al-Durah - sandheden vinder (trods alt) til sidst

Ved en fransk domstol fik medie-kritikeren Philip Karsenty i går endelig ord for, at han uden problemer kan sige at tv-stationen France 2 har manipuleret med nyhederne. Baggrunden er al-Durah-sagen (tidligere dækket her og her), der helt grundlæggende går ud på, at en arabisk far og hans søn - Mohammed al-Durah - blev skudt i Gaza-striben i 2000, og at sønnen døde af sine sår.

Som sådan intet ekstra-ordinært i det nabolag. Det er heller ikke ekstraordinært, at det var araberne selv der myrdede ham, at de gav israelske soldater skylden for det, og at de internationale medier (heriblandt France2) åd historien råt, endda villigt - sådanne ting er sket pænt ofte de sidste mange år.

Hvad der er specielt ved denne sag er, at medie-kritikeren Philip Karsenty bed sig fast i sagen, igennem otte år efterforskede den og samlede beviser i den, og nu også har fået rettens ord for, at der faktisk ER tale om grov manipulation fra et medies side - France 2. Og at dette faktisk er blevet nævnt i den lokale andedam. I det væld af lignende historier, der er gået forud får vi her til lands kun de indledende arabiske beskyldninger mod Israel, men vi får aldrig at vide når araberne - igen - bliver afsløret som løgnere. To eksempler:

1) Mandag d. 31. januar 2005 kunne arabiske øjenvidner melde, at den 10-årige pige Nuran Iyad Dib blev dræbt, da hun var mødt til eftermiddagssamling i sin skole i Gaza-striben. En anden pige blev såret. Gerningsmændene stod straks klar: det var en israelsk kampvogn, der havde affyret granater mod skolen, og det var sprængstykker fra denne der havde slået pigen ihjel. I senere versioner var det israelske snigskytter, der fra en israelsk stilling nogle hundrede meter væk havde skudt hende gennem ansigtet. I den danske presse var den absolut eneste kilde til dette nyhedsbureauet Ritzau, men bureauet nævnte aldrig de forskellige forklaringer fra vidnerne. I det indledende nyhedstelegram, der kom kl 15:21 dansk tid samme dag, var den tågede formulering som følger:

"Den militante islamiske Hamasbevægelse sendte mandag fem raketter ind over en israelsk bosættelse i Gazastriben, efter at israelsk militær havde skudt og dræbt en ti-årig palæstinensisk pige i en skolegård, siger flere øjenvidner".

I samme telegram blev det israelske forsvar citeret for ikke at have nogen kommentar. Seks timer senere, klokken 21:27, blev formuleringen strammet op i et nyt Ritzau-telegram:

"Tidligere mandag sendte Hamas fem raketter ind over en israelsk bosættelse i Gazastriben efter at israelsk militær havde skudt og dræbt en ti-årig palæstinensisk pige i en skolegård.

Nu var der altså ikke bare tale om at øjenvidner sagde det, nu stillede Ritzau sig som garant for, at hændelsesforløbet var det fakta. Dette, selv om Ritzaus egne telegrammer nævner, at det israelske forsvar indtil videre intet kender til skyderi i det område, at det har indledt en undersøgelse, og at denne ikke er afsluttet endnu. Et eller begge disse telegrammer kom ud i den danske presse dagen efter, tirsdag, i papirversionerne af Politiken, Jyllands-posten, Urban og JydskeVestkysten.

Kort efter Ritzaus andet telegram - mandag nat - begyndte virkeligheden at hale ind på nyhedsbureauet. Det israelske forsvar kunne nu afvise historien. Ingen israelsk kampvogn havde affyret nogen granat, og de to gange israelske soldater havde skudt i Gaza-striben var det skedt langt fra pigens skole. Dette blev aldrig nævnt af Ritzau. Istedet udsendte bureauet tirsdag aften (kl 17:44) et nyt telegram i anledning af, at arabiske terrorgrupper var begyndt at bombardere jødiske landsbyer i Israel. Igen blev det at israelerne var gerningsmænd fremsat som fakta:

"Angrebet var hævn for drabet på en 10-årig palæstinensisk pige i flygtningelejren Rafah i Gaza . Og tirsdag fortsatte angrebene, da militante grupper affyrede fem mortergranater mod en jødisk bosættelse i Gaza".

