The Augean Stables..
27 May '13..
One of the more interesting spectacles that has arisen since the Kuperwasser Report has been the range of reaction, which pretty much separates the lethal journalists holding on to Al Durah as a dog does a bone on the one hand (most of whom have not examined the evidence), and those who, in terms of what “intellectual” first came to mean during the Dreyfus Affair, are willing to reconsider based on the evidence.
In this case we’re dealing with a senior editor at Open Zion, so not some raving lunatic who managed to slip a piece by the editors, but someone involved in shaping the message readers get from this blog. The language and the reasoning are perfect examples of lethal journalism on the defensive.
Press Advocates: Israeli Report On Al-Dura Affair ‘Absurd and Unacceptable’
by Ali Gharib May 23, 2013 12:00 PM EDT
A September 30, 2000, file combo of TV grabs from France 2 footage taken during Israeli-Palestinian clashes in Netzarim in the Gaza Strip shows Jamal al-Dura and his son Mohammed, 12, hiding behind a barrel from Israeli-Palestinian cross fire. (AFP / Getty Images)
This week, the Israeli government released a report aimed at discrediting the story of a shooting death amid riots in the Gaza Strip in 2000 (yes: 13 years ago). In the incident, 12-year-old Muhammad Al-Dura was reportedly shot and killed by Israeli forces while cowering behind his father. The incident gained prominence after the French television channel France 2 ran a report showing footage of Al-Dura’s apparent shooting. The young boy became a symbol of the Second Intifada. The new document from the Israeli government sought to undermine the original French report and the reporter who produced it, the French-Israeli journalist Charles Enderlin. The Israelis initially said its military’s gunfire caused the death [sic], but within weeks blamed Palestinian gunfire instead. By 2007, the Israeli government already declared the boy’s death at Israel’s hands a “myth.” Now, a respected press advocacy organization is coming to Enderlin’s defense in his battle with the Israel’s Ministry of International Affairs and Strategy.
Yesterday, the press advocacy group Reporters Sans Frontières (Reporters Without Borders) took issue with the report and questioned the review’s independence. “While the Israeli government has the right to respond publicly to a media report it regards as damaging, the nature and substance of this report are questionable and give the impression of a smear operation,” said Christophe Deloire, RSF’s secretary-general. “Charles Enderlin has always said he would be ready to testify to a commission of enquiry in conditions that guaranteed impartiality and independence. These conditions were not respected, and Enderlin was not asked to testify.” Enderlin said on Twitter that the Israeli committee did not attempt to question him, France 2, their cameraman in Gaza or Al-Dura’s father.
I think they should have, but I also think that they would not have appeared, not even Charles Enderlin, who knows how vulnerable he is. But let’s not carp. Call for an international, impartial investigation in which the Israelis can question these witnesses (and more – the Jordanian doctor who signed the report, the ambulance driver who says he scooped the boy’s guts off the road during evacuation, the organizers of the funeral who, within hours of the death had produced posters of Al Durah’s picture, the other cameraman there who were present moments before the “shooting” but captured none of the hour-long ordeal of constant gunfire, not even the ambulance evacuation), before the public. (Enderlin will rapidly change his tune.)
(Continue)
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