Muhammad al-Dura: Theater of the Absurd?
When ARD documentary filmmaker Esther Schapira viewed the now iconic images of Muhammad al-Dura and his father Jamal back in 2000 she felt there was more of a story to tell. So she set out to produce a film called How Soldiers Live with the Knowledge of Killing a Young Child. But during her research it emerged that this wasn’t simply the story of a Palestinian boy killed by Israeli soldiers. “It wasn’t clear who killed him,” Schapira said. “But ultimately it appeared highly unlikely that he was killed by Israel.”
So she ditched the original idea and instead made the documentary Three Bullets and a Dead Child, which shows the nearly impossible likelihood that the boy was shot and killed by the Israeli army. Schapira admitted that while she was researching the documentary, evidence also surfaced suggesting the incident was staged. But she left that aside.
When the documentary aired nationally in Germany, public reaction was tremendous. Schapira was accused of whitewashing the Israeli army’s actions and she received death threats. She hired security guards and chose to part ways with the al-Dura affair. Busy working on other documentaries, she said she “didn’t want to get too involved with one specific story.” But in 2008, French media analyst Philippe Karsenty used some of her footage in French courts to hammer home his theory that France 2 Television’s al-Dura report was staged. The courts ruled in Karsenty’s favor, prompting Schapira to roll up her sleeves and go back in for another round.
Her latest work — The Child, the Death and the Truth: The Mystery of the Palestinian Boy Mohammed Al-Dura — aired in Germany this month. This time Schapira and crew went back to ask follow-up questions about issues that had surfaced the first time around. “Why don’t we see blood in the images?” Schapira asks. “That didn’t make sense to me back then. There was a claim of three bullets to the child — 15 fired on him and his father altogether — but no blood.”
And then there was the issue of missing video. France 2′s cameraman claimed to have shot six minutes of video but only 52 seconds were ever aired. That remained a sticking point. The decisive “moment of death” appears non-existent. Schapira said her professional background told her there might be a cover-up underway.
“There was a lie,” Schapira said by phone from Germany. “It was clear there must’ve been something else going on because from my professional background and from working in news for quite a while, I found it highly unlikely that an experienced cameraman with tape in his camera — 15 minutes worth and battery life — would film less than a minute when confronted with such strong images. It went against all my professional experience.”
What wasn’t being shown to the public? Was it a clear view of bullets coming from the Palestinian side? Or a sequence showing how the child is killed?
The thing about “honor” is once you lose it, it is hard if not impossible to ever get it back. The Palestinians as a group operate without honor. Staged, exaggerated claims have been made before and after this incident. Consider the Jenin affair. The media showed film of a “dead” person being carted off from the streets in a stretcher during a flare up incident. After they got behind a building, the dead person jumped off the stretcher and started running with the rest of the group. It was caught on film by a helicopter far overhead (I think using night vision). I only saw it once. Funny that this was not displayed over and over again as the media tends to do with other types of events (like Al Dura). So, given this practice, the burden of proof should be that much greater on the Palestinians to prove up these events as factually true.
The Al-Dura blood libel had ONE goal, and that was to demonize Israel as a bloodthirsty state.
One absolutely must understand a basic premise-that when dealing with the Arab Middle East one is NOT dealing with western sensibilities. It is both dangerous and insane to foist our outlooks upon them.
The internalization of our different and diametrically opposed worldviews will allow us to understand how such blood libels occur Whenever the conflict needs to be amped up exponentially (for many & varied reasons) the best way to do so is for the Arabs to place themselves before the camera, not as the aggressors, but as the ‘victims’. The David vs Goliath thing…..
They have many tricks in their arsenal, one being the ever ready film crew, the ever ready ‘journalist’, ready, willing and able to spread libel against the despised Jews.
I know that many refuse to believe this, but the facts are irrefutable, as long as demonizing Jews is not ones end game.
I studied much of the information involved with this libel, and it is without a doubt one of the biggest hoaxes of our time.
Whoever said that the Jews were smarter than the Arabs were only looking at pure academics. But in the arena of PR, it is the Arabs who are the masters, no doubt about it.
The media makes it easy for the arabs to achieve their PR goals.
Personally I would like to see the remedy for this problem that is prescribed by the legal system – those media outlets who present these lies as facts should be sued for defamation/libel.