Samme aften foretog araberne imidlertid en handling, der totalt dementerede Ritzaus version af virkeligheden: de anholdt en muslimsk araber for at have skudt vildt omkring sig for at fejre at han var vendt tilbage fra pilgrimsfærd til Mekka. Det var kugler fra hans våben, der ramte pigerne i skolegården, da de faldt til jorden igen*. De arabiske "øjenvidner" havde altså rent ud sagt løjet om hvordan pigen var blevet dræbt.

Dette valgte Ritzau bare aldrig at rapportere, den danske presse bragte det derfor ikke videre, og det blev aldrig kendt her til lands. Tvært imod fortsatte Ritzaus telegrammer deres tur rundt i systemet, og Urban, Jyllands-Posten og Fyens Stiftstidende blev dagen efter den arabiske drabsmands arrestation ved med at kolportere historien om de jødiske barnemordere.

I Mellemøsten fortsatte det selvfølgelig længere end bare dagen efter. Al Jazeera bragte således stadig tårevædede historier om løgnehistorierne tre måneder senere.

*Noget man ikke lader til at have bemærket i Mellemøsten er, at kugler man skyder op i luften for at fejre et eller andet faktisk har en tendens til at falde til jorden igen, og at de faktisk kan både ramme og såre eller dræbe mennesker. Under fejringen af Saddam Husseins hængning blev der således dræbt over tredive arabere i Baghdad alene på grund af faldende kugler.

2) Onsdag d. 9. august 2006 kunne arabiske øjenvidner melde, at en kun 3 år gammel pige - Rajaa Abu Shaban - var blevet dræbt af israelske kampfly under et luftangreb på en terrorist-træningslejr.

Denne gang nåede historien slet ikke til Danmark - Israel var igang med at nedkæmpe Hezbollah, der en måned før havde invaderet Israel, dræbt flere israelske soldater og taget to andre som gidsler. Alligevel er historien illustrativ:

Hvor den blev taget op af den internationale presse blev der ikke stillet spørgsmålstegn ved israelernes skyld - det var en israelsk kamphelikopter, der havde slået hende ihjel, og dermed basta.

Det var først dagen efter, torsdag, at det kom frem (takket være læger på hospitalet hun var blevet indlagt på) at pigen aldrig havde været i nærheden af terror-træningslejren. Hun var faldet ned af en gynge et stykke tid før det israelske angreb, og havde pådraget sig så svære skader i hovedet, at hun senere døde af det på hospitalet.

Igen var israelerne altså sagesløse syndebukke. Og igen var de allestedsnærværende arabiske "øjenvidner" blevet afsløret i at lyve.

Fællesnævneren for de tre sager er dog ikke de arabiske "øjenvidner", men den godtroende vestlige presse. Denne har næsten uden undtagelse ansat lokale arabere til at stå for nyhedsindsamlingen, og som den lokale befolkning hader disse generelt jøderne i staten Israel. Ofte fører dette til simple forvanskninger af virkeligheden, andre gange bliver det hele opfundet fra ende til anden.

Det var al-Durah-sagen der skulle til, før nogen fandt på et navn for dette: "Pallywood", efter den amerikanske filmindustris tyngdepunkt i Hollywood. Den amerikanske historie-professor Richard Landes har lavet en serie mini-dokumentarer (mellem 10 og 20 minutter stykket) om emnet, men med særligt fokus på al-Durah-affæren. De kan alle downloades her. For dem der ikke vil hente dem selv kan de fleste også ses på youtube (der er synkroniseringsproblemer med en enkelt af filerne):

Pallywood: "..according to Palestinian sources":



Al Durah: "..according to Palestinian sources" II:



Gaza Beach Tragedy:



France 2 vs. Evidence

al-Dura-sagen, nu med fusk med beviserne

Jeg har før været inde på al-Dura-sagen her på bloggen. I en nøddeskal er der tale om, at araberne i Palæstina brugte den 11-årige dreng Muhammad Jamal al-Dura´s død til propagandistiske formål ved at påstå, drengen blev dræbt af israelske kugler. Denne version er især på verdensplan blevet spredt af Charles Enderlin på den franske tv-kanal France 2, der har udsendt stærkt redigerede og kommenterede filmklip af episoden, og siden nægtet offentligt at vise de originale optagelser, der måske kunne pille den arabiske propaganda-version fra hinanden.

