Why won’t France 2 come clean about the Muhammad Al-Dura episode? Was the whole notorious episode faked? From the magnificent Nidra Poller in the New York Sun, with thanks to Jerry Gordon:
It all started on September 30, 2000, at Netzarim Junction in the Gaza Strip….a Palestinian stringer working for French public TV channel France 2 just happened to capture the scoop of the Middle East conflict: the death in real time of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy, targeted by heartless Israeli soldiers who shot at him for 45 minutes until they managed to mangle his father and kill the boy. Mohamed Al Dura became the poster boy shahid, spurring an unprecedented wave of atrocities against Israeli civilians while an unhealthy swath of public opinion sat on the sidelines and applauded the brave Palestinian desperados….
Did it happen? Did Israeli soldiers fire for 45 minutes at a man and a boy crouched behind a concrete culvert? Where was the Israeli position? Were the man and boy in the range of Israeli gunfire? Was the boy shot dead and the man seriously wounded? What was happening that day at Netzarim junction? Are the witnesses reliable?…
Mr. Abu Rahmeh says he filmed the scene for 27 minutes. He says the boy bled for 15 or 20 minutes. Well, there’s no blood on the victims, no blood on the ground. And the 27 minutes of footage turn out to be under three minutes.
These and a hundred other precise allegations are duly recorded and analyzed. I have studied massive documentation, screened dozens of hours of visuals. The conclusions of every single honest investigation of this case are the same: there is no convincing evidence that the incident took place. The eyewitness testimony is incoherent and unsubstantiated by verifiable evidence, the filmed “news report” does not show anything that could corroborate the drastic allegations.
Which leaves us with a news report of an incident that never happened.
Read it all. (The Sun requires a paid subscription.)