The whole thing was staged theirs even videos on youtube that show how they staged it and “off camera” footage of the events. How anyone can believe anything that comes from gaza or the west bank as fact is a joke…
The great thing about it is if they had pushed back in 2000 they would have gotten a dead kid as proof… freshly shoot by the propaganda arm to to everything they can to make the story legit.
Its best not to even talk about these “events” because it could endanger the actors(many times kids) of being shoot in order to “prove” that its legit. It would be better if the media would just refuse to cover anything about it(yeah I know thats completely unrealistic).
And yet Enderlin stands firm.
For his professional life, he has to, no?
Mike the MSM has lost their honor as well. Most are just lazy and incurious, some are outright liars. They all seem to casually shrug when their laziness and lies are exposed. No honor.
The day I saw the al-Dura tape, I pointed out to my wife that the bullet holes above the “victims” couldn’t have come form an Israeli weapon. They fire a 5,56 mm which is a suped up 22 caliber. Judging by the size of the holes, it looked very much like a thirty caliber weapon was used.
The AK47 shoots a 7.62mm which transilates to a 308 caliber, definitely a 30 caliber weapon. It didn’t suprise me later to hear that it was a hoax.
Re Old Soldier #6: I am afraid that Old Soldier gives far too much credit to the MSM by calling them lazy and liars to boot. Rather, I view their pernicious lying as caused by pernicious greed. Remember, reporters need to make a living and that means competing in literally a cut-throat world where the bloodier the story, the more copies sold. Journalism is just a business; no different than drug smuggling or prostitution or politics. There is unfortunately only a fine line between the licit and illict ends of a continuum for any profession: police and criminals, butchers of animals and butchers of people, idealists and violent revolutionaries. Any one can go astray in the manner of Enderlin. That Israelis died in the events following the al-Dhurra affair is merely collateral damage, fully acceptable to those at France 2 and elsewhere.
It was a fake!!! Those are the lies of the Palestinians.
All those lies are known as Pallywood.
just look at this video and you will understand:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_B1H-1opys
This is not surprising from a people who claim proud of the industry of death they create:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTu-AUE9ycs
David
Great hyperlinks!
The entire Arab/Israeli thangie is down to propaganda. That is all the Muslims have left. They tried politics, when that didn’t work, they tried invasion and did even worse. Then they tried terrorism without any luck. Now they are trying propaganda. That won’t work either.
What makes me laugh is how stooooooooopid it all is. If the Muslims had just said on day one, “oh look, the jooooos are moving in” and ignored them, Israel today would be a strip mall with a deli on the road between Damascus and Cairo.
It was the Muslims trying to perform genocide on the jooos that made Israel what it is today.
Thanks Oscar
This link is even more relevant to this specific article:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syT3Ji7QoA8
Propaganda seems to be working for them pretty well – how many billions have been pledged to Hamas/Gaza?
Augean Stables has an in depth dossier of the entire affair http:
//www.theaugeanstables.com/al-durah-affair-the-dossier/
which is how I became aware of the non-sequiturs in the edited film used in the France 2 story (thanks to a Michelle Malkin link on Phillip Karsenty).
I followed the reports of both Karsenty trials and watched the unedited cuts of the film – the intentionally deceptive editing by Enderlin and France 2 is unforgiveable – how many people have died as a result of that (bogus) news story? It’s sickening.
This was a good article until the last few paragraphs. There is just such overwhelming evidence now that this scene was staged that only someone with eyes wide shut could still “struggle” with it (many of the posters cite good links that the author should have known about. Nidra Poller also wrote outstanding articles on this site about the case). As to the expressions of terror on the faces of the protagonists being genuine, come on. There are B movies where the actors do a more convincing job. Furthermore, the reason Ms. Fried does not believe it’s a hoax is not attributable to the ability of the actors, but rather , as Adina Kutnicki says above , that the Palestinians have succeeded in imposing their “always blame the Jews” lie as truth to an uncritical world.
It doesn’t matter. Israel has been tarred & feathered. This story will not be picked up and the journalist discredited. UNLESS we scream loud and clear.
Another point to make is the father having the child shield his back is most telling. If given the opportunity to “stage” an event, why wouldn’t the actors know to have the child cradled in his father’s arms in front of him with the double protection of the barrel and himself. Probably because it would be harder to use the child as propaganda.
To those who posted links: Thank you, I don’t understand why we have to see this from unconventional sources. Makes you go hmmmm…