Siden er der, blandt andet af Richard Landes, blevet stillet kraftigt spørgsmål ved France 2´s ageren, blandt andet via de to mini-dokumentarer Birth of an Icon (youtube) og Icon of Hatred (kan downloades her). Disse øgede presset på Charles Enderlin til et punkt, hvor han anlagde retssager for æreskrænkelse mod tre af hans kritikere, blandt andet Philippe Karsenty.

Det er i denne retssag, dommeren endelig har beordret Charles Enderlin til at fremlægge det originale video-materiale, der nu i over syv år har været holdt hemmeligt. Richard Landes - der er en af de få personer, der har fået lov til at se video-materialet - kommenterer på fremvisningen:

Today Charles Enderlin presented in court the “rushes” of Talal abu Rahmah which the Judge had requested from him. And he presented an edited version in which he took out at least three minutes, and several scenes that I distinctly remember seeing. In the United States that’s called tampering with evidence, obstruction of justice, and perjury. In France, we’ll find out what it’s called...

Before the viewing of the rushes, there was some discussion of why there were only 18 minutes. Charles Enderlin — who had disdained showing up for any previous hearing in the trials he had initiated, even when he was in Paris at the time — explained that the cassette they had saved had 27 minutes of footage, but some did not concern that day (how?), and that he had eliminated the irrelevant material. (At this point I expected the judge to say, “let us be the judge of what’s irrelevant,” but she didn’t.) ..

Most of the material was inconclusive or boring, and I patiently waited for the material I’d seen. Then, at about 15 minutes on the time code, Enderlin announces that there will be a break and we will see the final scenes. That’s when I knew he had cut the scenes. Sure enough, the screen went blank, and then began the final three minutes.

Now there are at least two scenes that I remember specifically, one of which we have documented by Reuters. One scene that wasn’t there I described as follows:

At another point, a boy faked a leg injury, but instead of drawing big kids who could pick him up and rush him past the cameramen to an ambulance, he only attracted little kids. He shooed them away, looked around, and, seeing that no one was coming to evacuate him, straightened up and walked away without a limp.

Indeed this scene provoked a snort from the Israeli cameraman working for France2 who was watching the film with me and Enderlin at the time.

When I asked him why, he said, “because it looks so fake.”

“That’s my impression as well,” I responded.

Enderlin commented, “Oh, they do that all the time. It’s their cultural style. They exaggerate.”

“But if they do it all the time, why couldn’t they have staged Al Durah?” I asked.

“Oh, they’re not good enough”

Now ultimately, this is my word (and possibly, if they remember and have the courage to come forward, those of Denis Jeambar and Daniel Leconte), against Enderlin.

But the second piece I remember is actually documented by Reuters (video sequence). In a scene we’ve dubbed Molotov Cocktail Kid, a youth lopes comfortably down the road, showing no sign of injury. He hands of a Molotov Cocktail to another kid and enters a crowd. We see red on his forehead, but no indication that he’s injured. ..

When I went to see the rushes at France2, I was specifically looking for this scene, and remember seeing it. It was jumpy and out of focus, and looked considerably more realistic (cinéma vérité) than the Reuters footage which, shot at a distance, is obviously staged. This footage was not part of Enderlin’s 18 minutes.

So here we have documentary evidence of material that Talal abu Rahmah shot with his France2 camera, and which Enderlin did not show the court.

Either he is unaware that this documentation exists; or he has such contempt for the court that he thinks he can brazenly cheat them. The judge struck me as no one’s fool, and Karsenty will surely pursue these matters.

So as far as I can make out Enderlin has made a major gamble: tamper with the evidence, show people inconclusive material (the woman next to me said, “I came without making up my mind, and nothing’s clear), and hope the court doesn’t catch him.

But in so doing, he’s rendered himself extremely vulnerable.

Endnu et eksempel på mediernes manipulation

Samarbejde mellem Hezbollah og Libanons hær søges skjult, Israel søges tilføjet et imaginært nederlag, og et legitimt mål fratages legitimationen. Lightstalkers via LGF:

After being once more defamed and insulted by Guilad, I have decided to explain once and for all the so called “garbage dump” pictures, shot in the afternoon of July 17th in Kfar Chima, near Beirut.

