This scenario was virtually “unthinkable” initially, and it is still often misunderstood by people who have difficulty imagining it. It represents a radically different approach to the case, calling into question the fundamental assumption of all four previous scenarios, i.e. that the boy was indeed shot. The power of suggestion, and the almost instinctive suspension of disbelief with which most of us look at “news footage” has made this so unbelievable a scenario that many people (including prominent government officials, ...
Continue Reading → ShareWho Shot Mohammed al-Dura?
JAMES FALLOWS
The image of a boy shot dead in his helpless father’s arms during an Israeli confrontation with Palestinians has become the Pietà of the Arab world. Now a number of Israeli researchers are presenting persuasive evidence that the fatal shots could not have come from the Israeli soldiers known to have been involved in the confrontation. The evidence will not change Arab minds—but the episode offers an object lesson in the incendiary power of an icon
The ...
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Nidra Poller
Originally published in the Wall Street Journal on May 27, 2008
September 30, 2000, Netzarim Junction in the Gaza Strip: France 2 correspondent Charles Enderlin offers the world a front seat on the video shooting of Mohammed al-Durra and his father Jamal. Targeted, according to Mr. Enderlin’s voice-over commentary, by “gunfire from the direction of the Israeli positions.” A few seconds later: “Mohammed is dead, his father is critically wounded.” The France 2 cameraman, later identified as ...
Continue Reading → ShareThe ongoing French legal proceedings in which the national television network France 2 seeks a criminal defamation judgement against the media critic Philip Karsenty over the network’s launch of the Aldurah Affair in September 2000 comes back yet again before a Paris appellate court on Wednesday January 16, 2013. It’s an important case for multiple reasons. Prof. Landes is an American historian, associate professor in the Department of History at Boston University, and an author specializing in millennialism.
Al Durah and ...
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2011: Pallywood, Muhammad al Durah and Cognitive Warfare in the 21st Century
This paper was originally published on November 9, 2011, and was delivered by the author as a presentation to the ASMEA Conference, Washington DC, November 4, 2011.
Richard Landes, Boston University
I’d like to make two arguments. First, that the image of ...
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Extracted from
CAMERA BACKGROUNDER:
Mohammed Al Dura: Anatomy of a French Media Scandal
Originally published October 13, 2005
Ricki Hollander, Gilead Ini
Source: http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_article=855&x_context=3
Original report: October 13, 2005
Updated: June 15, 2010
2000
Sept. 30, 2000:
Palestinian gunmen and Israelis soldiers clash at the Netzarim junction in the Gaza Strip. A large contingent of foreign reporters, photographers and television crews are present, including France 2 cameraman Talal Abu Rahma. Much of the day’s events are filmed by the various ...
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There are five main ways to explain the footage that Talal Abu Rahma shot at Netzarim Junction of Muhammad and Jamal Al Durah. Four of them assume that the boy was indeed shot.
The first one we consider, shot by the Israelis on purpose, is the one that both Talal and Jamal have insisted upon.
The second, shot by the Israelis by accident, is one that many people, accepting most but not all of the eyewitness testimony, find most plausible.
The third and ...
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Interviewed by Esther Schapira a year after the Al Durah incident Talal Abu Rahma, France2’s Palestinian photojournalist, recalls that the Israelis allegedly targeted the Al Durahs for 28 minutes as they huddled by the wall at Netzarim Junction on September 30, 2000.
- Problem 1: Internal inconsistency – In other testimony during the same interview Abu Rachma insisted that the Israelis targeted the Al Durahs for 45 minutes, not 28.
- Problem 2: External inconsistency – The Israeli post was 80 meters from the ...