Spitfire List Web site and blog of anti-fascist researcher and radio personality Dave Emory.

For The Record  

FTR #719 Interview with Philippe Karsenty about the Mohammed al-Dura Incident

Lis­ten:
MP3 Side 1 | Side 2

Intro­duc­tion: As the 10th anniver­sary of the alleged death of Mohammed al-Dura approach­es, this broad­cast details a sem­i­nal media hoax which has not only fueled glob­al anti-Semi­tism, but con­tributed to jihadist pro­pa­gan­da that fueled the activ­i­ties of Al Qae­da. This inter­view fea­tures inves­ti­ga­tor Phillippe Karsen­ty, pres­i­dent of French media watch­dog orga­ni­za­tion Media-Rat­ings.

Alleged­ly killed by gun­fire from Israeli sol­diers, Mohammed al-Dura was a young Pales­tin­ian boy who, along with his father, was sup­pos­ed­ly caught in a cross­fire between Pales­tin­ian forces and the IDF. In fact, there is over­whelm­ing evi­dence that nei­ther Muham­mad nor his father were hit by Israeli fire at all. More­over, this inci­dent has served as some­thing of an oper­a­tional par­a­digm, in which obvi­ous­ly staged inci­dents are accept­ed by glob­al media out­lets as fact, stir­ring out­rage against Israel and Jews, in gen­er­al. The pro­fes­sion­al sources for many of the Israeli atroc­i­ty sto­ries are, to say the least, sus­pect. Much of the so-called “expert” tes­ti­mo­ny to such atroc­i­ties comes from Marc Gar­las­co, forced to resign from Human Rights Watch because of his obses­sion with Nazi mem­o­ra­bil­ia. (He authored a cof­fee-table book on Third Reich anti-air­craft her­aldry and dec­o­ra­tions, pic­tured at right.)

Filmed and broad­cast by France 2–the largest of that coun­try’s pub­lic (gov­ern­ment-owned) TV sta­tions, the inci­dent was an incen­di­ary point for the sec­ond Intifa­da, pre­cip­i­tat­ed the lynch­ing of two Israeli sol­diers at Ramal­lah on 10/12/2000 and was used by Al Qae­da to recruit pri­or to 9/11. Wall Street Jour­nal reporter Daniel Pearl’s killers cit­ed the al-Dura case when mur­der­ing the jour­nal­ist.

After a Ger­man tele­vi­sion sta­tion broad­cast a doc­u­men­tary demon­strat­ing that al-Dura could not have been killed by Israeli fire, Phillippe Karsen­ty began his polit­i­cal and legal odyssey to set the record straight.

Using the evi­dence uncov­ered by the Ger­man (and sub­se­quent) inves­ti­ga­tions, Karsen­ty charged France 2 with broad­cast­ing footage that they knew was fraud­u­lent. In turn, Karsen­ty was charged with libel by France 2 jour­nal­ist Charles Ender­lin. After an ini­tial vic­to­ry by Ender­lin, a French appel­late court over­turned the ver­dict and ruled in favor of Karsen­ty.

Among the points of infor­ma­tion cen­tral to analy­sis of the case are: the fact that Ender­lin was not present at Net­zarim, Gaza, where the event took place; the angle from which bul­lets are strik­ing in the area are incon­sis­tent with Israeli mil­i­tary posi­tions [see pho­to above, left]; the fact that numer­ous Pales­tini­ans can be seen in out­take footage, casu­al­ly con­vers­ing and smok­ing cig­a­rettes in the mid­dle of a sup­posed fire­fight; the fact that, despite alleged­ly being struck by three and ten bul­lets respec­tive­ly, nei­ther Muham­mad nor his father evi­dence any bleed­ing at all, nor do they show any signs of being struck by gun­fire [see pho­to at top right]; at one point, the alleged­ly mor­tal­ly wound­ed Mohammed rais­es his head and looks at the cam­era, then lies back down and plays dead; the fact that Mohammed al-Dura’s [alleged] body was brought to the morgue before the inci­dent actu­al­ly took place!

In more detail, it should be not­ed that the fire was com­ing from rough­ly 12 o’clock and 1 o’clock rel­a­tive to the Israelis. Al-Dura (father and son) were at rough­ly 10 o’clock rel­a­tive to Israelis. A con­crete bar­rel was due west to the al-Duras and a con­crete wall was behind them.

The bul­let holes in the wall behind the al-Duras show round holes which would be con­sis­tent to receiv­ing fire from a shoot­er who was fir­ing at a tar­get at a direc­tion of 12 o’clock. If the bul­let holes were made by Israeli fire, you would expect to see more ellip­ti­cal shaped holes, from fir­ing on a 12 o’clock angle.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: The Israeli gov­ern­men­t’s unwill­ing­ness to sup­port crit­ics of the offi­cial ver­sion of the al-Dura inci­dent; a let­ter from then French pres­i­dent Jacques Chirac sup­port­ing Ender­lin and France 2; review and dis­cus­sion of oth­er faked inci­dents of sup­posed Israeli atroc­i­ties and war crimes; the French gov­ern­men­t’s award­ing of the Legion d’Hon­neur to Ender­lin (that dec­o­ra­tion is the French gov­ern­men­t’s high­est com­men­da­tion); con­dem­na­tion of Karsen­ty by promi­nent French media out­lets and promi­nent intel­lec­tu­als.

