Augean Stables

Mark Steyn has an excellent piece on the issue of “free speech/academic freedom” and the Ahmadinejad visit to Columbia. In it he raises the issue of “risk-free dissent” which points out the critical inconsistencies of leftist indignation: on the one hand there is no limit to the verbal violence, and far too few limits to the physical violence that “progressives” will indulge in when the target won’t strike back. On the other hand, when we look at the targets that these same progressives take great pains not to offend and refuse to attack, we find that often enough they represent groups who might well make any criticism a costly endeavor.

Risk-free dissent the default mode of our culture

By Mark Steyn

“I’m proud of my university today,” Stina Reksten, a 28-year-old Columbia graduate student from Norway, told the New York Times. “I don’t want to confuse the very dire human rights situation in Iran with the issue here, which is freedom of speech. This is about academic freedom.”

Isn’t it always? But enough about Iran, let’s talk about me! The same university that shouted down an American anti-illegal-immigration activist and the same university culture that just deemed former Harvard honcho Larry Summers too misogynist to be permitted on campus is now congratulating itself over its commitment to “academic freedom.” True, renowned Stanford psychology professor Philip Zimbardo is not happy. “They can have any fascist they want there,” said professor Zimbardo, “but this seems egregious.” But, hey, don’t worry: He was protesting not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presence at Columbia but Donald Rumsfeld’s presence at the Hoover Institution.

The use of “fascist” as an epithet here is a key sign of the terminological disorder of the left. When Bush used the expression Islamofascism, progressives — the very people who called anyone fascist in the 60s who so much as looked at them cross-eyed — all of a sudden discovered the historically specific meaning of fascism. One must not call Islamists fascists.
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There is considerable speculation about Charles Enderlin in the Al Durah affair: When did he know what. Given his commitments to impressionistic journalism — he believed Talal’s account because it corresponded to the situation in Gaza (which he got from Talal) — and his fast and loose relationship to anything resembling real honesty, it’s hard to pick one’s way through his murky testimony.

A particular incident revealed to me by a colleague in France illustrates his modus operandi. According to France2, on September 30, 2002, Talal abu Rahmah sent a fax to their offices rescinding the sworn testimony he had made claiming that the Israelis shot the boy “in cold blood.” This was only revealed to the critics of France2 as a “Oh, by the way…” remark in response to their preparations for a major public protest in October 2002.

Incensed by this shell game — one minute Talal’s testimony is key in supporting Enderlin’s broadcast’s claim that the boy was the “target of fire coming from the Israeli position,” and the next, poof, it’s gone — critics at MENA hammered away at this outrage. Enderlin clearly took a great deal of heat for this, and in an interview with the popular magazine Télérama (a combo of TV Guide and Reader’s Digest), he made the following remark:

[Talal Abou Rahma] a donné des dizaines d’interviews, à beaucoup de médias, y compris des chaînes israéliennes, et la seule dont parle la Ména, c’est celle donnée à une ONG non reconnue par l’ONU, qui lui fait tenir des propos qu’il n’a pas tenus”.

Talal has given dozens of interviews to many media, including Israeli stations, and the only one that MENA speaks about is that given to an NGO that is not recognized by the UN and that has him making claims [i.e., “in cold blood”] that he never made.

The interviewer notes that Enderlin became irritated at this point in the interview. And so he should have. Not only is this a difficult subject in which his dishonesty and bad faith are on full display, but he’s lying to the reporter: the Palestinian Center for Human Rights a UN-recognized institution, and Talal made a statement to them under oath three days after the event. This testimony made it around the world, and many of Talal’s other interviews are merely repetitions of what he said here. So Enderlin’s claim to his interviewer is nothing short of completely dishonest and misleading.
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Notes by Richard Landes after three viewings

The main material from the France2 tapes has already been discussed at length in terms of its insights into Pallywood and al Durah . In this essay, I will address what the tapes tell us further about the al Durah affair aside from the direct evidence.

The final scene on Talal’s tapes from September 30, just after the al-Durah sequence, shows a man being loaded in an ambulance at the intersection. This footage, which looks like much of the Pallywood footage from earlier in the day (no stretcher, no signs of blood, clumsy evacuation), is clearly neither the boy nor the father (since they would have been very bloody and evacuated from the barrel). If Talal still had enough battery power to take this shot after the al Durah scene, why did he not take more pictures of the allegedly far more lurid al Durah scene - the boy “bleeding for twenty minutes,” the hail of gunfire, their evacuation?

Perhaps the most important information about al Durah on the France2 tapes comes from the day after. This day-after footage has a terrible photo from the previous day of the boy in the hospital (not necessarily Muhamed al Durah) with his stomach torn (or cut) open and his guts spilling out. (I have not been able to get a copy of this photo and would welcome a copy from anyone who has it.) It is difficult to imagine this gaping hole as an entry wound, suggesting that he was either shot from behind or further opened up by doctors in the hospital. In any case, such a wound certainly would have left massive quantities of blood on the ground behind the barrel.

The footage taken apparently early in the morning by Talal (it may be later), however, shows several scenes of the barrel that show no sign of blood where the father and son sat. The ground is slightly darker behind the barrel, which prompted Enderlin to remark to me that perhaps they had either cleaned up the pool of blood, or poured sand over it. Given that the wall should have been splattered with blood, and that the bleeding would have covered far more than the area that is slightly darker, including the wall, this seems like an unlikely explanation.

In any case, the Palestinians involved clearly understood that the lack of blood posed serious problems for their “narrative,” supplied fresh blood for the visit of the journalists who arrived later in the day. The picture below shows the scene around noon (to judge from the lack of shadows).

Note the bright red color of the blood, something that no journalist remarked in their reports. (Goldenberg actually refers to the “darkening blood…” — a day later?) Additionally there is no blood on the wall where presumably a total of nine wounds from high-speed bullets would have left quite a display. Finally, all the blood is where Jamal, the father, sat, and none where Muhammad allegedly bled to death for over 20 minutes.

In response to my fisking, Brett Kline has written an interesting comment which he kindly has permitted me to turn into a post.

Dear Mr. Landes:
Thank you for taking the time to criticize my paper for JTA. First, you should have posted the updated paper, which includes the Paris judge’s order (request or order?) that France 2 furnish the raw footage for screening.

I still can’t find this.

Then, several points, not necessarily in order of importance. This whole affair has left the arena of Israel-Palestine politics, and has a life of its own as a French media scandal, that probably should be taught in journalism school as an example of manipulation. However, it will never be taught in French school, because the French sincerely do not give a damn about this.
Displaying any emotion in an intellectual debate is a sign of weakness in France. The facts or possible facts do not matter here for the French; what matters is the personalities involved.

For those who read my ramblings about honor-shame culture, this is a signature description of an honor-shame culture. As Henry Higgins put it: “The French don’t really care what they say, actually, just so long as they pronounce it correctly.” Makes the Dreyfus affair, where people passionately cared about what they and others said, even more of a mystery. And of course, it raises the question, can the French rise to occasion this time? If they don’t the consequences are a lot worse than merely condemning an innocent man to Devil’s Island. Their society is at stake.

As for the comment on how it should be in the curriculum of Journalism schools… I not only agree, I’ll go further and say that if it is not, then the future of journalism and a free society will be in jeopardy.

Enderlin is respected as a journalist, so whatever he says is true. Karsenty is seen, for the few who bother to look, as a fringe case, so whatever he says cannot be taken seriously. That is French [honor-shame - rl] logic.

Karsenty did tell me that he believes Enderlin was a part of the staging with the cameraman. That is where I disagree with him, because I respect Enderlin’s work in Israel and Palestine. I think Enderlin was taken for a ride, along with France 2, but the public TV powerhouse will never ever admit that.

How can you think Enderlin ran staged footage of such explosive nature, and still respect his work? Doesn’t this give you pause about the rest of his work? My impression is that he’s “gone over,” not so much to the Palestinian side, but to the Palestinian style. (Upcoming post on that shortly.)

As for Karsenty’s opinion of Enderlin, he tells me he never said anything of the sort, and he has never taken that position in my conversations with him. He’s also smart enough not to say it publicly even if he believes it (many do: Enderlin is not known as “scoop Enderlin” for nothing). And certainly, in the article that got him in trouble, Philippe’s quite explicit that he thinks Enderlin “se trompe.”
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Charles Enderlin is a French-born Israeli citizen who has served as France2’s Middle Eastern correspondent for several decades. He was the one to whom Talal abu Rahmah, the Palestinian cameraman who photographed the al Durahs under fire on September 30, 2000 at Netzarim Junction, sent his footage. He edited and presented the footage with a commentary based on Talal’s testimony, and he gave out for free about 3 minutes of raw footage from Talal to any station that wanted it. The full set of Talal’s rushes from that day and the next, however, neither he, nor France2 have been willing to release to the Israeli investigation team or other independent investigators. On October 31, 2003, I had the privilege of viewing the tapes and talking about them with Charles Enderlin and an Israeli cameraman who works for France2. On two subsequent occasions I got to view the tapes and have further conversations with Enderlin.

