Augean Stables

Story at Atlas Shrugs and Little Green Footballs.

The movie is still available for viewing at YouTube:

I will be giving a talk tomorrow at the IDC in Herzliya on Muhammad al Durah. The invitation reads as follows:

The Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center in conjunction with the Raphael Recanati International School (RRIS), the Ambassador’s Club and StandWithUs International, is pleased to invite you to a symposium with

Professor Richard Landes, Boston University

“Icon of Hatred:
The Muhammad al Dura Affair: From Media to Internet to Courtroom”

On Wednesday, January 9, 2008, from 18:00 – 19:45
In the Arison building, room A318
17:30- Light meal in the Arison Lobby

On September 30, 2000, Palestinian photographer Talal abu Rahmah filmed a father and son allegedly shot by Israeli troops at Netzarim Junction in the Gaza Strip. Charles Enderlin, correspondent for France2, showed the film on television claiming the Israelis targeted the defenceless pair, killing the boy and wounding his father badly. The story became a global sensation, a symbolic image of the Intifada’s struggle against a murderous Israeli army.

Despite extensive contradictions between Talal’s account and the evidence of his own footage, most of which point to the strong likelihood that he staged the whole scene, the media accepted this version and has resisted efforts bring these doubts to the public’s attention. But with investigators writing on the Internet the story took on a life of its own. Enderlin, in an attempt to suppress even these marginal voices, sued several of these cyber-critics for defamation. Despite early victories, his offensive turned against him last month when the court viewed some of Talal’s raw footage.

Historian Richard Landes has maintained the most extensively documented website concerning this affair, and has closely followed and reported on the Muhammad al-Dura story since it began. He will discuss the affair, its implications and impact, and will also show and analyze film clips, some of which have not been seen before publicly.

The event will be conducted in English and start with opening remarks by Prof. Barry Rubin, Director, The GLORIA Center, followed by a short lecture on the use of propaganda in the media from Dr. Yariv Ben-Eliezar from IDC Herzliya’s Sammy Ofer School of Communications. Prof. Landes will make his presentation immediately afterwards.

For more information or any special requests, please contact Keren Ribo, Director of Operations, The GLORIA Center (http://www.gloriacenter.org), at: keren.ribo@gloriacenter.org.Tel: 972-9-960-2736, Cell: 972-52-390-0609.
Or Jeremy Ruden, Director, International Media Relations, Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya, at: jruden@idc.ac.il. Tel: 972-9-960-2754, Cell: 972- 52- 407-0775.

The invitation was sent to all major press agencies in Israel, including France2. As a result, the organizers of the conference received the following letter from the lawyers representing France2 (translated from the Hebrew, if anyone wants a copy of the Hebrew original, please let me know):

Aharonson Sher Abulafia Amoday & Co. Law Offices

To: The GLORIA Center
The Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya
P.O. Box 167
Herzliya, 46150

Re: Conference on the Muhammad al-Dura affair

Our clients, France 2 and Mr. Charles Enderlin, have instructed me to address you as follows:

1. This letter is intended to express our client’s firm protest concerning “the Muhammad al-Dura Affair” conference to be held on January 9, 2008, and concerning the invitation to this event, which makes a broad and misleading use of our clients’ names, and without even obtaining their view.

2. The conference, according to the above invitation, plans to deal with the footage of French television photographer Talal abu Rahmah and the reporting of network correspondent Mr. Charles Enderlin regarding the September 30, 2000 shots fired toward Jamal and Muhammad al-Dura, which resulted in Muhammad’s death and his father, Jamal, being seriously wounded.

3. Beyond the fact that the conference invitation is full of accusations and inaccuracies, to say the least in everything concerning this matter, it is not acceptable from any perspective that such a conference be held in such a one-sided manner, without bringing forth our clients’ response and moreover without addressing them on this matter.

4. In order to present the matters accurately, I will cite the correct facts relating to the information appearing on the invitation:

a. The tape which was filmed by Mr. Talal abu Rahmah is authentic footage of the events which occurred at the Netzarim Junction on September 30, 2000. This does not refer to something staged, and our clients view this offhanded accusation gravely.

b. Mr. Enderlin has never acted, and is not acting, to cancel the criticism against him and France 2. Even in real time, our clients broadcast every relevant response, even if it was opposed to the events as our clients viewed them. It is not clear where you obtained the audacity to note on the conference invitation that criticism against our clients has been “blocked” by libel suits. Our clients are acting with the tools provided to them by law in order to prevent damage to their good name—and nothing more. The insinuation that our clients have acted otherwise is truly outrageous.

c. The tape of the footage of the event from September 30, 2000 was presented in its entirety in the French court of appeals. Until this date the court’s position concerning this tape had not been heard. Any other statement is simply not correct and is misleading.

5. Our clients regret your choice, as a respected academic institution, to hold a conference on this subject, while the matter is being debated in several forums, in [Israel] and abroad, while presenting a distorted, sometimes false, view, which is not based upon fact but upon unfounded assessments and accusations.

6. Our clients further regret that you chose to conduct this conference in such a demonstrably, one-sided manner, while harming our clients’ reputation.

7. We believe that fairness dictates that no conference should be held on the matter which is being debated in the courts, or at a minimum our clients’ position be obtained beforehand.

8. We regret you chose the way you did.

9. I would be happy to be at your service on any matter at telephone number: 02-561-8677.

Respectfully and cordially yours,
Louise Sportas, Attorney at Law
Aharonson Sher Abulafia Amoday & Co.
Attorneys at Law

CC: Prof. Barry Rubin
Dr. Yariv Ben Eliezer

Note, no copy to me.

