Solomonia Archive: How French TV fudged the death of Mohammed Al Durah.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

How French TV fudged the death of Mohammed Al Durah.

The decision on the first trial is this Thursday (19), second trial, next Thursday (26)...There may be a petition in a major French newspaper to urge France2 to show the tapes. That would be great.

His new peice in The New Republic is here:

...On October 31, 2003, at the studios of France2 in Jerusalem in the company of Charles Enderlin and his Israeli cameraman, I saw the raw footage of Al Durah from the only Palestinian cameraman who actually captured the scene on film--footage France2 still refuses to release for public examination. I was floored. The tapes feature a long succession of obviously faked injuries; brutal, hasty evacuation scenes; and people ducking for cover while others stand around. One fellow grabbed his leg in agony, then, upon seeing that no one would come to carry him away, walked away without a limp. It was stunning. That was no cameraman's conspiracy: It was everyone--a public secret about which news consumers had no clue.

But the real shock came when I mentioned this to Enderlin, who said he trusted this cameraman. "They always do that," he said. "It's a cultural style." So why wouldn't they have faked Al Durah? "They're not good enough," he said. A year later, the higher-ups at France2 made the same remark to three French journalists who also noted the pervasive staging: "You know well that it's always like that," they said.

I tried unsuccessfully to interest the mainstream press in this obvious fakery, but nobody was interested. "I don't know how much appetite there is for this material here," one person at a major studio told me. So I made Pallywood (Palestinian Hollywood)--a video-essay showing the dishonesty and the still-more-astounding Western complicity in using this footage to inform us about the Middle East. Then I made a follow-up, Al Durah: The Making of an Icon (and soon, Icon of Hatred). I established a website, The Second Draft, where I posted the movies along with my evidence so that, unlike France2, people could check my sources. And now the accused have asked me to testify...

The rest is here (may require free registration -- I'll also post it in the forum).

Posted by Solomon at 11:34 AM on Tuesday, Oct 17, 2006 | Comments (3)
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3 Comments

#1 Mike Nargizian | October 17, 2006 5:46 PM

Sol -

You had 2 earlier posts on this I believe?
One - where France2 was suing someone for 'defaming' them for stating their coverage was fraudulent etc...
Second - Where someone was trying to get France2 to release to the public their tapes? Or was this the BBC with their report they're trying to hide?

I don't see how the first, even if the 'good guys' win will help because it still won't force or oblige France2 to release their unreleased footage etc....?
What am I missing?
Please put in links to earlier posts within this post.
Thanks.
Mike

#2 isirota1965 | October 17, 2006 5:54 PM

Why do I have a nasty and sinking feeling that Enderlin et als. will prevail?

#3 Solomon | October 17, 2006 10:11 PM

There are 3 lawsuits going on with France2 and Charles Enderlin suing people for defamation. Unlike in American where the discovery process would likely reveal the rushes that France2 has hidden, that is not the case in France, so it is up to public pressure to get them to release the footage. Nevertheless, a loss in these cases will clearly indicate that there is something of substance to the criticism and will certainly further open the mainstreaming of these questions that have been asked.

Some posts on the subject:

http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archives/009132.shtml

http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archives/009152.shtml

And here's Richard's mega post with lots of links to get totally up to speed:
http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2006/09/21/guide-to-al-durah-recent-posts/