Charles Enderlin plays a critical role in the Al Durah affair. Without his active effort both to present Talal’s version of events as “news” and to distribute the footage freely to everyone, the tale would never have carried the weight it did. Indeed, had he fired Talal on the spot for trying to put over such a grotesque fake, the story, even the Intifada, might have taken a distinctly different turn. And were Enderlin to have reconsidered and admitted his error, the correction could have come much earlier.

Among those of us who think the footage is staged (Shahaf, Poller, Juffa, Huber, etc.), the question about Enderlin comes down to this: when did he realize it was a fake? Hard-liners argue that he knew it from the start and is a co-conspirator with Talal in duping the global public. Others grant that, in his eagerness to break such a powerful scoop, he overlooked the evidence, and only realized his error later. But how much later?

I honestly do not know. I have a great deal of respect for the power of cognitive dissonance, for the ability of someone as smart as Charles Enderlin to convince himself that this footage is real – as he continues to insist – because the cost of realizing his error would be too crushing. He certainly made enough comments to me that bespoke his spectacular credulity of both Talal and other Palestinian sources to permit an interpretation that has Enderlin “genuinely” unaware of his mistake. On the other hand, Enderlin has enough of a reputation for dissembling that it could all be show. Ultimately, only Charles Enderlin knows.
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In an ongoing series of posts about the France2 tapes, I include this (and two more) about my own experiences:

I had the rare privilege to visit Charles Enderlin at France2 studios in Jerusalem in October 2003, and view about 20 minutes of tape from Talal abu Rachmeh’s work of September 30, 2000. Although I had already become acquainted with a tendency to stage scenes of fighting and ambulance evacuations, I was in for quite a surprise. Talal’s work was considerably more obvious in its filming of fakes, many of them quite badly staged for the cameras. In fact, if the cameraman who filmed the footage at Second Draft, to some extent, a photographer of Pallywood, standing back often and filming both the scene and the set, Talal was a Pallywood photographer, filming up close only the key “sight bytes” (as in the Molotov Cocktail scene ).

At one point, some youth are evacuating a “wounded” comrade, when one of them sees another ambulance with more cameramen. He puts the wounded boy in a headlock and yanks him over to the other ambulance, dragging the other “evacuators” with him. The experience of watching Talal’s work was literally surreal, Alice in Wonderland. I was astonished. It gave me information vertigo. What was going on?

At another point, a boy faked a leg injury, but instead of drawing big kids who could pick him up and rush him past the cameramen to an ambulance, he only attracted little kids. He shooed them away, looked around, and, seeing that no one was coming to evacuate him, straightened up and walked away without a limp. An Israeli cameraman working for France2 who was watching the film with me and Enderlin at the time, laughed at this point.
When I asked him why, he said, “because it looks so fake.”
“That’s my impression as well,” I responded.
Enderlin commented, “Oh, they do that all the time. It’s their cultural style. They exaggerate.”

When I walked out of the office, I was in shock. They do this all the time?! It’s their cultural style? Enderlin’s condescending “orientalism” really disguised an information catastrophe. The joke was on us all – the responsible media, the trusting public, the “scoop”-hungry journalists who rummaged through these cheap scenes, looking for something they could use in the evening’s broadcast. That’s when the term Pallywood first occurred to me.

Other journalists who saw Abu Rahmeh’s rushes in Paris at France2 in the Fall of 2004 had the same impression and got the same answer from France2 executives. In a radio interview , translated here, Daniel Leconte recalls:

the staging which obviously they were obliged to acknowledge as we sat around the table with the representatives of France 2, that is was staged - which is pretty outrageous (quand même extravagant) - and when we said to them, “You can see it’s staged,” one of them said, smiling, “Yes, but you know well that it’s always like that.” [To which Leconte responded:] “You may know that, but your viewers still don’t know.”

At least Leconte and Jeambar still adhere to principles of modern journalism. The PA has no scruples about doctoring film with shots from other days in order to “tell a higher truth.” Charles Enderlin responded to the scandal caused by these revelations with a defense that suggests he has “gone native.” He used Talal’s footage to run his story “because it corresponded with the situation on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.” Leconte “even-handedness” – “if we did something on this, we could not do it on this alone.”

It is partly out of the refusal of the MSM to police itself (even rival networks!), and partly out of the brazen refusal of France2 and Charles Enderlin to release their incriminating tapes, that I launched the Second Draft website. Visitors to that site can view the evidence themselves, rapidly become more knowledgeable about the case than the journalists who pretend to inform them, and so, not only pass their own judgments on what happened at Netzarim Junction on September 30, 2000, but also on the quality of the journalism they read in the MSM.