I have written the following response, an abbreviated version of which will be circulated along with France2’s response at the talk:

This missive is riddled with errors and misrepresentations. If this letter represents France2 and Charles Enderlin’s notion of “true facts” and “straightening things out,” then we can begin to understand how the al Durah Affair could have played out as it has for the past seven years. Responses grouped by topic:

On the subject of one-sidedness.

France2 has maintained a near-monopoly of Mainstream Media discussion of this matter for the past seven years and done everything it could to block criticism from reaching the larger public. When Enderlin did deal with criticism in a November 2000 news report on IDF General Yom Tov Samia’s investigation which found that the boy and father could not have been hit by the Israeli bullets, he dismissed it from his own podium as an “impartial” journalist, without debate, without representation from the IDF. He presented to France2 viewers only what he saw fit.

Charles Enderlin has, moreover, turned down multiple invitations to share a podium with his critics, most recently in the case of a conference on Journalistic Ethics held at Mishkenot Sha’ananim on December 30, 2007. For a giant mainstream media corporation that has 24-hour access to a public of millions of viewers, to complain that it must be given equal time in discussions it has done its best to marginalize, redefines chutzpah.

On the subject of blocking criticism.

In 2002 France2 blocked the showing of a French version of the German documentary of their sister-station ARD on the al Durah affair by Esther Schapira. Although this documentary did not pursue the hypothesis of staging, it gave ample exposure to Yom Tov Samia’s investigation. Moreover, Enderlin and France2 refuse to give the IDF a copy of the disputed footage so that they can conduct their own investigation. In an interview with Schapira, Enderlin asserted that he would not give the raw footage to the IDF “so that they can whitewash themselves.” At no time has any major French television station, much less France2, allowed the public to hear the case for staging. On the contrary, when they do mention that hypothesis, they ridicule it as “extreme right-wing conspiracy theory.”

On the subject of using the libel courts to intimidate and silence critics.

In the ARD documentary, Enderlin tells Schapira that if anyone accuses Talal, him, or France2 of manipulation or fabrication, it’s reason to go to court. And three of the four accused in France2’s defamation trials did not even go so far as to claim staging. So France2 has defined criticism as a cause for litigation and this very letter illustrates how they want to use the existence of their litigation to prevent alternative positions from reaching the public whose perceptions they have fundamentally shaped.Using the law to “prevent [others] from hurting [France2’s] reputation,” and using the law to intimidate criticism are two different aspects of the same maneuver. It is disingenuous to say the least to pretend they mutually exclusive, and to wax indignant about the “outrageous” allegation that France2 is doing the latter. In any case, the honest way to protect one’s reputation is to answer the criticisms, not attack them as defamation.

On the showing of the tapes.

No one contests that Talal’s tape is authentic footage of what happened at Netzarim Junction on September 30, 2000. The real question is, does this “authentic footage” corroborate the claims that Talal abu Rahmeh and Charles Enderlin make about what happened there. Close observation suggests many more contradictions between the evidence of the tapes and the reports of the journalists. There is nothing “off-handed” about the carefully phrased assertion in the invitation to this talk that there is a “strong likelihood that [Talal] staged the whole scene.”

As for showing these tapes in the French Appeals court last November, it seems passing strange that this letter puts the words “was presented in its entirety” in bold underline, since this is precisely what did not happen. The tape of the Talal’s footage of the event was cut by several minutes, something Enderlin admitted in court when he explained why there were only 18 minutes. The passages he cut, he claimed, were “not relevant.” But since I have seen the Talal’s tapes three times, I can testify that he cut scenes from Netzarim Junction that day, and that at least one of the passages cut shows the ludicrous efforts at staging news that the Palestinians on site engaged in all that day and that Talal eagerly filmed.

The “facts” of the case.

There are few firmly established “facts” in this case. Mostly there are assertions – e.g., “eventually Mohamed found his death and his father, Jamal, was badly injured” (above) – whose reliability has been extensively put in question. For example, the claims from Palestinian hospitals about Jamal’s serious injuries have now come under new examination since every injury claimed by the Palestinian sources corresponds to injuries Jamal received from his fellow Palestinians years earlier and for which he was treated in an Israeli hospital. In any case, those who attend the IDC Conference will see and hear a comparison of the “factual” claims made by Talal and Enderlin in this case, compared with the hard evidence (especially evidence from Talal’s own footage). The contrast has every reason to concern France2 in their effort to protect their reputation. They have every reason to be distressed at the public’s exposure to the evidence.

France2’s “Position” on al Durah.

France2 should indeed clarify its “position” in this affair. Do they still stand by Enderlin’s original broadcast in which the al Durah’s are “the target of fire coming from the Israeli position”? Has Talal in fact sent a fax disclaiming his sworn testimony of October 3, 2000? And if so, what has he specifically retracted? Where are the “unbearable” scenes of the boy’s “death throes” that Enderlin claimed he cut?

It’s one of the characteristics of an “emperor’s new clothes” scenario that, as long as the hegemonic discourse can compel people to deny what their own eyes behold, the public discourse remains favorable. But once the word starts to get out, the mask slips, and the spell is broken. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!

When all is said and done in this case, Charles Enderlin will rue the day he convinced France2 to sue Philippe Karsenty. Those whom the gods would destroy, first they make arrogant.

In today’s Jewish Week, the editor Gary Rosenblatt has a shocking piece on the editor of Ha-Aretz, David Landau’s conversation with Condi Rice last September, in the build-up to Annapolis. Both the message and the language shed a harsh light on the condition of the “anti-occupation” Israeli mindset. The landscape is not pretty.