Around 3:30 pm, I was in the office of Mr. Abisaad, the French press attaché at the French Embassy, when Lebanese TV started to show looped footage of a large metallic object falling from the sky and exploding upon touching the ground, the subsequent fire seemed to be massive. The TV announced it as an Israeli jet being shot down over an army base in Kfar Chima about 4 miles from where I was. I took my car and rushed to the scene. Arriving more or less at the same time were other photographers including Stephanie Sinclair, Mitch and Tanya Habjouka.

This is the picture published by US News,





















and this is my original caption for it:

“Kfar Chima, near Beirut, July 17, 2006 An Israeli Air Force F16 has alledgedly been shot down while bombing a group of Hezbollah owned trucks, at least one of these trucks contained a medium range ground to ground missile launcher.”

This caption clearly says that there is no proof that an Israeli jet had been shot down and that the objective was indeed to destroy a legitimate military target.

A week later TIME published this image shot at the same time as the first:













They choose to caption it this way (I had NO control in this matter), they HAD my original caption:

“The wreckage of a downed Israeli jet that was targeting Hizballah trucks billows smoke behind a Hizballah gunman in Kfar Chima, near Beirut. Jet fuel set the surrounding area ablaze.”

In the meantime, after returning 3 times to the site, and collected more evidence, I had modified my original caption to this:

“Kfar Chima, near Beirut, July 17, 2006 The Israeli Air Force bombed a group of Hezbollah chartered trucks parked on the back of large Lebanese Army barracks , at least one of these trucks contained a medium range ground to ground missile launcher, at least one missile was hit, misfiring high into the sky before falling down and starting a huge fire in the barracks’ parking lot.”...

This is a very important piece of evidence showing probable collusion between Hezbollah and the Lebanese Army, there is little doubt that the Lebanese Army was aware of the presence of at least one missile launcher and at least one large missile on their parking lot. The size of the launcher, destroyed a couple of days later from the ground by an unknown party suggest missiles 10 to 14 meters long.

There were 6 to 8 large articulated trucks parked there, making it a very legitimate target for the Israeli Air Force, quite far away from civilian houses.

Pallywood: Mediemanipulation på "højt" plan

Fra The New Republic Online, Richard Landes med How French TV fudged the death of Mohammed Al Durah:

In September 30, 2000, images of 12-year-old Mohammed Al Durah and his father--cowering behind a barrel at Netzarim Junction, in the Gaza Strip--circulated globally, along with a claim that they had been the targeted victims of Israeli fire. If Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount two days earlier had sparked riots, these images triggered all-out war. The ensuing horror and outrage swept away any questions about its reliability. Indignant observers dismissed any Israeli attempt to deny responsibility as "blaming the victim."

But, by 2002, two documentaries--one German, one French--raised troubling questions. The raw footage from that day reveals pervasive staging; no evidence (certainly not the most widely circulated tape offers evidence of Israeli fire directed at the barrel, much less of Israelis targeting the pair; given the angles, the Israelis could scarcely have hit the pair at all, much less 12 times (indeed the only two bullets that hit the wall above them came from the Palestinian side, inexplicably 90 degrees off target); there was no sign of blood on the ground where the father and son reportedly bled for 20 minutes; there was no footage of an ambulance evacuation or arrival at the hospital; there was no autopsy; and none of the dozen cameraman present filmed anything that could substantiate the claim that the father and son had been hit, much less that the Israelis had targeted them. These documentaries had limited exposure, in part thanks to France2's refusal to run the one by a sister station in Germany. But they did spark a demonstration in Paris outside the France2 offices by citizens outraged to discover that so horrendous an image may well have been a fake.

The demonstrations apparently ruffled feathers. Some writers lambasted France2's coverage--most prominently Philippe Karsenty, who called for Al Durah beat chief Charles Enderlin and France2 chief Arlette Chabot to resign, and, in response, Enderlin and France2 itself--using the same law invoked against Emile Zola in the Dreyfus Affair--have accused three critics (including Karsenty) of "striking at their honor and respectability."

Now, four years later, the lawsuits are finally coming to trial in Room 17 of the Palais de Justice in Paris. The three suits (one for each defendant) come in rapid succession--September 14, October 26, and November 30--with judgments four weeks following each hearing. And, in at least two of the trials, I, a medieval historian, have been asked to testify.