Remarkable piece by an Arab American who manages to transcend the “my people right or wrong” mentality of honor-shame, tribal culture.

‘I am with Israel’: One Arab-American’s salute

Despite all the spit, kicks & insults, the Jews would rather build than destroy
EMILIO KARIM DABUL
Wednesday, September 19th 2007, 4:00 AM

One of the greatest Arab poets of the 20th century was a Syrian named Nizar Qabbani. He was, in his own way, the Pablo Neruda of the Middle East. His love poems in particular are on a par with anything Don Pablo wrote.

So, it was with great disappointment that I came across one of Qabbani’s poems written in the late 1990s, entitled, “I Am With Terrorism.” I hoped the title would prove ironic. It didn’t. Not even close.

Just how I felt reading Scott Adam’s piece on Ahmadenijad at Columbia.

In fact, it is one of themost naked, awful pieces of anti-Israel, anti-U.S. drivel I’ve ever read.

Witness this rhetorical device in which he is able to insult two peoples with one poetic stone:
“I am with terrorism as long as this new world order is shared between America and Israel half-half.”

And that is actually one of the more moderate sections of the poem. As an Arab-American, I came away from reading it with a real sense of despair. If one of the great voices of Middle East poetry can do nothing more than recycle the Arabs-as-victims stance, justified in horrendous acts of violence against their “oppressors,” then what hope is there ever that Arabs and Israelis will ever know true peace?

I’d actually take that in a different direction. Forget about the Israelis. What hope is there ever that Arabs will ever know a semblance of peace among themselves?

Having just passed the sixth anniversary of 9/11 - and in the midst of a new conversation about the so-called “Israel Lobby” that allegedly dominates U.S. foreign policy - I want to offer an antidote to that toxic verse and the other vitriol that has poisoned too much Arab thought.

Israel, with all its imperfections, remains the beacon of light for the Middle East. For that reason, I wish to salute her, not only as one of America’s greatest allies in the war on terror, but as one of the true miracle countries of this time or any other.

With no apologies to Qabbani, I give you my twist on his verse:

“I am with Israel
because a people so long denied bread and freedom,
crushed under the wheels of pharaohs, emperors, czars and Führers,
has done more than any other people to free the world from itself.
What single people in history have contributed more to faith, science, philosophy and the arts?
And done so against the greatest odds, with a sword at their throats…
I am with Israel
because my people, so long in the desert,
have not had the courage to acknowledge the great teachers among them,
but instead have turned on them,
blamed them for all evil and shed their blood…
What other people could crawl away from the wreckage of the Holocaust
and, instead of seeking revenge, build the miracle called Israel?
Why, as Wufa Sultan has asked, have there been no Jewish homicide bombers?
Perhaps it is because despite all the spit, kicks and insults they’ve faced,
along with the constant threat of extinction,
the Jews would rather build than destroy.
I am with Israel
because I am with life,
and because beyond its verdant desert,
Israel offers the knowledge that those most desirous of peace and freedom
are a people who have so long been denied it,
and who with all they know of the world,
look still toward Jerusalem and reach for their enemy’s hand.”

Dabul, an editor with the American Congress for Truth, is author of “Deadline,” a novel about terrorism.

If Westerners want to see an example of genuine magnanimity and great heartedness, it’s hard to find anything to compare with this. From your mouth to your fellow Arab-Americans’ ears.

I am a member of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East. They just posted a petition of protest to President Bollinger which I urge you to sign:

We, the undersigned members of the Columbia University community, condemn in the strongest possible terms those responsible for bringing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak at Columbia University.

This event does not promote academic integrity and honest debate in the true spirit of academic freedom. It gives a podium to an individual who has no intention of speaking or debating in good faith, and who is well known for incitement to genocide; support for world-wide terrorism; imprisoning, mutilating, and murdering academics, trade unionists, journalists, students, and others; and engaging in historical denial and revisionism to justify his despotic agenda.

We disassociate ourselves from the invitation and the event.

Here is a more substantial statement
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Tom Segev tackles the latest developments in the Al Durah affair. His efforts do not speak well either for his knowledge or his moral compass. Looks more like Enderlin called in a favor: “cover my naked behind.” The result is a fascinating exploration of how confused people like Segev have become in trying to deal with the “clash of myths” that mark Israeli and Palestinian “narratives.”

Paying for the sins of the sons

By Tom Segev

Who killed Mohammed al-Dura?

Mohammed al-Dura died on October 1, 2000 [sic], and his death gave the Palestinian people a national symbol. He was a boy who was killed in his father’s arms, near the Gaza Strip settlement of Netzarim, apparently by Israeli army fire. A television cameraman from France 2 filmed the event, and in the history of the struggle between the Zionist myth and the Palestinian myth there are few images as shocking as these. Naturally, many have tried to prove that the images were fabricated, an effort that persists to this day.