Haaretz Editor Urged Rice To ‘Rape’ Israel

David Landau: Crude language over the top, or well placed?
by Gary Rosenblatt

Israelis are known for being direct and blunt. But comments made by David Landau, editor of the Israeli daily, Haaretz, to Condoleezza Rice about Israel needing to be “raped” by the U.S. to achieve a Mideast settlement caused quite a stir among the 20 or so attendees at a confidential briefing with the secretary of state on a recent visit to Israel.

The incident, which took place Sept. 10 at the private residence of America’s ambassador to Israel, Richard Jones, has not been fully reported until now. What is contested is not the raw language Landau used but the context of his impassioned comments.

Following Rice’s briefing to the gathered military, academic and media elites at the dinner, the guests offered their views and comments about the Mideast impasse. Landau, who was seated next to Rice, was said to have referred to Israel as a “failed state” politically, one in need of a U.S.-imposed settlement. He was said to have implored Rice to intervene, asserting that the Israeli government wanted “to be raped” and that it would be like a “wet dream” for him to see this happen.

This represents an extreme expression of Oslo Logic: If only Israel would make the right concessions — painful but necessary — it could end the “occupation.” Since the inordinate influence of “right-wing” irredentists who don’t want to give up any territory prevents Israel from making the necessary concessions, it needs to be forced to do so. Then we’ll have… peace?

I’m not even sure that Landau is so naive. I have friends who think that the “occupation” — which I am whitewashing by arguing that the Israelis didn’t shoot Muhammad al Durah — is such a blot on the soul of Israel that it should be ended immediately — including the division of Jerusalem. When I point out that this is likely to lead to even more violent aggression and more devastating forms of warfare, the answer is consistently: “I don’t care. Israel, if it is to be a moral state, cannot endure the corruption of its youth who must do terrible things as a result of occupying, oppressing, and humiliating another people.”

So Landau may be shrewd enough to know that these concessions will not lead to peace, indeed might well lead to war. But on the other hand, he’s almost surely not telling that to Rice, who might think twice about forcing Israel to make concessions that will make the situation worse. Of course, who (not steeped in the intricate pathways of Jewish self-criticism) could begin to understand the toxic moral perfectionism that drives highly intelligent Israelis to take such suicidal stances? She, enamored of her Palestinian “Martin Luther King Jr.,” Abu Mazen, surely thinks this is an exaggerated but well-intentioned effort to achieve peace.

And yet, consider the catastrophic potential of this “self-abnegating” advice. First, the concessions that Landau wants to make are much more likely to whet the Palestinian/Arab/Muslim appetite for destroying Israel than “changing the tide” and heading us all towards a “negotiated solution.” And this is true even if Israel came to that decision all by herself. But if Israel’s foes think that they have now turned the only serious ally Israel has, the USA, against her, then the smell of weakness and failure in their nostrils will arouse even greater hopes of ultimate victory.

The odds that this will lead to war — just as the NIE report increases the likelihood of war — are enormous. And the odds that that war will force the USA into either much more costly engagements in the Middle East, or, even worse, huge losses in this area, make his advice almost as bad for the USA as it is catastrophic for Israel. The collateral damage of his single-minded opposition to the “morally corrupting” occupation is enormous. Right now the Israelis who oppose the occupation worry about the humiliation of thousands and the killing of dozens of Palestinians. When they trigger the wars their postures will invite — quod absit! — they will have an opportunity to weep over the death of millions of Israelis and Palestinians.

When contacted this week, Landau said the description was “inaccurate” and “a perversion of what I said.” He said his views had been delivered with “much more sophistication.”

But he added: “I did say that in general, Israel wants to be raped — I did use that word — by the U.S., and I myself have long felt Israel needed more vigorous U.S. intervention in the affairs of the Middle East.”

Not clear how much more sophisticated his own “general” summary is from the one reported. Indeed his subsequent remarks contradict his opening denial.

Landau, often outspoken in his views, is a bit of an anomaly in Israeli society in that he is a native Brit editing Israel’s oldest newspaper and an observant Jew (and former yeshiva student) with decidedly left-wing views.

This is an interesting detail, and not that anomalous. Some of the most ferocious “left-wing” critics of Israeli policy in Israel and abroad, are observant and learned Jews who are driven to their positions by moral imperatives. The fact that they do not engage in much realism, and show almost no interest in “the other side” (other than to view it, as so many reporters for Ha-Aretz do) as the innocent victim of Israeli misdeeds, has much to do with the “four-dimensional Israeli/two dimensional Palestinian/Arab/Muslim” problem I have discussed before.

The fact that Landau can refer to Israel as a “failed state” because it won’t adopt his policies of massive concessions to an Arab political culture that cannot even — does not apparently even want to — build a Palestinian state no matter how dysfunctional, illustrates the degree of self-referential isolationism that informs this aggressively self-abnegating “left-wing” position. Indeed, if we were to rate the states in the Middle East by how they treat their own people — I believe the standard by which the states Landau wants Israel to be a part of are judged — then we’d find 22 failed Arab/Muslim states well below his own.

He told The Jewish Week that the context of his remarks was that each of the dinner attendees spoke of Israel’s challenges, and when it was his turn he pointed out that since 1967, Israel has failed to resolve its territorial conflicts with the Palestinians.

And in the mind of Landau and others who share his masochistic omnipotence complex, if there’s been a failure, it’s obviously Israel’s. Of course it’s our fault; of course if we had behaved differently (MY way), things would have been better. Of course the Arabs are not nice to us and want to get rid of us… it’s because we haven’t been nicer to them.

