* Those who adhere to this scenario: Many people in the West and in Israel.
For those unwilling to accuse the Israelis of outright murder, this narrative presents a more benign version, that accepts the main lines of the story as presented by France2, but sees the death as the tragic result of the al Durahs getting caught in a crossfire. The original France 2 footage aired across the world, gives the impression of a crossfire, with the father waving at ...
Continue Reading → Share* Those who adhere to this scenario: This seems to be the favorite position of many who have examined the evidence enough to register how unlikely scenarios 1 and 2 are (e.g., James Fallows) and of most who have read or seen their analyses. It appeals especially to those who do not want to raise deeply troubling and politically incorrect scenarios (Scenario 4) or be accused of conspiracy theories (scenario 5). It includes some mainstream journalists who have investigated, as ...
Continue Reading → ShareThose who adhere to this scenario: Very few people openly espouse this one, although those who do tend to know the material well, are familiar with the willingness of the Palestinian elites to sacrifice their children “for the cause”, and don’t care about political correctness. Those few who have publicly argued this have suffered considerable damage.
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 → ShareAl Durah Journalism: We use the term DuraJournalists to designate those journalists who take a credulous stance towards Arab lethal narratives about Israel, passing them on to us, their readers and listeners, as “news,” or at least, as perfectly believable claims about the news. DuraJournalists instrumentalize the evidence, and when faced with anomalous details, ignore or dismiss them. Rather than look for clues, DuraJournalists clean up the mess. They live on rekaB Street.
Since all wars have their lethal narratives, ...
Continue Reading → ShareNB: We welcome all essays on this topic, including those not directly related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
News analysis that examines alDurah Journalism:
Perhaps the first major wave of DurahJournalism came with the coverage of Operation Defensive Shield’s siege of the Jenin Refugee camp, ground zero for the suicide bombers that had plagued Israel for two years before they responded in force.
A particularly revealing episode of the corporatism and self-protectiveness ...
Continue Reading → ShareMay 19, 2013, 8:30 pm
By ISABEL KERSHNER
JERUSALEM — The images seen around the world were shocking: a young boy being shot dead as he crouched behind his father at a dusty junction in Gaza in September 2000. But the facts behind the images have been disputed almost from the start, and on Sunday, the Israeli government asserted that there was no evidence for the original account of the event, which was that the boy was hit by Israeli ...
Continue Reading → Share Prime Minister’s Office – Publication of the Report of the Government Review Committee Regarding the France 2 Al-Durrah Report, its Consequences
and Implications
19/05/2013
The Government Review Committee: “The France 2 report’s central claims and accusations had no basis in the material which the station had in its possession at the time…There is no evidence that the IDF was in any way responsible for causing any of the alleged injuries to Jamal or the boy”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received today the ...
Continue Reading → ShareOfficial Israeli government report concludes the « death » of Mohamed al Dura was staged
MAY 13, 2013, 12:13 AM
Jonathan-Simon Sellem is a former newscaster in France who made aliya in 2006 as war reporter during the 2nd Lebanon War… [More]
On Friday May 10th, the Israeli weekly Sof Shavoua revealed the imminent release of an Israeli government report on the al Dura affair that will clearly assert that the “death” of the Palestinian youth, Mohamed al Dura, was staged. ...
Continue Reading → ShareIsrael Claims Muhammad Al-Dura Was Not Killed by IOF Fire
Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post,published Sunday statements of the Israel’s Defense Minister, Moshe Ya’alon, saying that the 12-year-old Gazan boy who was murdered in a cold blood by the Israeli army forces in 2000, was not killed and that he’s still alive.
Ya’alon claimed that the video featuring the Israeli army firing towards Mohammed al-Dura during the second intifada as he crouched behind his father, Jamal, crying, was within the media war ...
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