Discussion

4 comments for “FTR #719 Interview with Philippe Karsenty about the Mohammed al-Dura Incident”

  1. Hi Dave, I just heard of this Mus­lim Broth­er­hood tv series that Essam el Eryan and oth­ers are up in arms against.

    http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100818/FOREIGN/708179816/1135/general1

    Posted by Dave L. | August 19, 2010, 3:06 pm
  2. A quick com­ment here.

    I found a video that presents sim­i­lar­i­ties between nazism and Islamism. It fea­tures John Lof­tus by the way, if I am not mis­tak­en. What is real­ly inter­est­ing, is that it con­tains an extract of a series from Al-Man­ar TV, a satel­lite TV based in Lebanon. There, is depict­ed a blood libel in no uncer­tain images!!! That is dis­gust­ing! Send my salu­ta­tions to John by the way. We have to expose these things. Rise up good men and women!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Gzyeo1Z1I4&feature=player_embedded#

    Posted by Claude | February 1, 2011, 9:29 am
  3. [...] le pre­mier cas. Aus­si, je vous pro­pose une entre­vue radio en anglais que Karsen­ty a accordée à Dave Emory pour son émis­sion For The Record. L’article de l’entrevue pro­pose non seule­ment un [...]

    Posted by L’affaire al-Doura présentée par Philippe Karsenty: Lorsque anti-sionisme et manipulation médiatique vont de pair | Lys-d'Or | December 11, 2011, 5:21 pm
  4. http://www.timesofisrael.com/leading-critic-of-french-al-dura-coverage-convicted/

    Lead­ing crit­ic of French al-Dura cov­er­age con­vict­ed

    Philippe Karsen­ty found guilty of defama­tion for accus­ing France 2 of stag­ing Pales­tin­ian boy’s death
    By Times of Israel staff June 26, 2013, 4:40 pm 16

    A French media ana­lyst was con­vict­ed Wednes­day of defama­tion for accus­ing a state tele­vi­sion net­work of stag­ing a video that depict­ed a young boy being killed in a fire­fight between Pales­tin­ian gun­men and Israeli sol­diers.

    The footage more than a decade ago gal­va­nized Pales­tini­ans and anti-Israeli sen­ti­ment in the Mideast at the start of the bloody Sec­ond Intifa­da.

    A Paris court fined Philippe Karsen­ty 7,000 euros (NIS 33,000) in the defama­tion case filed by net­work France 2. Karsen­ty accused the network’s Jerusalem bureau chief, Charles Ender­lin, of fab­ri­cat­ing parts of the seg­ment.

    The 55 sec­onds of edit­ed footage, broad­cast on Sep­tem­ber 30, 2000, showed the ter­ri­fied boy, Mohammed al-Dura, and his father amid a furi­ous exchange of fire in the Gaza Strip. It then cut to the boy slumped in his father’s lap. The report blamed Israeli forces for the death.

    Karsen­ty called the ver­dict “out­ra­geous.” A lawyer for France 2 said it was a vic­to­ry for jour­nal­ists.

    Karsen­ty was con­vict­ed of libel in 2006, a judg­ment that was over­turned on appeal in 2008. France 2 sub­se­quent­ly appealed that appeal at the “Cour de cas­sa­tion,” France’s high­est court. Last year, the Cour de cas­sa­tion annulled the rul­ing acquit­ting Karsen­ty of libel in 2008.

    Last month, an offi­cial Israeli gov­ern­ment report con­clud­ed that al-Dura was not harmed by Israeli forces and did not die in the exchange of fire.

    Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Netanyahu, who com­mis­sioned the report in 2012, said the accu­sa­tions aired on France 2 were “a man­i­fes­ta­tion of the ongo­ing, men­da­cious cam­paign to dele­git­imize Israel.”

    After the report was released, al-Dura’s father, Jamal al-Dura, told Ynet that he and his son were both hit by Israeli fire in the inci­dent. He said he would be will­ing to exhume the body to prove that his son had in fact been killed.

    Israel ini­tial­ly did not dis­pute that IDF troops had inad­ver­tent­ly killed the child.

    “It could very much be — this is an esti­ma­tion — that a sol­dier in our posi­tion, who has a very nar­row field of vision, saw some­body hid­ing behind a cement block in the direc­tion from which he was being fired at, and he shot in that direc­tion,” the IDF’s south­ern com­man­der Maj. Gen. Yom-Tov Samia said at the time.

    The Asso­ci­at­ed Press con­tributed to this report.

    Posted by Vanfield | June 26, 2013, 9:01 am

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