“I told [Rice] that it had always been my wet dream to address the secretary of state” on these vital matters, he said.

This, coming from an orthodox Jew to a female Secretary of State, is stunning. It suggests a level of verbal incontinence that makes one wonder about Landau’s mental balance. Even if we ignore the inappropriateness of the imagery, the sentiment behind it — he’s long dreamed of having the opportunity to tell the USA to force Israel into concessions — suggests that Landau, like so many people on the “left” actually have contempt for the democratic process, and since they trust their own political judgment so much more than that of leaders produced by their democratic process, they feel completely justified in using any device to “force” their own polities to “be free.”

Her response, he said, was “fantastic” in that she was “completely unfazed” by his remarks, and remained “urbane and diplomatic.” Attendees said she told the assembled that the U.S. had no intention of imposing a settlement on the Israelis and Palestinians.

She was probably so embarrassed that she didn’t know what to do.

Isi Leibler, a weekly columnist for The Jerusalem Post who has written critically of Landau, said that “by any benchmark, Landau’s behavior as an Israeli citizen would be deemed unacceptable.” He said it was “unconscionable” for someone in Landau’s position to urge a U.S. Secretary of State “to ‘rape’ his own government.”

Note that Landau’s position is as editor of the “NYT of Israel,” the most widely read Israeli newspaper outside of Israel. As one of my students noted when I presented the Al Durah case and she read the coverage Ha-Aretz gave to it, “I thought Ha-Aretz was an Israeli paper. Why does it sound like a Palestinian one?” Landau was not editor at the time, but he has hardly made things better. On the contrary, he made some remarks in Moscow that reveal an astonishing degree of open advocacy involved in what he, as editor, allows his newspaper to publish.

I agree here with Liebler (whose comments on the affair can be read here). Landau, based on his own peculiarly hyper-self-critical logic, has called on the USA to take Israel’s foreign policy into recievership. He didn’t do this because in his mind the USA is the wisest of nations — unless he’s a Jewish “racist” and holds a radicaly different standard for the non-Jews, he must think the occupation of Iraq is a catastrophic venture — but because it’s the strongest, and can “do the job.” In other words, he goes by the logic that destroyed democratic Greece: “those who can do what they will, those who cannot suffer what they must.”

In a sense, he represents a contorted, modern, activist version of prophetic logic. Back in the old days, the prophets saw the behavior of empires who smashed Israel as delivering the punishment of the Lord. They showed minimal interest in the moral behavior of the nations, whose imperialist ambitions they took for granted and only fore-saw a change among the nations in messianic times: “And they shall beat their swords into plowshares…”. In the unredeemed present, however, the prophets focused only on the role the Israelites who, by their immorality, had brought this plague upon themselves. That position lies at the heart of masochistic omnipotence syndrome: “we are the omnipotent God’s chosen people. If terrible things happen to us from merciless gentile armies driven by the basest of imperialist drives for dominion, then it’s our fault for having offended our God and provoked him to remove his protection.” As Max Weber points out, this remarkable and unique form of self-criticism contributed crucially to the eventual emergence of Western civilization.

But in the modern world, where even many people who believe in God don’t expect his direct intervention in history — especially after the Holocaust — the situation is radically different. Among other things, in principle, the other nations have renounced their imperialist drives, and we expect from all “players” in the world of democracies and civil societies, a certain measure of moral behavior in political culture that Israelite and Jewish thought had long demanded (and whose failure to maintain, led to the loss of God’s favor). It’s not accidental that the UN’s “peace square” has the messianic passage from Isaiah as it’s motto. In our day and age, imperialism is officially “not good.”

So today, with God non-interventionist, and people more morally responsible, there is considerably less need for the kind of hyper-self-criticism that marked the invective of the prophets. Now, the discourse of criticism and self-criticism should be a matter of negotiation between mature political cultures in conflict that resolves problems. Jewish self-criticism in principle in a civic world should not need to overcompensate by turning up its own perfectionism in response to a pervasive failure to self-criticize on the other side of the conflict. And yet, here we have newspaper editor David Landau, having wet dreams about telling the greatest power on earth to rape his own people because they are not living up to his prophetic standards. Not only is he playing the role of the God who he apparently does not expect to intervene, but with a particularly crude and heavy hand.

Ehud Yaari, a leading broadcast and print journalist in Israel who reported the incident on the air but did not mention Landau by name, called it “embarrassing.”

But Landau said he had no regrets and that, on the contrary, he was pleased, adding that he was later congratulated by several professors in the room who felt “I articulated what many Israelis feel.”

I wonder who these “professors” are. Can one find them chronicled here?

In an interview with a French journalist last week I made the point that the French police live in constant fear of a French “al Durah” — with a “youth” killed by the police, even as a mistake, they can end up not just with rioting, but with suicide bombing. That’s why when the rioting happens, the police are extremely reluctant to suppress the violence. The first part of that prediction just came true in Paris where two boys died when their moped smashed into a police car and it led to immediate rioting. Note that the police are nowhere to be seen.

Boys’ moped deaths ignite riot in Paris suburb
By Peter Allen in Paris
Last Updated: 1:44am GMT 26/11/2007

Rioting in Villiers-le-Bel (from Le Monde)

Rioting broke in one of Paris’s tinder box suburban housing estates last night after two young boys were killed when their moped collided with a police car.

Molotov cocktails were thrown, and cars and plastic bins set on fire following the tragedy in Tolinette, a notoriously crime-ridden district of Villiers-le-Bel, some 20 miles north of the centre of the French capital.

