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'''Muhammad al-Durrah''' ([[Arabic language|Arabic]]: '''محمد الدرة'''; born in 1988) was reported to have been killed by gunfire on [[September 30]], [[2000]] near the [[Netzarim]] junction in the [[Gaza Strip]] at the beginning of the [[Al-Aqsa Intifada]], based on video footage provided by freelance cameraman Talal Abu Rahma, working for ''[[France 2]]''. |
'''Muhammad al-Durrah''' ([[Arabic language|Arabic]]: '''محمد الدرة'''; born in 1988) was reported to have been killed by gunfire on [[September 30]], [[2000]] near the [[Netzarim]] junction in the [[Gaza Strip]] at the beginning of the [[Al-Aqsa Intifada]], based on video footage provided by freelance cameraman Talal Abu Rahma, working for ''[[France 2]]''. |
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Revision as of 07:40, 4 April 2007
Muhammad al-Durrah (Arabic: محمد الدرة; born in 1988) was reported to have been killed by gunfire on September 30, 2000 near the Netzarim junction in the Gaza Strip at the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, based on video footage provided by freelance cameraman Talal Abu Rahma, working for France 2.
The video footage shows al-Durrah and his father seeking cover from crossfire between the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Palestinians. Al-Durrah eventually slumped over, apparently killed by gunfire. The broadcast of the tape internationally led to outrage against the IDF and the Israeli government.[1]
Soon after, questions were raised about the authenticity of the tape, leading to controversy about several aspects of the incident, including the source of the bullets, the identity of the boy, whether Palestinian gunmen shot him, and whether he is actually dead.[2][3][4]
Incident, as initially reported
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France 2 reported that al-Durrah and his father Jamal crossed a main street in the Bureij refugee camp when the IDF engaged Palestinian militants at an outpost near the Netzarim junction. They tried to avoid the shooting by going between a concrete cylinder and a low cinderblock wall. The IDF exchanged fire with the militants for 45 minutes, 27 minutes of which is allegedly on tape.
Edited television footage showed his father waving and shouting, "Don't shoot!" Muhammad is then reported to be shot, and his father is sitting against the wall appearing dead also. France 2 reported that his father suffered severe injuries, but survived after receiving emergency surgery in Jordan.
A BBC article recorded the father as stating that the boy pleaded him for his protection and that Israeli troops had fired relentlessly, even shooting at an ambulance that had tried to rescue him and his son, killing the ambulance driver and injuring another ambulance driver. To his statement, he added an appeal to "the entire world, to all those who have seen this crime to act and help me avenge my son's death and to put on trial Israel" and added that he planned to take Israel to the international courts for the death of his son. Doctors reportedly removed bullets from his pelvis and arm, but his right hand is paralyzed permanently.[5]
A special report article by The Guardian's Suzanne Goldenberg soon after, made the allegation that IDF soldiers had deliberately targeted the two citing Talal Abu Rahma, the cameraman who recorded the film, as stating: "They were cleaning the area. Of course they saw the father, They were aiming at the boy, and that is what surprised me, yes, because they were shooting at him, not only one time, but many times". The Writer goes on to report the reaction of Israeli Major-General Yom Tov Samia to the events but retorts that his explanation is difficult to sustain.[6]
Reaction
Talal Abu Rahma, a freelance Palestinian cameraman working for France 2, captured the shooting on video and France 2 showed an edited version of the footage, which Palestinian television rebroadcast. Though he was not present at the shooting, in his voiceover of the video Charles Enderlin, the Israeli reporter in charge of the France 2 crew, stated that Israeli forces had killed the boy. This accusation is widely accepted as fact in the Islamic world and al-Durrah's death quickly became a rallying symbol of opposition to Israel. Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, and Turkey issued postage stamps depicting al-Durrah as a martyr. Egypt re-named the street in front of the Israeli embassy "Muhammad al Durra Street" in his honour, the Palestinian Authority gave the same name to a street in Jericho, and Saddam Hussein similarly named a main thoroughfare in Baghdad "Martyr Mohammed al-Dura Street". The Iranian Ministry of Education developed http://al-durra.roshd.ir/ to commemorate him, and Sheikh Mohammed, the Crown Prince of Dubai, composed a poem in his honour.[7] His image is shown in the videotape "The Slaughter of the Spy-Journalist, the Jew Daniel Pearl."[citation needed]
Muhammad's mother Amal said, "My son didn't die in vain. This was his sacrifice for our homeland, for Palestine."
