The challenges are starting to become sharper - The post-Al Durah period

"When it comes to Israel, however, too many journalists and too many media outlets won’t let the facts ruin their story. Well, this week we tried to ruin that story, if only just a little bit. I am very happy about that. Even if it will change nothing. Because in the end, the truth should win out."

http://aldurah.com/

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
22 May '13..

The matter of Mohammad Al Durah and what happened, or did not, to him thirteen years ago at Netzarim Junction 13 years ago is suddenly news again. This is because the government of Israel came out with a plain-spoken report that it published on Monday [it's here], saying that the central claims made in the September 30, 2000 France2 television report and the accusations it embodied

"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" [Israel Government Report]

It's also because an important legal case that has been taxing the resources of the French court system for eight years will result in a reserved decision due to be handed down some time today [UPDATE: We have just heard from sources in Paris that the decision was postponed for the second time - evidently to June 26; more on this later]. That case is not an enquiry into a killing but rather an arcane look at whether French defamation laws ought to sanction an independent French media gadfly, Philippe Karsenty for making very critical statements about the actions of France2 and the French/Israeli correspondent Charles Enderlin in turning the events of that day in Gaza into an event that has resonated and cost many lives.

We have a lot to say about the larger issues thrown up by the France2 video: about the extraordinary failure of the media to ask the questions that ought to have been asked; about the inexplicable credulousness of analysts and observers ready to buy in to the narrative of a child, cowering beside his father, under assault by Israeli sharpshooters who fire and fire and fire until... He is never shown being hit, and though the French voice-over dramatically pronounces him dead, the video shows him unquestionably alive soon afterwards. No blood on him or on the ground or on the father, and no visible wounds. What does this say about the shrinking role of objectivity and the primacy of truthfulness in news reporting (discussed on this site here, here and elsewhere? But this is not the time to address the larger issues.

Instead we defer to the Israeli journalist Ben Caspit. An analysis penned by him in Hebrew and translated to English appears today on the Al-Monitor website, though you need to be determined if you want to find it (there's no sign of it on their home page). It's a strong piece that defends some of what remains of the journalistic profession's tattered honour - and not by justifying what has happened in the media these past thirteen years but by describing it for the failure that it is and was. Al Durah is a symbol - not of the death of children or even of terrorism and anti-terrorism but of moral bankruptcy. But we're getting ahead of ourselves and Ben Caspit. Here's the whole text.

(Continue)

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