an issue. Responding to the charges would only give the resolution undue weight and grant Z=R credibility. The failure to grasp the long-term threat to the State of Israel and Jews in the Diaspora helps explain Israel's reluctance to engage in the fight a t the UN. [p. 96]

The Al Dura film has also been able to exert strong negative PR because Israel badly underestimated its effect. Sharansky writes about this based on first-hand experience:

It is important to note that the al-Dura news report profoundly influenced Western public opinion. When I served in the Israeli government as minister of Diaspora affairs from 2003 to 2005, I traveled frequently to North American college campuses. I heard firsthand how Mohammed al-Dura had shaped the perceptions of young people just beginning to follow events in the Middle East. For many Jewish students, the incident was a stain of dishonor that called into question their support for Israel. For anti-Israel students, the story reaffirmed their sense of Zionism's innately "racist" nature and became a tool for recruiting campus peers to the cause.

Grobman writes that while UN Resolution 3379 was passed in 1975, it was not until 1984 that the Israeli embassies around the world to take a hard look at the damage the resolution was doing to Israel's image around the world [p.98]. In the end, the resolution was repealed in 1991, at a cost.

Vice President Dan Quayle called for the repeal of the resolution in 1988, but the Israeli government was less than enthusiastic about the idea, fearing there would be a high price to pay for U.S. help. They were correct. By initiating a repeal, President George H. W. Bush attempted to finesse the pro-Israel lobby in the United States during an election year while pressuring Israel to acquiesce to its Arab neighbors. European and other allies supported the repeal to give the president that leverage over the Jews and the Israelis. [p. 104-5]

Hopefully, in the case of the Al Dura hoax, Israel will not end up having to pay such a high price for having allowed this lie to go on for so long unanswered. More importantly, the question remains whether Israel will learn to speak up on its own behalf. On this, the jury is still out.

Technorati Tag: Israel and UN and Al-Dura.

You Mean You Still Don't Know What Happened At Yesterday's Al Dura Trial?

Get up to speed with Soccer Dad's overview of various posts from around the Blogosphere.

Technorati Tag: Al Dura and Philippe Karsenty.

Al-Dura Trial: Exclusive Reaction From the Paris Courtroom

Alain Benjamin, of Take-A-Pen, interviews 4 men outside of the courtroom on their impression of the showing of the raw footage of Al-Dura in today's trial:

• Tom Gross of Mideast Media Analysis and former Jerusalem correspondent for the Sunday Telegraph of London and the New York Daily News.
• Endre (Andre) Mozes, chairman of Take-A-Pen
  
• Richard Landes of The Augean Stables
  
• Philippe Karsenty, founder and president of Media Ratings, who was sued by France 2 for defamation.
  

Technorati Tag: Israel and France 2 and Philippe Karsenty.

More On Today's Al Durah Trial

Melanie Phillips gives more details on today's Al Dura trial-- see Media Backspin, which provided initial impressions earlier in the day.

Apparently it was not a good day for France 2, even though Charles Enderlin--whose people were responsible for the film--made his appearance in court:

The drama of today’s hearing was enhanced by the appearance of Enderlin himself, who until today had not graced this case with his presence. As the film was shown to a packed and overheated (in every sense) courtroom, Enderlin and Karsenty offered rival interpretations of the images on the screen. If Enderlin thought he would thus demonstrate the inadequacy of Karsenty’s case, he was very much mistaken. On the contrary, parts of his commentary were so absurd that the courtroom several times burst into incredulous laughter.

Enderlin offered only a vague, rambling and unconvincing explanation of why he had only produced 18 minutes of footage rather than the 27 he claimed to have received from his cameraman in Gaza (Enderlin himself was not in Gaza when these events occurred).

Apparently France 2 managed to add to the questions already being asked about the various inconsistencies in the film they have been claiming as evidence that the Israeli army killed the young boy.

There were many very strange things about this footage which just didn’t add up. When it came to the footage of the ‘killing’ of Mohammed al Durah, the following stood out:

* This sequence was not a continuous narrative but was repeatedly broken up and spliced onto footage of other scenes from the demonstration.

* Although the France 2 cameraman had told a German film-maker, Esther Shapira, that he had filmed six minutes of the al Durah father and son under continuous Israeli fire, the footage of them lasted for less than one minute. There was a camera tripod next to them

* There was no evidence of the boy actually being hit

* At one point, people in the crowd cried out that the boy was dead, while he was sitting up large as life clinging onto his father with his mouth wide open.

* After he was said to be dead, he moved his arm (the sequence I have already reported which has been available on the web for years)

On February 27, the judge will give his decision on Philippe Karsenty's libel case.

There seems to be good reason to look forward to the verdict.
Unless you are France 2.

Read the entire article

[Hat Tip: Yid With Lid]

Technorati Tag: Al-Dura and Philippe Karsenty and Charles Enderlin.

Initial Reaction To Today's Viewing Of Al-Dura Raw Footage

Seems that one of the first to come out with the events at today's trial is Media Backspin, Honest Reporting's blog. Here is some of what they are reporting now. There will be more.

What did the raw footage show?

We can definitely say that nobody can say who was shooting at who. Charles Enderlin said in court that the Palestinians started shooting first, but in the end, there's no way we can say what happened that day. You can't tell who did what. The assertion from Charles Enderlin, that the Israeli army killed the boy, is totally wrong. The least he could've said was that the boy was killed--but we don't know by who.

There was a dispute over how much footage was to be screened. Was the full video shown?

Charles Enderlin submitted 18 minutes of footage. The judge, without any prompting from Philippe's lawyers, asked what happened to the 27 minutes. Enderlin said on record in court that he had to manipulate some footage that was not relevant to that day. He said he transferred the footage onto DVD for the court. That was amazing.

So she asked if anyone in attendance had seen the full footage. Luc Rosenzweig was there, stood up , and said he saw a tape that was more than 20 minutes long. Richard Landes also stood up. He saw the footage at Enderlin's office. He said the timer he saw was at least 21 minutes long. The judge basically let that issue rest, but there was serious doubt hanging over the room that the footage was tampered or doctored.

After the hearing ended, how did people react to what they saw?

Not one person believed that the version of France 2 was right. Some people maintained that the footage was staged. Others think the footage was real. Clearly, nobody believed that anybody died.

Read their entire report--especially about Philippe Karsenty and the lesson Israel can learn from him.

There will also be video coverage outside of the courtroom by Take-A-Pen's Alain Benjamin.

Technorati Tag: Al-Dura and Philippe Karsenty and France 2 and Charles Enderlin.