One police station was set alight and another, in a neighbouring suburb, was ransacked after youths threw cocktails, and set bins alight and upturned cars.

Officials said seven police and one firefighter had were injured and there were fears the violence, which spread to the neighbouring town of Arnouville-les-Gonesse, could also take hold in other poor, suburban enclaves.

The boys who died were said by locals to be “aged between 12 and 13″.

In other words, the age of Muhammad al Durah. Except that they’re 15 and 16. One of their uncles, speaks of his nephew as 15 in an interview with Le Parisien as reported by Nidra Poller

Interviewed by Le Parisien, the uncle of Moushin Souhhali, one of the victims, says he understands the rage; it’s terrible to lose a 15 year-old boy. His body, claims the uncle, was dumped at the fire station with no respect. The police who, in his opinion, caused the accident were nowhere to be seen. He heard they were speeding. His nephew was a good boy, not a delinquent.

Police insisted that their car had not been chasing the boys, and that the officer driving suffered facial injuries in the incident, which happened soon after dusk.

But the violence had grim echoes of the disturbances which followed the electrocution of two youths in a sub-station as they fled police in the nearby suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois in late 2005. It directly led to two months of serious rioting across France, with a state of emergency being declared.

After last night’s deaths, residents in Tolinette said cars were being burnt out, with police fleeing the scene.

Police fleeing the scene. No wonder they’re called “the lost territories of the Republic.”

One local, who asked to remain anonymous, said: “Around 100 rioters have burn at least two cars, but the forces of law and order are nowhere to be seen.

“There were four police cars here, but they’ve retreated. They were charged by the rioters. Some rioters are climbing up to electric cables to try and break them and put the whole district into darkness.

“The kids who died were only aged between 12 and 13. We’re all trying to get the rioters to calm down, but it’s hard when you’re dealing with the deaths of a couple of kids, and when the police are involved.”

Rumors have the power of “reality.” It turns out the teenagers were not wearing helmets (the “mini-motocross” they were riding was “astonishingly intact“). So we have a typical, almost banal tale of two imprudent youths, turned into an excuse to riot.

A police spokesman later confirmed the boys’ deaths, saying that next of kin would be informed before they could be named.

He confirmed that, as well as the police driver, a superintendent had been badly injured as he tried to put out fires started by youths in rubbish bins.

The officer also confirmed that Molotov cocktails - makeshift bombs made of bottles, petrol and an old rag for a fuse - had also been used.

“The situation is extremely tense - we are trying to contain the trouble,” the spokesman added.

The trouble in 2005 was largely blamed on immigrant youths living in suburban housing projects who complained about discrimination and lack of employment opportunities.

Nicolas Sarkozy, who is now president, built up a ruthless reputation as Interior Minister for using tough policing and longer prison sentences to crack down on the trouble.

It couldn’t happen to nicer people. A legal organization dedicated to suing terrorists on behalf of their victims and victims’ families has formally requested the Israel’s Government Press Office revoke France2’s press credentials for its coverage of the Al Durah Affair. The head of the Press Office, Daniel Seaman has written a formal letter acknowledging their request and confirming that (in his official opinion) the footage was staged.

Seaman, whose personal experiences during the Intifada are described in Stephanie Gutmann’s The Other War (Chapter 10: His Own Private Jihad), has long been of the opinion that the footage was staged, as one can see here in an interview filmed during last year’s Herzliya conference on the Media as Theater of War by InfoLiveTV.

At the Herzliya Conference, from left to right, Daniel Seaman (Director, IGPO), Philippe Karsenty (Media Ratings), Raanan Gissin (former Spokesman for the Prime Minister).

The following is from an email circulated by Shurat HaDin for which I still find no link. The story has been picked up by many news services including AP and Ynet.

Israeli Government Officially Confirms Al-Dura Footage was Staged Blood Libel Against IDF

Shurat HaDin to Petition High Court to Strip France2 Press Credentials

In response to a warning letter sent by Shurat HaDin to the Israeli Government Press Office (GPO) more than 9 months ago, GPO Director Danny Seaman has written a formal acknowledgment that FRANCE 2 Television staged the infamous news footage depicting a Palestinian child being shot to death by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in September 2000.

This is the first time in the seven years since the footage broadcast that the Prime Minister’s Office has confirmed that a journalistic fraud had been perpetrated against the IDF by government owned FRANCE 2 television.

I’m not sure I’d call this a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office. Granted that the GPO operates out of the Prime Minister’s Office, but that doesn’t mean that this is an official statement from the Prime Minister’s Office.

Shurat HaDin had written Seaman contending that mounting evidence proved that cameramen and news editors from FRANCE 2 had deliberately staged and then misleadingly edited the footage aired by the French government television on in September 2000. The emotional footage, repeatedly broadcast around the world on CNN and other cable stations, ignited anti-Israeli violence in the Palestinian Authority and Israeli Arab communities and spurred international condemnation of the IDF.

The Palestinian youth Muhammad al-Dura, allegedly seen being killed in the video footage, became the poster child in the Arab world for the current intifada violence and fueled hundreds of terror attacks against Israeli citizens and Jewish communities worldwide. Thousands of Jews and Arabs have been killed in the ensuing violence following the broadcast.

The Shurat HaDin letter demanded that, in light of the fraudulent broadcast and the grievous harm that it unleashed against Israel as well as the massive numbers of victims attributable to the fake footage, Seaman must strip FRANCE 2 of its press credentials.

