Monday, April 27, 2009
John Rosenthal describes what's in a new German television investigation into the famous fauxtography: Who Really Shot Al-Dura? The Newest Evidence
...The boy in the additional footage is receiving CPR. He resembles the boy in the France 2 footage and is also dressed similarly.
The additional images are especially troubling, because Schapira's and Hafner's documentary in fact confirms and reinforces many of the elements that have been adduced by critics over the years for concluding that the original France 2 report was bogus. For example, on the very day of the episode at Netzarim, Mohammed Al-Dura was supposedly buried. The funeral procession was filmed and one can see the face of the boy whose body is being carried to the grave. Photos also exist of the corpse of what appears to be the same boy with a large wound extending from his stomach to his chest. The pictures were taken at Shifa hospital in Gaza. Schapira and Hafner, however, interview a specialist in biometrics who confirms that the facial features of the boy in question do not match those of the boy in the France 2 footage.
Similarly, Mohammed Al-Dura's father Jamal was supposedly struck by some twelve bullets during the Netzarim incident. In 2004, France 2 would film Jamal Al-Dura displaying his numerous scars. France 2 officials have cited the scars as "proof" of the authenticity of the Al-Dura episode. Schapira and Hafner, however, interview the Israeli surgeon Dr. Yehuda David, who confirms (as he has previously told Israeli media) that the scars displayed by Jamal Al-Dura are in fact the result of an earlier incident. Dr. David himself performed surgery on Jamal in 1994 in an effort to restore mobility to Jamal's right arm. The arm injury and other injuries were the result of an attack with knives and axes that occurred in 1992. The attack was apparently perpetrated by Palestinian militants. As Schapira and Hafner note, it bears all the hallmarks of the sort of punishment that the militants regularly inflict upon suspected "collaborators."...
...But if the France 2 footage was indeed staged and the boy was not shot during the Netzarim incident, then what is the significance of the additional footage that apparently shows the boy wounded? Asked about the images by New Majority, Esther Schapira explained that the footage comes from Palestinian sources. The stomach area, from which the boy appears to be bleeding, has been artificially obscured in the images. According to Schapira, this was already the case when ARD obtained the footage. Schapira remarked that she finds this "strange," since Palestinian media "usually are not so squeamish about showing people who are wounded or dead."...
Indeed, they're not. Curiouser and curiouser...
Interesting that the one comment appended to the article (at the time I read it) was by a person who had had admittedly no knowledge of the incident in question.
Nevertheless he had plenty of opinions - first - he mockingly asserts that people question France2's version of events because France is antisemitic - as if France had not in fact had a long history of antisemitism and as if, in fact, serious questions about the whole incident did not exist.
Second he makes the rather astonishing assertion that the GOP supports everything Israel does (as if) and that this should be changed and Israel should be pressured to make peace - he actually used the term "taking away the keys from a drunk driver" (!) which I find an appalling insult - but more importantly as if there were no obstacles on the other side and as if Israel hadn't been pressured - indeed punished - in the past.
A prime example would be the many aspects of 1973 - the delays in resupply cost the Israelis dearly in blood, in lives. Another example: the outrage in Washington after Osirak, which armed and regarded Iraq as an ally.
Still another example is the fact that Israel was forced to eat Iraqi SCUDs which could well have been tipped with chemical weapons - finally of course there is the whole "peace process" itself which may in fact be demanding the impossible.
To add insult to injury the Bush Administration insisted on including Hamas in the PA elections, over the objections both of Fatah and the Israelis.
This has worked well hasn't it?
And let us not forget the redoubtable "realists" and their conspiracy theories.
You know what? I get tired of all these self-confessed ignoramuses and their opinions.
Instead of making bogus claims and demands perhaps they'd study the history and then form an opinion.
Right?
That comment is typical of what a lot of ignoramuses think. It's the "class" opinion which all the rest model themselves on.
In my experience, complete and total ignorance of Israeli/Arab issues has never been an impediment to strong opinions. I see it all the time as I never see it with other issues. I think it has to do with the frequency with which it is thrown in our faces.
In re al-Dura:
I keep wondering what actually happened to the poor boy.
The circumstantial evidence is, by now, pretty clear that he could not have been shot by Israeli troops. Was he shot by Palestinians? Was he just pretending to have been shot, in a Pallywood move we've come to expect? (And if so, what happened to him afterward? He hasn't surfaced since, suggesting that he's been dead for some time. Was he killed to keep the al-Dura myth alive? And what does his father have to say about that?)
Or was this a case of Palestinian friendly-fire, in which a father and son were mistakenly targeted, producing TV footage that was immediately recognized for the propaganda gold-mine that it was? I'd like to believe that, if only because it's the least sinister theory. (And for THAT to be the least sinister is saying something, isn't it?)
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline