Just to keep you updated…

[the] full transcript of HonestReporting’s interview with Mideast analyst and media expert Tom Gross about the Mohammad al-Dura affair. Click to view the interview.

A little boy was supposedly shot and France 2, a state-owned French TV channel, got hold of some film and not only broadcast it, they took the highly unusual step of making copies and handed video cassettes to rivals like CNN and the BBC. France 2 correspondent Charles Enderlin said that, first of all, the boy had died and secondly, that Israel had killed this boy. In fact, it later transpired that Charles Enderlin had not even been in Gaza that day – he was in Ramallah, and a freelance Palestinian cameraman had given Charles Enderlin the film.

Almost immediately there were questions about who shot this boy. Later on, there were questions about whether the boy had actually been shot at all. The angle the boy appeared to be shot at did not come from the direction of where Israeli soldiers were stationed. How could Israeli soldiers be responsible for shooting this boy when they weren’t positioned in the line of fire, people asked?

And whether the boy had actually been shot at all is not clear. It soon transpired that the Palestinians that day deliberately play-acted many other scenes for the cameras. We know that because film taken by Reuters cameramen shows various such scenes: for example, Palestinians being carried into Red Crescent ambulances looking like they were seriously injured and then, minutes later, getting out of the ambulance laughing and so on. So it is known that other scenes were staged at the Netzarim Junction that day. The film France 2 provided was very inconclusive.

A court action has been going on for some time in Paris that will hopefully be resolved soon.

Others will go further than me and say that they’re sure they’re staged. I’ve looked at the pictures, examined the case carefully; I’m not a forensic expert, and I’m not working as a lawyer. But as far as I can see, there are very reasonable doubts that the film footage is authentic, and even if the boy died there are very reasonable doubts that Israel was responsible for his death.

So, for France 2 to tell the world that Israel, in effect, murdered a helpless child, and then provide film footage to international TV networks when it wasn’t true, is very inflammatory. (source)

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