I have become involved for two reasons. First of all, I noted almost immediately that Palestinians and anti-Zionists, insisting that Israel killed the boy on purpose, used Al Durah in a way familiar to medievalists--as a blood libel. This was the first blood libel of the twenty-first century, rendered global by cable and the Internet. Indeed, within a week, crowds the world over shouted "We want Jewish blood!" and "Death to the Jews!". For Europeans in particular, the libelous image came as balm to a troubled soul: "This death erases, annuls that of the little boy in the Warsaw Gherro," intoned Europe1 editorialist Catherine Nay. The Israelis were the new Nazis.

And second, when I saw the raw footage in the summer of 2003--especially when I saw the scene Enderlin had cut, wherein the boy(allegedly shot in the stomach, but holding his hand over his eyes) picks up his elbow and looks around--I realized that this was not a film of a boy dying, but a clumsily staged scene.

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.

Why did they want me? In trying to dismiss my first testimony, the plaintiff's lawyer wondered, "what does he know about images? He's a medievalist." Well, I know about the power of images, of narratives, and of forgeries, and especially blood libels. And, since my first book, Relics, Apocalypse, and the Deceits of History, was about a set of forgeries that continued to fool historians for decades even after a critic revealed them as fakes in the 1920s, I also know something about the difficulty of getting specialists to acknowledge they were duped.

But this image goes beyond blood libel and anti-Semitism, beyond blackening Israel's image and whitewashing Palestinian violence. Al Durah became the icon not only of the Intifada, but of global jihad. Within months of the incident, bin Laden came out with a recruiting video that featured extensive Pallywood footage and highlighted Al Durah. Months later, Pakistani jihadis killed Daniel Pearl, interweaving Al Durah's image into their tape of the execution.

In 2000, anyone told of Muslim plans to Islamicize the West laughed with scorn. It was the least of Western worries. Today, some have already given up Europe for lost; others see it in the balance; and others are finally awakening with shock to the radical shift in the balance of forces. And every aspect of l'affaire Al Durah is emblematic of why: from the Palestinian forces that staged it; to the Western mainstream press and the NGOs that presented it as news without asking hard questions (and that believed any subsequent Palestinian claims of Israelis killing children and resisted efforts at correction); to the Muslim world that turned it into an icon of hatred and a call to genocidal holy war; to the "leftist" revolutionaries who jumped on the jihad bandwagon in Durban, South Africa; to a public distressingly eager for "dirt" on Israel and unaware of the forces empowered by diffusing such poisons.

Three court trials, then--in which France2 seeks to bury any serious assessment of their coverage--are also trials of France's ability to defend her republican values against an Islamist onslaught that it seems ill-equipped to resist. And, as France goes, so goes Europe. (Would France have it any other way?)

The plaintiff at the first trial, on September 14, was Philippe Karsenty of Media-Ratings, the boldest of France2's critics. No one from France2 showed up. Its solitary lawyer had no witnesses, no questions for Karsenty's witnesses, and no comments about the evidence damning her clients. Her summation insisted on France2's honor and reputation, offered a letter of praise from President Jacques Chirac, and cast aspersions on the defense's witnesses.

Then the procureur de la republique (a court-appointed officer charged with assessing the case in the interests of civil society) gave her nonbinding opinion. She rebuked France2 for not addressing the evidence, for not showing their raw footage, and for not even showing up in court. She further admitted that, although Karsenty had impugned Enderlin's and France2's reputations, he had offered enough evidence to make such assertions a legitimate part of public discourse. Judgment on Karsenty's case is Thursday. Next trial: October 26. So far, the best coverage--surprise!--comes from the blogosphere.

Richard Landes´ to mini-dokumentarer; Pallywood: "..according to Palestinian sources":



..og Al Durah: "..according to Palestinian sources" II:



Læs eventuelt mere om al-Durah-sagen på Wikipedia (masser af links). Links til artikler om Pallywood kan findes sammesteds.

UPDATE:

Et eksempel fra Pallywood, via LGF:

On Tuesday, a Reuters cameraman was remanded to prison until trial for his part in rock-throwing attacks on security forces in Bil’in, where the separation fence is a constant target of protesters.

The cameraman, Imad Muhammad Intisar Boghnat, was arrested and charged as a result of violent riots in the Arab village of Bil’in, in the Modi’in region, on October 6, 2006. A videotape that the prosecution presented to the judge shows Boghnat encouraging and directing rioters in Bil’in to throw large chunks of rock at Israeli vehicles in such a way as to cause maximum damage. The accused is heard shouting, “Throw, throw!” and later, “Throw towards the little window!”