An interesting and telling summary, an only slightly altered version of what Segev might have written six years ago. He has apparently not looked at this material since then since his description of what happened bears little relationship to what’s on the tapes. And yet, as a friend of Enderlin’s, and a reporter for the newspaper most in tune with Enderlin’s political outlook, he could have access to the tapes just by calling up and asking for a viewing.

My favorite is, “the boy who was killed in his father’s arms.” One could fill a scrap book with the articles headlined with “Boy dies in father’s arms.” And yet, nothing of the sort. Not only didn’t he die in his father’s arms, but one of the most disturbing aspects of that brief 55 second sequence when he’s allegedly gunned down, is that from the time he’s allegedly hit — scene 4 — to the end, the father never even reaches for the boy, much less tries to draw him out of the line of fire.

Take 4: Al Durah declared dead by Enderlin in his report. Father, allegedly hit by 7-8 bullets and reeling from their impact, sits with his spotless Miami Dolphins t-shirt, his torso turned towards the camera.

Take 6: (cut by Enderlin in his report) Despite his multiple wounds, the father has turned away from the son and faces the barrel, leaving the son alone. The son lifts up his arm and looks out.

Then of course there’s the interesting lack of detail about who took the pictures: not a cameraman from France2, but a Palestinian cameraman from France2. Of course, for the politically correct Tom Segev and his Ha-aretz audience, saying he was Palestinian is unnecessary. Why should that detail make any difference. And of course, in a world where liberal cognitive egocentrism has something to do with reality (i.e., a cameraman is a professional and impartial journalist regardless of his national or ethnic origin), it would be perfectly reasonable not to mention the national identity just as it would be reasonable not to mention the color of his hair or his weight — irrelevant. But that’s not the case here, much as Segev wants to pretend. Talal is a member of a highly politicized journalist organization, and has made public avowals of “fighting with his camera.”
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The New Criterion has an excellent editorial that raises many of the issues of honor-shame culture and our systematic mishandling of our relationship with the Arab/Muslim world as a result of our misunderstanding of the dynamics involved.

Sensitivity’s slippery slope

If you are like us, you probably often find yourself too busy when the luncheon gong sounds to manage a proper meal. You wind up ordering in a sandwich to eat at your desk. Even doctors in Glasgow, Scotland, used to avail themselves of this expedient. No more, apparently. You remember Glasgow: that’s where Kafeel Ahmed, part of a terrorist cell dominated by foreign-born Muslim medical personnel, rammed a Jeep Cherokee filled with explosives into the airport’s main terminal in June. In response to this, ah, incident, Britain raised the terrorist threat level to “critical.” What, you might ask, does that entail? Here’s one thing: according to some press reports, local hospitals ordered staff not to eat at their desks during Ramadan lest they offend the sensibilities of their Muslim colleagues and patients. Food trolleys, too, were to be rerouted out of sensitivity.

According to a hospital press release, these “suggestions—not orders— … have been greatly exaggerated in the media.” Perhaps. But a suggestion broadcast to “senior managers” can seem an awful lot like, well, a very strong suggestion, indistinguishable in practice from what the hospital refers to as “a policy directive,” i.e., an order. People will, in any event, take the hint. Meanwhile, the BBC has dropped plans to include an episode about a terror attack by Muslim extremists in its hospital drama show Casualty.

This seems to be standard operating procedure. After the subway bombings in London in July 2005, the BBC suddenly announced that it was scrapping plans for a dramatization of John Buchan’s novel Greenmantle. Why? Well, the book, whose plot revolves around Germany’s effort to enflame Muslim extremists in the First World War, contained “unsuitable and insensitive material.” Very considerate of the BBC, of course, but where were those scruples when they aired Jerry Springer: The Opera? That scurrilous, anti-Christian expostulation occasioned widespread protest among Christians, but in that case, as the London Telegraph tartly noted, “the BBC said that it would not be dictated to. Faced with potential Muslim anger, its courage is less visible.”

Do we discern a pattern here? Last month, Cambridge University Press announced that it would pulp all unsold copies of its 2006 book Alms for Jihad: Charity and Terrorism in the Islamic World by Robert O. Collins, a professor emeritus of history at the University of California, and J. Millard Burr, a retired employee of the State Department. Why? Becuase Khalid bin Mahfouz, a Saudi banker, filed a libel claim to quash the book. According to a story in The Chronicle for Higher Education, Cambridge instantly capitulated, paid “substantial damages” to Mr. Mahfouz, and even went so far as to contact university libraries worldwide to ask them to remove the book from their shelves.