The IDF initially stated that it was "probably responsible" for killing Muhammad al-Durrah and expressed sorrow at his death.[5] IDF operations chief Giora Eiland announced that "there had been an investigation by the major-general of the southern command and apparently [al-Durrah] was killed by Israeli Army fire at the Palestinians who were attacking them violently".[8]
On 30 October 2000 Abu Rhama gave a sworn affidavit to the Palestine Centre for Human Rights about the events. The affidavit stated, in part, that Abu Rhama could "confirm that the child was intentionally and in cold blood shot dead and his father injured by the Israeli army."[9] In 2000 and 2001 he received a number of prizes and awards for the footage (primarily from organizations in Arab and Muslim countries), including the 2000 Festival Scoop Prize, Angers, France; Qurtaj Cinema Festival, Tunisia; Palestine Prize for Arts, Literature and Human Sciences; Qatar Honoring Prize, Doha, Qatar; Alexandria Honoring Prize, Alexandria, Egypt; Research Fund for the Study of Future of North-South Cultural Communication in Rabat, Morocco; Iran Prize for the Palestinian Intifada; Medal of Bravery, Palestinian Journalists' Association, Jerusalem; Arab Journalism Prize (Best News Scoop), Dubai; Journalist of the Year, ADC, Washington DC; Jordanian Syndicates' Complex Prize, Amman; Radio & TV Festival Prize, Cairo, and the Rory Peck Trust Sony International Impact Award.
On 7 October 2001, al Qaida spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, speaking for Osama bin Laden, warned American President George W. Bush that he "shouldn't forget the image of Mohammed al-Durrah and his fellow Muslims in Palestine and Iraq" and promised that "The storms of planes will not stop until you drag your defeated tails from Afghanistan, not until you raise your hands from the Jews in Palestine, not until you lift the embargo on the Iraqi people, not until you leave the Arabian peninsula, not until you stop supporting the Hindus against the Muslims in Kashmir."
In May 2004 the Kuwaiti investment company Global Investment House created the "Al-Durra Islamic Fund" with the investment objective of seeking "capital growth through investing in Sharia'a-compliant local shares."
Controversy
Analysis of the footage led some to conclude that the whole incident had been staged. Richard Landes[10], a Boston University professor specializing in medieval cultures, and founder and director of the Center for Millennial Studies[11], studied full footage from other Western news outlets three times that day, including the pictures of the boy, and concluded that it had probably been faked, along with footage on the same tape of separate street clashes and ambulance rescues. “I came to the realization that Palestinian cameramen, especially when there are no Westerners around, engage in the systematic staging of action scenes,” he said, calling the footage "Pallywood cinema." [2] Landes went on to found the website Second Draft, dedicated to gathering evidence on the al-Durrah case and other controversies in journalism.
Nahum Shahaf, a physicist, known mainly as an inventor and the tenth person to receive a medal from the Israeli Ministry of Science, and Yosef Duriel, an engineer he met during an investigation Shahaf earlier undertook into Yitzhak Rabin's death, contacted IDF Southern Commander Major General Yom Tov Samia, and were commissioned by him to begin a second investigation of the case. On October 23, 2000 a re-enactment of the shooting was done on an IDF shooting range, in front of a 60 Minutes camera crew. In an interview with the crew at that time, Duriel stated that he believed that al-Durrah had been killed by Palestinian gunmen collaborating with the France 2 camera crew and the boy's father, with the intent of fabricating an anti-Israel propaganda symbol.[12][citation needed] Samia immediately removed Duriel from the investigation, but Duriel continued to aver that his version was accurate and that the IDF refused to publicize it because the results were "explosive".[13]
The results of this investigation were released on November 27, 2000, and they reached different conclusions than the initial IDF declaration of probable guilt. Samia stated "A comprehensive investigation conducted in the last weeks casts serious doubt that the boy was hit by Israeli fire. It is quite plausible that the boy was hit by Palestinian bullets in the course of the exchange of fire that took place in the area." IDF Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz later insisted that this investigation was a private enterprise of Samia. [14]
Though the IDF did not support Duriel's thesis, some supporters of Israel such as WorldNetDaily continued to propound it.[15] The French author Gérard Huber, a psychoanalyst and permanent Paris correspondent, a Metula News Agency [16] contributor, made a similar argument—that al-Durrah's death was staged;[17] but went further, claiming that the boy had not even been killed.[18]