Although Seaman stopped short of agreeing to remove FRANCE 2’s accreditations his response letter to Shurat HaDin confirms that the Prime Minister’s Office firmly believes that the footage was deliberately staged to misrepresent that the IDF killed al-Dura when in fact a forensic investigation has concluded that Israel could not possibly have been responsible. As Seaman writes:

Without any deep and serious investigation, the global media convicted the State of Israel in the murder of a little boy, and his image remained tattooed and engraved in the collective Arab memory as a symbol for the cruelty of the Zionist nation. These allegations started a long road that leaded to exposing the truth and basing the fact that Talal Abu Rahma, the network’s Palestinian cameraman, engaged in the systematic staging of action scenes . . . This libel incited the Arab world and caused many victims in and outside of Israel.”

Seaman’s letter then states that despite this confirmed journalistic libel the GPO will not seek to have FRANCE 2’s credentials revoked.

It is the intention now of Shurat HaDin to file a petition in the High Court of Justice against the GPO and FRANCE 2 compelling the government to remove FRANCE 2 credentials and prohibit them from manufacturing further anti-Israel propaganda pieces.

This is great. Since Enderlin and France2 operate by the rules of honor and shame culture, there’s nothing more appropriate than having them shamed by being the first (of hopefully a longer list of malefactors) who are denied privileges by the notoriously accommodating Israelis who, no matter how hostile and unethical the MSM is, still let them come in and do their damage. Note please, I am not arguing that Israel should play the same game as the Palestinians — denying access to anyone who won’t tell it their way — but that they play a professional version of the game: denying access to those who break the basic rules of professional journalism. And as Clément Weill Raynal reminds us, that’s a lot of people.

According to Shurat HaDin Director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner:

This modern-day blood libel directly resulted in hundreds of Jewish and Arab deaths and ignited a still-flaming torch of international hatred, only for the sake of raising FRANCE 2’s ratings. This was perhaps the greatest journalistic hoax perpetrated in the last hundred years. We demand that those who are responsible for this crime will bare the consequences of their actions. The State of Israel cannot simply allow FRANCE 2 to remain in this country.

Moreover, activist Philippe Karsenty has led a long battle inside of Frcnce against FRANCE 2 seeking to determine whether the Al-Dura footage had been staged. Last week in an historic victory for Philippe Karsenty, a French Court hearing an appeal of his case centering on the Al-Dura allegations ordered that all of the raw video footage shot by the camera crew be released to determine if a deliberate news hoax had been perpetrated.

This gets better all the time. Once the dike springs leaks, the flood is not far behind.

Please sign the petition and send it to everyone. Philippe Karsenty’s appeal trial is coming up and this petition is part of an effort to pressure France2 and the Justice system.

To Patrick de Carolis, France2 Television

France2: Release the Secret Muhammad al Durah Tapes!

People around the world who depend on the media for reliability, accuracy, and transparency in reporting, demand that France2 release the unedited video tapes (”rushes”) that its Palestinian cameraman, Talal abu Rahmah, sent them on September 30 and October 1, 2000 from Gaza.

On September 30, 2000, your Middle East correspondent Charles Enderlin, broadcast a story about Muhammad al-Durah, a 12-year old Palestinian boy. Using the footage and the testimony from his cameraman, Talal abu Rahmah, Enderlin reported that Israeli soldiers had targeted and killed the boy. That allegation of deliberate murder spread instantaneously around the world.

Extensive doubts have emerged about almost every claim of this explosive report, and they raise serious questions about both the journalistic integrity of the cameraman and the professional judgment of his employer, your correspondent Charles Enderlin.

As a result, the raw footage France2 received from Talal abu Rahmah represent key evidence in this crucial case.

But instead of releasing the tapes, your institution has responded to criticism of your correspondent’s broadcast by suing French citizens for defamation and keeping the tapes secret for nearly seven years now.

If France2 reports the news responsibly and uses reliable cameramen, you have nothing to hide. Show the tapes and let the public judge.

Whatever political or religious beliefs we hold, whatever we now think about what happened on September 30, 2000, we, the undersigned, believe that all the victims and all of their loved ones – on both sides of the terrible war for which Muhammad al-Durah’s image served as the icon – deserve that this evidence at last be shown.

We, the undersigned, respectfully, but firmly, request that France2 release all the tapes for September 30 and October 1, 2000 for public inspection immediately.

Sincerely,

Please sign the petition and send it to everyone.

Expect Western media — BBC in the lead — to write fawning pieces on Hamas’ dedication to protecting the press and their ability to “get the job done.”

Sources: Gaza BBC reporter freed
British journalist held hostage in Gaza reportedly freed. Witness says Johnston ‘looks fine and well’
Reuters
Latest Update: 07.04.07, 04:11 / Israel News

Alan Johnston, the BBC journalist held hostage in the Gaza Strip since March, was handed over by his Islamist captors to ruling Hamas officials on Wednesday, Palestinian sources close to negotiations for his release said.

The sources told Reuters they saw the 45-year-old Briton being taken into the care of officials from the Hamas movement, which seized full control of Gaza three weeks ago.

“He is sitting with his colleagues from the BBC office in Gaza,” one of the witnesses said. “He is talking to them and he looks fine and well.”

In London, no immediate comment was available from the BBC or the British Foreign Office.

One source involved in the effort to free Johnston said the journalist may join Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh for a news conference before being taken to British diplomats for a journey home that would involve him leaving the Gaza Strip for Israel.

Johnston, the only Western correspondent working full-time in the troubled coastal enclave, went missing on March 12 when his car was found abandoned.

His captors later declared themselves to be the Army of Islam, an al-Qaeda-inspired group with links to one of Gaza’s powerful clans.