Have we got this right? Muslim medical personnel conspire to construct and detonate car bombs. Result: local hospitals “suggest” greater sensitivity to Muslim eating habits and the BBC cancels a television program depicting more or less what just happened in the street because it might anger the wrong people. Meanwhile writers from France, Britain, and the United States have their work suppressed by a Saudi businessman who doesn’t like unpleasant things said about Muslim charities. Where does it end?

This article originally appeared in
The New Criterion, Volume 26, September 2007, on page 3
Copyright © 2007 The New Criterion | Back to top | www.newcriterion.com

Comments

The dynamics at work here reflect two different cultures operating at such vastly disparate levels, that what one culture thinks it is doing actually registers as the opposite on the other’s perceptual screens. The British think they are being magnanimous by trying not to offend Muslims’ notoriously delicate sensibilities. Muslims who favor Western tolerance may well be impressed with such concerns — like the Muslim students who was amazed that their university put in footbaths for students preparing to pray. But the people who are the most problematic, the Jihadis and their sympathizers, see these concessions as signs of weakness of will. For them, the willingness of the Western media not to inform their public about the dangers of Jihad is an Allah-send — the perfect cover for their activities, while the extensive efforts not to offend Muslims by, say, eating on Ramadan, is just another sign of how Muslims are extending Sharia on unbelievers. In other words, they view this kind of behavior as evidence that the West has already begun — willingly — to adopt their designated role as Dhimmi.

In a sense, this might work if those “moderates” who appreciate our concern for their sensibilities were then to turn around and contest publicly their fellow Muslims’ reading of the West’s concesssions — magnanimity vs. weakness. But they don’t. In the Muslim world, at least so far, the dominant reading is that of the zero-sum honor-shame approach: Western concessions represent a lack of will to resist Islamification and an invitation to further aggression. If failed attempts to blow up British civilians — including targeting women — lead to these kinds of concessions, then not only do they not lose ground — heightened suspicions and crackdown — but they gain ground — concessions and self-censorship that covers their behinds.

And at a fundamental level, the Jihadis are right in their assessment. As often in the case of honor-shame dynamics, people can’t publicly address what motivates them because to admit it would be shameful, so they fill their discourse with rationalizations. When Western intellectuals respond to the violent reactions of Muslims to perceived insults — like Danoongate or the Pope’s remarks — by attacking the cartoonists or the Pope for “provoking” the violence, they essentially side the with aggressors and show not magnanimity but cowardice.

The clincher in deciding which motivation drives this behavior comes from the behavior of groups like the BBC and the British Editorial Cartoonists Society when it comes to the sensibilities of others — their lack of any compumction in running pieces that deeply offend Christians and Jews puts the lie to their compassionate concerns. Quite the contrary, as the BBC’s response to complaints about material offensive to Christians — we will not be dictated to — indicates, they are proud of their independence.

The contrast here is between an independent media which defies the powers that be, no matter whose feelings are hurt — the basic nature of modern free media in a civil society — and a subservient media which self-censors in order to avoid offending people who will retaliate for being offended — the basic nature of a pre-modern, fettered media. What the British media — really the Western media — display is a particularly dysfunctional combination: defiant to their own modern culture, submissive to Muslim honor-shame culture.

Attack your side, protect your enemy: that’s a recipe for self-destruction.

How long before their public — viewers and readers — start to hold their own media responsible? The French case of Karsenty’s appeal could be a great place to begin: nothing better illustrates the dhimmi nature of the Western media than their fear of challenging the Arab world in this affair. As a fellow at ABC said to me after I showed him — and convinced him of — the staging: “I’m not sure how much appetite there is for this kind of thing here.”

The following article by Brett Kline covers the renewed al Durah affair. The piece at least brings in new voices, in particular those who wish, mightily, to dismiss the whole affair. In particular, he has a fascinating and disturbing quote from Clément Weill Raynal that epitomizes a characteristic and troubling aspect of French intellectual life — intellectual probity vs. cynicism — which in turn raises a fundamental issue in the constitution and survival of a civil society.

Al-Dura controversy lives on

Brett Kline

Published: 09/17/2007
PARIS (JTA) — Ever since Mohammed al-Dura was shot and killed at Gaza’s Netzarim Junction on Sept. 30, 2000, some have claimed the boy’s death was staged for prime-time television.

One of them, the director of a small French media watchdog group called Media Ratings, is going to court Wednesday to defend his version of the controversial story.