A November 13, 2001 Amnesty International report titled Broken Lives - A Year of Intifada quoted the cameraman Talal Abu Rahma's sworn affidavit to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights stating that gunfire from the Palestinian outpost stopped 45 minutes before Muhammad al-Durrah was shot. AI's report claimed that photographs taken by journalists showed a pattern of bullet holes indicating that father and son were targeted by the Israeli post opposite them. AI also noted that on October 11, 2001, the IDF spokesperson in Jerusalem had showed AI delegates maps which purported to show that al-Durrah had been killed in crossfire.[19]
A 2002 documentary on Germany's ARD television network titled Three Bullets and a Child: Who Killed the Young Muhammad al-Dura?, based on the IDF findings and a ballistic analysis of the scene, supported Shahaf's conclusion that al-Durrah could not have been killed by gunfire from the Israeli outpost. The documentary stated that the boy's death was accidental and he was not purposely targeted by either side.[20]
James Fallows, in a June 2003 article in The Atlantic Monthly titled Who Shot Mohammed al-Dura? cited a number of unanswered questions raised by the Israeli physicist Nahum Shahaf during the second IDF investigation:
"Why is there no footage of the boy after he was shot? Why does he appear to move in his father's lap, and to clasp a hand over his eyes after he is supposedly dead? Why is one Palestinian policeman wearing a Secret Service-style earpiece in one ear? Why is another Palestinian man shown waving his arms and yelling at others, as if 'directing' a dramatic scene? Why does the funeral appear — based on the length of shadows — to have occurred before the apparent time of the shooting? Why is there no blood on the father's shirt just after they are shot? Why did a voice that seems to be that of the France 2 cameraman yell, in Arabic, 'The boy is dead' before he had been hit? Why do ambulances appear instantly for seemingly everyone else and not for al-Dura?"[21]
In October 2004, journalists Denis Jeambar, Daniel Leconte and Luc Rosenzweig (a former chief editor of Le Monde and currently a Metula News Agency (Mena) contributor) met with Arlette Chabot, deputy general director of France 2, to review the complete video. After the viewing, on October 22, 2004, Mena repeated earlier claims that the incident had been staged. Mena editor-in-chief Stéphane Juffa noted that though Abu Rahma had videoed about 27 minutes of footage, France 2 had previously only shown about 55 seconds of video and later released about three minutes and 26 seconds of material to the Israeli army. Enderlin had told the French monthly Télérama in October 2000 that "I cut the child's death throes. It was too unbearable," but Juffa said that there were no such death throes in the footage.[22] On November 26, 2004, a similar (better translated) article on the topic by Juffa entitled The Mythical Martyr was published in The Wall Street Journal Europe. In both articles Juffa argued that Didier Epelbaum, an adviser to the president of France Télévisions (the department presiding over all French state-operated TV networks including France 2), had stated that Abu Rahma (the cameraman) had retracted his testimony that the Israelis had shot al-Durrah in cold blood.
To defend itself against the charges, in the fall of 2004 France 2 filed a series of defamation complaints against some of its critics, by a French judicial settlement called "plainte contre X".[23] The station's lawyer, Bénédicte Amblard, said that France 2 followed this strategy because of the difficulties of legally identifying the owners of Web sites. In October 2004, the station videoed the boy's father in an Amman hospital showing scars on his right arm and upper right leg, but critics like Rosenzweig demanded an independent medical expert's opinion. The station also held a news conference in November 2004, with enlarged pictures of al-Durrah and his father, in order to answer questions of critics who claimed no blood was visible. According to Chabot, the station's deputy general director, "It's a crazy story. Every time we address one question, then another question surfaces. It's very difficult to fight a rumor. The point is that four years later, no one can say for certain who killed him, Palestinians or Israelis."[2]
On January 25, 2005, in Le Figaro, Jeambar and Leconte (like Rosenzweig) refuted Enderlin's longstanding explanation of why the footage of the killing was brief and apparently truncated, stating that the "unbearable" images of al-Durrah's "death throes" did not exist. Instead they noted that in the 27 minutes of tape "Palestinians seem to be organizing a staged event. They 'play' at war with the Israelis and simulate, in most of the cases, imaginary injuries."[citation needed][24] However, Jeambar and Leconte indicated that, although questions were indeed raised as to why Enderlin accused the Israeli Army of shooting the boy, and spoke of images showing his agony, the video produced by France 2 did not allow one to conclude that the death of the boy was faked: "To those, like Mena, who wanted to use us to support the thesis of that the death of the child was faked by the Palestinians, we say that they are misguided, and are misguiding their readers. Not only do we not share this point of view, but we affirm that based on the knowledge of the file we have today, nothing allows us to affirm this, much to the contrary."