They issued Web videos showing Johnston and seeking the release of Islamists held prisoner by Britain and other states. Most recently, after Hamas officials threatened to free him by force from the clan’s stronghold, Johnston was shown wearing a suicide belt with the warning he would die if that happened.

For Immediate Release
Friday June 10, 2007

Icon of Hatred
Latest Film by Second Draft
Richard Landes
617-504-7837

Available on YouTube Part I and Part II.

Second Draft releases the third in the series According to Palestinian Sources. Written, researched and produced by Richard Landes, a medieval historian turned media critic, Icon of Hatred explores how the media-created icon of Muhammad al Durah’s death, helped launch a new phase of global Jihad at the dawn of the 21st century.

View Icon of Hatred in Streaming Video or download it in High Definition DVIX) for free.

To this day, most Westerners typically greet any effort to discuss the Al Durah MSM scandal with: “Fuggedaboudit! It’s over. History. Let sleeping dogs lie.” But such is not the way with blood libels. They constantly emit their poison into the information bloodstream. So once the Al Durah “lethal narrative” entered the mainstream of public opinion worldwide
, it exerted – and continues to exert — an astonishingly noxious influence, blighting our young and global 21st century.

Icon of Hatred explores

• how PA TV took the footage of what was, at most, an Israeli error, most likely a work of Pallywood, and turned it into an accusation of cold-blooded murder, a proof of Israeli intentions to commit genocide.


(Hizbullah poster of Al-Durah with picture from October 2, of Israeli soldier firing rubber bullets at rioters protesting al Durah’s “death”, photograph October 14, 2000)

• how this “blood martyr” became the icon not only of the “Al Aqsa Intifada,” but of global Jihad, catapulting Jihadism from the margins to the center of Muslim “street,” making suicide bombing the weapon of choice.


(Bin Laden narrating his recruiting video in which Muhammad al Durah appears as a key, introductory section.)

• how Al Durah became the symbol of outraged compassion in the West, fueling an anti-Zionist crusade that aligned the “human rights” and “anti-war” left with the most murderous theocrats on the globe. And how, in embracing the Muslim equation of Israel with Nazis, European intellectuals have encouraged the surge of Islamist triumphalism not only in the Middle East, but within their own countries.


(Place de la République, Paris, October 6, 2000, amidst cries of: “Death to Israel, Kill the Jews.”)

In the history of psychological warfare, the Al Durah icon was an atom bomb, perhaps the first. No single event stirred Global Jihad Warming more ardently. We still suffer from its fallout.

Icon of Hatred offers a potent “red pill” for those who wish to awaken from the virtual reality that the MSM have spun around our understanding of the Middle East conflict with their “grand frame” of “Palestinian David vs. Israeli Goliath.” It sheds a stark light on the dynamics of war and mega-death that, hatched in the tragic crucible of the Arab Israeli conflict, now haunt this whole earth. The fate of the al-Durah Icon of Hatred offers that rare single narrative that unpeels multiple layers of the cultural folly that has placed the West in its current danger and disarray.

View Icon of Hatred in Streaming Video or download it in High Definition DVIX for free.

Icon of Hatred is Part III of According to Palestinian sources… Viewing Parts I and II first is recommended.
Part I: Pallywood (Streaming) (High Definition) (Youtube)
Part II: Al Durah: The Making of an Icon (Streaming) (High Definition) (Youtube)
Part III: Icon of Hatred Streaming Video) (High Definition DVIX) (YouTube I and II)
Part IV: Rebuking the Media (in production).

Richard Landes is Professor of Medieval History at Boston University, the animator of The Second Draft, and blogger at The Augean Stables. Having analyzed a major dossier of forgeries around the dawn of the second millennium, he has turned his attention to another, and far more dangerous constellation, that permeate our MSM at the dawn of the third millennium.

News from the Palestine of “unity government.” (HT: ELS) Okay, so will this get a tiny fraction of the attention that Muhammad al Durah got? Where’s the outrage?

Of course, I don’t expect much. But at least, can we stop being sucked in by the demopath’s outrage? Can we at least not fall prey to the “Is our blood cheaper than theirs?” when they treat their own blood as cheap?

Gunmen kill Palestinian girl in Gaza
By JPOST.COM STAFF

An eight-year-old Palestinian girl was killed Sunday when she was shot by gunmen in the Gaza Strip town of Rafah.

The Palestinian news agency Ma’an identified the fatality as Shidei Abu Muhsan and reported that another two women and a young boy - all relatives of Muhsan - were also shot in the incident. Their conditions were unknown.

Palestinian medical sources said that the dead girl arrived at Yousef a-Najar Hospital with a bullet wound to her chest and doctors declared her death moments later.

In addition, masked gunmen kidnapped a member of the Fatah affiliated Force 17, Abu Muhamed Abu Samalah, 40, in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian security sources said.

Ma’an said that there there was great concern over increased Palestinian infighting in the wake of the formation of the new Palestinian Authority unity government.

It’s a regular practice of Palestinians, when things are going badly for the extremists, to pick a fight with Israel. Generally this comes in the form of either a provocation — suicide terrorism works — or a piece of Pallywood — Gaza Beach worked well. Right now the Palestinians are at a nadir of sorts: they’re killing each other; they can’t stop killing each other; and “the whole world” sees what a profoundly dysfunctional political culture they’ve got. Sooooo, they need to pick a fight.

Enter the archeological activity of the Israelis near the Temple Mount / Haram al Sharif. Over the past week a growing chorus of complaints about Israeli activity, increasingly shrill and angry, have complained that

“What Israel is doing in its practices and attacks against our sacred Muslim sites in Jerusalem and al-Aqsa is a blatant violation that is not acceptable under any pretext,” the monarch was quoted by the state news agency Petra as saying.