Philippe Karsenty will be appealing a 2006 decision that he slandered state-run France 2 television, whose camerman caught the 12-year-old’s death on tape during the fateful exchange of gunfire between Israeli forces and Palestinians.

Karsenty was slapped with two $1,380 fines — one to be paid to France 2 and one to the station’s reporter — and ordered to pay another $4,000 in court costs when he wrote that the shooting was a hoax, saying it constituted a “masquerade that dishonors France and its public television.”

He says the original trial was a travesty. Some partisan Jewish groups like the Zionist Organization of America and Camera-The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America have lined up behind him, but French Jewish groups have withheld their support.

Note that this is phrased in the terminology of what the French would call “communautarisme” — the conflict between “partisan” Jewish groups, and, generally, the French Jewish community, which has “withheld its support.” It’s important to realize that as much as Americans on the right and the left dismiss each other’s arguments as dishonestly partisan, the situation in France/Europe — especially in what concerns Israel — is far worse. Gentiles who defend Israel or discuss the serious rise of antisemitism in Europe, readily find their interlocutors responding, “Oh, I didn’t know you were Jewish.” Much of this debate has been handled at this level, rather than the substantive one.

That would not be so bad, in and of itself, if it were not that the accusations of bad-faith communautarisme are directed overwhelmingly and vehemently against Israel. Where the French are systematically méfiant (suspicious) of anything a Jew says in support of Israel, they are terminally credulous of anything a Palestinian says in support of his cause. As a result, the avowedly militant and devastatingly effective partisanship of Talal abu Rahmah’s “journalism” — amply on display in his as-yet unseen rushes — cannot be called into question. To do so, according to opponents of such a thesis, would be to get involved in a conspiracy theory.
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Ynet reporter Yaakov Lappin has a piece on the Al Durah Affair’s latest turn. Comments and corrections added.

Al-Dura footage to air

French judge orders television network to screen withheld footage of killing of young Palestinian boy in Gaza in 2000

Yaakov Lappin
Published: 09.20.07, 18:18 / Israel News

A French judge has ordered the France 2 television network to screen in court previously withheld footage of the shooting of Muhammad al-Dura, the Palestinian boy shot dead in his father’s arms in Netzarim in 2000 during a battle between Palestinian gunmen and IDF soldiers.

The army was blamed around the world for the boy’s fatal shooting although an IDF investigation in January 2001 into the incident failed to find conclusive evidence as to whether it was an IDF or Palestinian bullet that killed the child.

The screening has been tentatively set for November 14, Ynetnews has learned, though it is not yet clear whether members of the public will be allowed to view the film.

Wednesday’s landmark ruling is set to reignite the explosive debate surrounding the footage. After the images of the young boy’s death were first aired seven years ago, the video ignited widespread rage across the Muslim world, and several failed suicide bombers cited the incident as their motivation to carry out a terrorist attack.

Since then, sources in Israel and a number of independent analysts have maintained that Palestinian forces were likely responsible for the killing, and a German documentary aired in 2002 suggested that a Palestinian bullet was the cause of al-Dura’s death. Recently, the IDF submitted a formal request to have the footage made available for analysis.

Phillipe Karsenty, head of the French media watchdog Media Ratings, is behind the legal petition calling on France 2 to release the raw footage from that day.

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Voici une version française des procédés à la cours d’appel hier de la part de Véronique Chemla de Guysen International News, qui a suivit tous les procès au sujet d’al Dura dès le début. Les détails sont fascinants. J’ajoute des notes en anglais.

Below is a French version of the proceedings in the Appeal Court yesterday by Veronique Chemla of Guysen International News, who has followed the al Durah trials since the beginning. Text in French, notes by me in English.

For an English account of the court proceedings, see Nidra Poller at Pajamas Media: “Dam Bursts at Al Durah Trial.”

La Cour d’appel de Paris demande à France 2 les rushes sur l’incident al-Dura
Par Véronique Chemla pour Guysen International News
Mercredi 19 septembre 2007 à 23:07

La Cour d’appel de Paris a examiné le 19 septembre 2007 l’appel formé par Philippe Karsenty, directeur de l’agence de notation des médias Media-Ratings (M-R), condamné pour diffamation dans l’affaire al-Dura qui l’oppose à France 2 et à son correspondant à Jérusalem, Charles Enderlin. Devant les incohérences du reportage de France 2 diffusé le 30 septembre 2000 et soulevées par l’appelant, la Cour a demandé aux intimés - la chaîne publique et son journaliste - de lui fournir les 27 minutes de rushes afin de savoir si cette chaîne a alors diffusé des images mises en scène et ne correspondant pas à la situation réelle au carrefour de Netzarim, dans la bande de Gaza, à l’automne 2000.