In a January 27, 2005 article in Le Figaro, Enderlin responded to Jeambar and Leconte's charges. He insisted that he stated that the bullets were fired by the Israelis for a number of reasons: First, that he trusted the cameraman (Abu Rhama) who, he said, had made the initial claim during the broadcast, and had worked for France 2 for 17 years, and later had it confirmed by other journalists and sources, and the initial Israeli statements. He also stated that the IDF never asked his team to collaborate on an inquiry, even though they had written to the IDF spokesman proposing they do so. Second, that the idea of the IDF shooting al-Durrah corresponded with what Enderlin saw as "the reality of the situation not only in Gaza, but also in the West Bank", where, he claimed, in the first month of the Intifada the IDF had already shot around one million bullets, and killed 118 Palestinians, included 33 children, as compared to the 11 Israelis killed (attributing these numbers to Ben Kaspit from the Israeli newspaper Maariv). Finally, he stated that a journalist doesn't have to take note of "possibly dishonest" later uses by "extremist groups", and accused Jeambar and Leconte of promoting "censorship".[25]
In a February 1, 2005 radio interview Jeambar and Leconte described the original reports that Israelis shot al-Durrah as "false", though they reiterated their earlier statements that there was no reason to believe the death of Muhammad al-Durrah had been faked. Jeambar did note, however, that 24 minutes of the footage consisted of nothing but Palestinian youths faking being wounded and then running off, and ambulances evacuating uninjured people., but he explained that this part was minutes before the death of al-Durrah. In response to Enderlin's statement that the credibility of his claim was supported by "the reality of the situation not only in Gaza, but also in the West Bank", Leconte's reply was "I find this, from a journalistic point of view, worrying. I have the feeling that the facts are forced to support a viewpoint".
On February 15, 2005, Leconte further clarified his views in an interview with the Cybercast News Service. He insisted that al-Durrah had been shot from the Palestinian position: "The only ones who could hit the child were the Palestinians from their position. If they had been Israeli bullets, they would be very strange bullets because they would have needed to go around the corner." He dismissed an earlier claim by France 2 that the gunshots that struck al-Durrah were bullets that could have ricocheted off the ground, stating "It could happen once, but that there should be eight or nine of them, which go around a corner? They're just saying anything." He also confirmed Juffa's claim that Abu Rahma (the cameraman) had retracted his testimony. However, France 2 communications director Christine Delavennat said that Abu Rahma never retracted his testimony, but rather "denied making a statement - falsely attributed to him by a human rights group [the Palestine Centre for Human Rights] - to the effect that the Israeli army fired at the boy in cold blood." Finally, Leconte continued to insist that the shootings had not been faked, stating "At the moment of the shooting, it's no longer acting, there's really shooting, there's no doubt about that." [26]
On October 19, 2006, a court in Paris ruled that Philippe Karsenty, who runs the Media-Ratings Agency, was guilty of libeling France 2 and Charles Enderlin after alleging that they had faked their report. [27] [28][citation needed] The public prosecutor had recommended that the court rule in Karsenty's favor, but the judges argued that Karsenty's allegations could not be regarded as credible because "no Israeli authority ... have ever accorded the slightest credit" to them. [29] According to The Jerusalem Post, Israeli officials have explained their silence by saying it was a "losing proposition" to reopen the al-Durrah case, because they would be "accused of blaming the victim." [29] Karsenty was fined €1,000; €3,000 in legal fees; and a symbolic €1 in damages to both Enderlin and France 2. [30]
See also
- Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- Arab-Israeli conflict
- Al-Aqsa Intifada
- Charles Enderlin
- Pallywood
- Propaganda
Notes
- ^ "Eyewitness: Anger and mourning in Gaza". BBC. October 4, 2000.
- ^ a b c Carvajal, Doreen. "The mysteries and passions of an iconic video frame", International Herald Tribune, Monday, February 7, 2005.
- ^ Gelernter, David. "When pictures lie", Los Angeles Times, September 2005.
- ^ Ricki Hollander, Gilead Ini, BACKGROUNDER: Mohammed Al Dura, or Anatomy of a French Media Scandal. On the site of CAMERA, October 13, 2005. Accessed 5 February 2006.
- ^ Report: 12-year-old Palestinian Martyr's Death 'Staged' (PDF). Reprinted from WorldNetDaily.com, April 1, 2003. Accessed 5 February 2006.