“These measures will only create an atmosphere that will not at all help in the success of efforts being undertaken to restore the peace process,” the monarch said.

And that’s from the King of Jordan, a “moderate.” Like so many other aspects of life with Muslims both in the Middle East and around the world, others must yield to their outrage over deeds that they imagine. The conspiracy world in which they live means that anything remotely resembling an attack on them becomes a causus belli, and a cause for loud protest. And they count on the unwillingness of the West to fight over such matters, to have them back down. A good description of the “spirit of Munich” that reigns over a dying Europe today.

So the plan is, either force the Israelis to back down, or push for a confrontation so that, as soon as some Palestinian civilian is hurt, the MSM can come in and do their “politics of compassion and outrage” job to rally world opinion against the Israelis who refuse to be reasonable… like the Europeans.

And what the Israeli government should be doing right now, is telling every station in the world that this is an invented grievance, that there are no plans to tunnel under the Dome of the Rock or the al Aqsa mosque and destroy it. Probably, if the thing explodes and Israel is once more on the hot-seat accused of crimes against the poor Palestinians, they’ll then come out with their defense. Too late, once again.

Watch this space.

As part of the 7th Annual Herzliya Conference on the Balance of Israel’s National Security, The Institute for Policy and Strategy at IDC Herzliya would like to invite you to join us at a conference entitled:

Media as Theater of War, the Blogosphere, and the Global Battle for Civil Society

For a bibliography of readings on this subject, many by participants, please visit Bibliography

The conference will take place on Sunday and Monday, December 17-18, 2006 at the Daniel Hotel in Herzliya.

The event is open to the general public but we request that you RSVP in advance to guarantee a place.
mediaconf@idc.ac.il

Tentative Program (as of December 11, 2006)

The Media as Theater of War, the Blogosphere, and the Global Battle for Civil Society

December 17 – 18, 2006
Daniel Hotel, Herzliya

DAY I: Sunday, December 17

Media as a Theater of War: Lessons of the Second Lebanese War

08:00 – 08:30 Registration

08:30 – 09:00 Opening Address:
Prof. Richard Landes, Head of the Media Working Group for the 7th Annual Herzliya Conference
The Miracle and Vulnerabilities of Civil Society: The Crisis of the 21st Century
Prof. Uzi Arad, Head and Founder, Institute for Policy and Strategy, IDC
Introducing STRATCOM

09:00 – 10:30 Panel I: Coverage of the Lebanese War: Arab Media
Hayim Azses, Educational Director, Sephardic Educational Center
Al Jazeera’s Coverage of the Lebanon War: Journalism or Advocacy?
Itamar Marcus, Director, Palestinian Media Watch
The Strategic Use of Media During War: Hezbollah and the Palestinian Authority
Leah Soibel, Senior Researcher, The Israel Project
A Mutual Relationship: The Arab Media and Hassan Nasrallah
Michael Widlanski, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
Israeli Air-Power vs. Arab Air –Wave Power

11:00 – 12:30 Panel II: Coverage of the Lebanese War: Western Media
Chair and Comment: Richard Landes
Lee Smith, Visiting Fellow, Hudson Institute
The Lebanon War: US Media Shortcomings and Agenda
Nidra Poller, Paris Editor, Pajamas Media,
How do you say ‘Fauxtography’ in French?
Tamar Sternthal, Israel Director, Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America
Casualty Figures and “Disproportionate Force
Professor Gerald Steinberg, Bar Ilan University, Editor, NGO Monitor
Dealing with the Politicized NGO Network and the Media

12:30 – 13:30 Lunch
Screening of Icon of Hatred (Continuation of Pallywood and Al Durah, from Second Draft) 20 minutes

13:30 – 15:00 Panel III: Kfar Qana: Inflection Point?
Chair and Comment: Nachman Shai, Director, UJC Israel, Former IDF Spokesperson
Dr. Raanan Gissin, Strategic Consultant and former advisor to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
The Impact of Qana on the Outcome of the Lebanese War
Reuven Koret, Publisher, Israel Insider
Hezbollywood in Qana: How the Exaggeration of Civilian Deaths was Exposed by Bloggers and Web Publishers
Jonathan Davis, IDF Spokesperson’s Unit (res.), VP for External Relations, IDC
Experiences of an IDF Spokesman Reservist Officer in the Field
Mark Regev, Spokesperson, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Qana as an Immense Media, Diplomatic & PR problem
Joe Hyams, Honest Reporting,
The Frame Game

15:15 – 16:45 Panel IV: The New Kid on the Block: Blogosphere and Mainstream Media in Lebanon
Chair and Comment: Allison Kaplan Sommer, Israelity, Middle East Editor, Pajamas Media
Martin Solomon, Solomonia
The Blogosphere and Lebanon – Having an Impact on the Mainstream Media
Judith Weiss, Kesher Talk
A range of reactions to the Lebanon media scandals, from the Left side of the Blogosphere
Michael Totten, Middle East Journal
Evidence of Hezbollah’s use of civilians
Richard Fernandez, The Belmont Club, Australian Editor, Pajamas Media
From Margin to Center: The Bologosphere and the Mainstream Media during the Lebanese War

17:00 – 18:30 Panel V: Media Oxymoron: Open Reporting from Closed Societies
Michael Widlanski, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
Reporting from Inside Arab Society
Noah Pollak, Assistant Editor, Azure, Shalem Center

Stephanie Gutmann,