Les faits sont têtus. Les juges persévérants, et les rushes incontournables.

The facts are stubborn. The judges persevering, and the rushes unavoidable. And yet… the previous judges, in a disgraceful opinion, were able to ignore the rushes, my testimony about them, and treat the “facts” with post-modern derision. These new judges — especially Laurence Trébucq, the presiding (female) judge — are clearly different, and I have to wonder how much a) the letter from the IDF requesting the rushes, and b) the absence of Chirac and the presence of Sarkozy have made the atmosphere significantly more amenable to a serious search for the truth in this affair.
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For those who think that George Bush is the major incitor of Jihadi violence in the West, think again. In my book, the Western media, with their addiction to the Israeli-Goliath/ Palestinian-David paradigm, do far more damage, by providing Muslims with images of Israelis killing Palestinians. In some cases, they are staged, in others, they are real tragedies but unfairly blamed on the Israelis, in others they are accidents, and yet the medias eagerness to present them as deliberate, intentional or wantonly violent acts, the media turn these false accusations into
often staged or real tragedies caused by Palestinians presented as false accusations as incidents (or false accusations) into “objective fact” and wrap it in wads of moral outrage (disproportionate response). Given what they see on Western TV, how could any self-respecting Muslim hate the Israelis?

The following article explores the role of the internet, the new means of mass communications in the 21st century, on inciting Jihadi violence. Note the reference to Muhammad al Durah. (Hat tip: NB).

Wave of Violence Hits North Africa as Terrorists Take to Surfing the Web

Marc Perelman | Wed. Sep 19, 2007

Rabat, Morocco - Last month Hicham Doukkali packed a gas canister with explosives and blew himself up next to a bus full of tourists in the imperial city of Meknes. No one was hurt besides Doukkali, who lost an arm, but the attack was particularly troubling nonetheless.

Doukkali was not a young discontent from the slums of Casablanca, like the suicide bombers who killed dozens in 2003 or those behind a series of attacks this spring. He was a civil engineer working for the tax authorities, and the day he set off to bomb the tourist bus in Meknes was his 30th birthday.

More troublesome still, Doukkali was not a hardened terrorist who had spent years training in Al Qaeda camps. His guide to Islamic extremism, from the ideology itself to the practical aspects of manufacturing an explosive device, was the Internet.

“You don’t need to go to Afghanistan or Iraq anymore,” said Abdallah Rami, a former Islamist militant who monitors radical Web sites closely. “What you now see is a spontaneous generation that is being mobilized online.”

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Al-Dura controversy deepens
Published: 09/19/2007

A French judge ordered the release of video footage that could reopen the controversy surrounding the 2000 shooting of Mohammed al-Dura.

The appeals court judge in Paris ordered France 2 TV to show the court about 25 minutes of raw video footage shot on Sept. 30, 2000 at the Netzarim Junction in the Gaza Strip, when the 12-year-old Palestinian boy apparently was shot and killed in an exchange of gunfire between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants.

Al-Dura’s shooting death became an instant icon for Palestinian suffering at the hands of Israeli brutality, but the Israeli army, after initially apologizing for the death, concluded after an investigation that the boy could not possibly have been hit by Israeli bullets.

When Philippe Karsenty, director of the media watchdog group Media-Ratings, called France 2’s exclusive video of the incident “a hoax,” he was found guilty of slander. He appealed the decision, and on Wednesday the appeals judge ordered that the video be released. Karsenty called the court’s decision a victory. “This is only the first step in a victory,” his lawyer, Marc Levy, corrected him.
France 2, whose cameraman in Gaza, Talal Abu Rahma, shot the exclusive footage that was considered a major scoop at the time, was given until Nov. 14 to hand over the video to the court.
Several French and U.S. journalists who have seen the raw footage have indicated the shooting might have been staged by Palestinians.

A decision on Karsenty’s case is expected in February.

For those who want to brush up on the al Durah affair, here are links to al Durah posts here at the Augean Stables on or after 9/21/06 (continuation of the Guide to Al Durah). I will be putting up links to other items and updating the Chronology shortly.

Al Durah in the Arab/Muslim World: Reception and Consequences Part I
The raw material for Icon of Hatred.

Camera Obscura: How French TV fudged the death of Mohammed Al Durah
Linked and expanded version of the New Republic article.

Kafka in Wonderland: L’Express weighs in
L’Express’ account of the Karsenty trial. Note how Denis Jeambar, the editor, was one of the ones to see the rushes and stated shortly thereafter in a radio interview that he wanted this matter pursued. He apparently had no involvement in the selection or the education of his journalist.