8 October 2007 @ 8:58AM >>
For years, journalists at the France 2 television network have been refusing to release raw footage in a very important case. Mohammed al-Dura was apparently shot to death by Israeli soldiers in an incident used by Palestinians as a propaganda tool during the wave of terror attacks called the Second Intifada. But France 2 employed a Palestinian cameraman whose reliability was called into question after additional investigation revealed inconsistencies in the way the story was portrayed. Did he tape a staged murder intended to be used in a propaganda campaign? Or was al-Dura really killed by Israeli soldiers?
The answer may lie in France 2’s raw footage from that day, which the network has been fighting to keep secret all these years:
It has been seven years since France 2 Television broadcast the excruciating footage of Mohammed [al-Dura] and his father, Jamal, crouching in terror behind a barrel in Gaza’s Netzarim Junction while, according to the report, under relentless fire from [Israeli Defense Forces] soldiers. The 59-second clip, which ends with the boy apparently shot dead, was presented around the world as an unambiguous case of Israeli savagery.
The tape fanned the flames of what became known as the second intifada. The boy Mohammed was the iconic martyr, his name and face gracing streets, parks and postage stamps across the Arab world. His memory was invoked by Osama bin Laden in a jihadist screed against America, and in the ghastly video of the beheading of American Jewish journalist, Daniel Pearl.
Shortly following the al-Dura incident, however, a series of inquiries cast grave doubt on the accuracy of the original France 2 report. The official IDF investigation concluded that, based on the position of IDF forces vis-a-vis the Duras, it was highly improbable, if not impossible, that an Israeli bullet hit the boy. Research by The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic and Commentary magazine concurred. Then a German documentary revealed inconsistencies and probable manipulations in the account of France 2’s lone journalist on the scene that day, Palestinian cameraman Talal Abu Rahmeh.
And yet France 2 refused to release Abu Rahmeh’s full 27 minutes of raw footage. It did, however, agree to let three prominent French journalists view the footage. All three concluded that it comprised blatantly staged scenes of Palestinians being shot by Israeli forces, and that France 2’s Jerusalem Bureau Chief Charles Enderlin had lied to conceal that fact.
Regardless of what’s on that tape, it is distressing that a television station will not release it. Call me naive, but I thought the purpose of the media was to show what happened, not to hide it.
