Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Israeli report on al-Durra case is vengeful and ‘surreal,’ says Haaretz — but ‘NYT’ treats it as gospel

Al Dura family at his grave
From a Paldf.net: al-Dura family, including Jamal (l), at Mohammed al-Dura's grave
Famously, 12-year-old Muhammad al-Dura was killed in the second intifada, during a shootout in Gaza in September 2000; haunting footage of the boy's cowering with his father, first broadcast on French public television, became a symbol of the brutality of the occupation. But this weekend the Israeli government produced a report asserting that the boy and his father may well have escaped the shootout unscathed.
The Guardian emphasizes the political stakes for Israel in making this assertion:
Yuval Steinitz, the minister of strategic affairs, who presented the report, described the affair as "a modern-day blood libel against the state of Israel … The France 2 report was utterly baseless."
But the French reporter who first broadcast the footage on France2, says that Israel didn't even interview the boy's father, Jamal, and that witnesses to the killing are willing to undergo polygraph tests. Charles Enderlin:
Aucune autorité israélienne n'a contacté France 2, Jamal al Dura, Talal Abou Rahmeh le cameraman à des fins d'enquête ou d'autres protagonistes.
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