- ^ Broken lives – a year of intifada, Amnesty International, 13 November 2001. Link is to summary, full report is available as a series of PDF files.
- ^ Ellis Shuman, German TV: Mohammed a-Dura likely killed by Palestinian gunfire. IsraelInsider.com, March 20, 2002. Accessed 5 February 2006.
- ^ Quoted in Mitchell G. Bard, Myths & Facts Online: The Palestinian Uprisings. jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Accessed 5 February 2006.
- ^ Stéphane Juffa, translated by Llewellyn Brown The Al-Dura case: a dramatic conclusion. Dated 3 November, apparently 2003. Accessed 5 February 2006.
- ^ The Al Durah Trials: Portrait of French Culture at the Beginning of the 21st Century Augean Stables
- ^ The New York Times Buries al Dura Story On the site of CAMERA, February 7, 2005. Accessed 5 February 2006.
- ^ Charles Enderlin, "Non à la censure à la source" ("No to censorship at the source") Le Figaro, January 27, 2005. In French. Reproduced on the site of Kol Shalom. Accessed 5 February 2006.
- ^ Eva Cahen, French TV Sticks by Story That Fueled Palestinian Intifada, Cybercast News Service, February 15, 2005. Accessed 5 February 2006.
- ^ "Charles Enderlin et France 2 gagnent leur procès". Le Monde. 20 October 2006.
Journalist Charles Enderlin and France 2 have obtained, on Thursday 19 October, a sentence for public libel against Philippe Karsenty, director of the Internet site Media-ratings, which had claimed that the reporting showing a Palestinian child killed in his father's arms by Israeli fire was "fake"" ("Le journaliste Charles Enderlin et France 2 ont obtenu, jeudi 19 octobre, la condamnation pour diffamation publique de Philippe Karsenty, directeur du site internet Media-ratings, qui avait affirmé que le reportage montrant un enfant palestinien tué dans les bras de son père par des tirs israélien était un "faux"
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(help). - ^ "France 2 Counters Accusations of Fraudulent Broadcasts with Lawsuits". CAMERA.
- ^ a b Caroline, Glick (October 23, 2006). "Our World: Prime-time blood libels". The Jerusalem Post.
- ^ Stephane, Elkaim (October 20, 2006). "French TV station wins al-Dura case". The Jerusalem Post.
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External links
Template:Unverifiable-external-links
- Anat, Cygielman. IDF keeps shooting itself in the foot", Haaretz, November 7, 2000.
- Farrows, James. "Who shot Mohammed al-Durra?", The Atlantic Monthly, June 2003.
- Huber, Gérard. Contre-expertise d'une mise en scène. Editions Raphael, 2003. ISBN 2-87781-066-6
- Goldberg, Suzanne. "Analysis of the shooting", The Guardian, undated.
- Goldberg, Suzanne. "Making of a martyr", The Guardian, October 3, 2000.
- Gutman, Stephanie. The Other War: Israelis, Palestinians and the Struggle for Media Supremacy. Encounter Books, 2005. ISBN 1-893554-94-5
- Juffa, Stephane. "The Mythical Martyr", Wall Street Journal Europe, November 26, 2004.
- Landes, Richard. Augean Stables: Chronology of the Al Durah Affair
- Motro, Helen Schary (2005). Maneuvering Between the Headlines: An American Lives through the Intifada. Other Press. ISBN 1-59051-159-X.
- Landes, Richard. "Second Draft.org", videos and analysis about media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- Shenker, Cinnamon. "Will France denounce a Muslim icon?", WorldNetDaily, May 24, 2006.
- "Boy becomes Palestinian martyr". BBC.
- "Israeli ambassador defends troops". BBC.
- Statement under oath by France 2 photographer, Talal Abu Rahma
- Amnesty International report (PDF)
- Video of the shooting (contains graphic content) (Real Video format)
- Mohammed al-Durra (Time Magazine)
- Metula News Agency: "The Al-Dura case : a dramatic conclusion"
- The Israeli Crime That Wasn’t (FrontPageMagazine.com)
- Myth, Fact, and the al-Dura Affair (CommentaryMagazine.com)
- BACKGROUNDER: Mohammed Al Dura, or Anatomy of a French Media Scandal, on the site of CAMERA.
- World Net Daily: Terrorists' 'poster boy' exposed as media fraud: 5 years late, Los Angeles Times reveals Palestinian hoax inspired 'bestial crimes', September 13, 2005
- Augean Stables: Al Durah II? The MSM Reports Again “According to Palestinian Sources