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New Raw Footage of the Al-Dura “Murder”

According to the JTA, never-before-seen raw footage shot by France 2 TV of the supposed shooting of Mohammed al-Dura by IDF soldiers has been aired in court. Philippe Karsenty, head of Media Ratings, a news watchdog group, had been sued … Read More

By / November 15, 2007

According to the JTA, never-before-seen raw footage shot by France 2 TV of the supposed shooting of Mohammed al-Dura by IDF soldiers has been aired in court. Philippe Karsenty, head of Media Ratings, a news watchdog group, had been sued by the television company for claiming it staged the event:

The court, which saw only 18 of the 27 minutes of raw footage, was packed with supporters of Karsenty and the France 2 TV correspondent who filed the original report, Charles Enderlin.

The footage showed al-Dura lying motionless and apparently dead in the arms of his father after supposedly being shot. Seconds later, it shows the boy lifting his arm and peering through his fingers at the camera.

Reactions of the viewers of the new footage below.

After the appeal, will France 2 release the full footage? If not, why not? 

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  • Ismail

    Believe me, had Al-dura never been born, the second intifada would have proceeded all the same. You're not suggesting that, save for that event, the Palestinians had an insufficient quantity of misery at the hands of their occupiers to fuel an intifada, are you?

    I don't recall referencing Al-dura, but I may have (perhaps you're thinking of my comments re Corrie). If I did, it was prior to the current questioning of the Al-dura incident.
    Let's be clear; I had no reason to doubt the accuracy of the Al-dura incident for the same reason that I have confidence in the sun coming up each morning-trust in the principle of induction. So far, I've heard from stakeholders in the Israeli narrative that the event was not as it appeared. Their evidence is not on the face of it dismissable, so my eyes and ears are open, although I'm skeptical, having been down this road before (the contantly changing Israeli story re Corrie as one lie after another was exposed, et al). So I'm predisposed to see this event as another example of the way occupiers treat the occupied, sure, but I'm still waiting to hear the whole story, which I acknowledge may change my opinion. I'm sorry that you choose to spin this reasonable stance into something else-a "desperate climb-down",etc. 
    The larger point remains: Israel is guilty of terrible crimes against the children of Palestine.
  • Michael Weiss

    But if the bogus memoir of Binjamin Wilomirski had become a rallying cry for justifying untold Jewish violence against Palestinians the way al-Dura's "martyrdom" had helped galvanize the second intifada, then perhaps your comment would amount to something more than a tendentious and desperate climb-down. As it stands, numerous scholars and analysts of the France 2 video have said it's about as a convincing as a David Copperfield act. And didn't you formerly use this site to air your certitude about the IDF's merciless slaying of the boy not too long ago? You seem to acknowledge that the prosecution's case isn't looking so hot anymore, judging by your nothing-to-see-here-folks tone and desire to change the subject. Very well, but please let's don't pretend the al-Dura "murder" was a minor blip on the radar when it has attained the status of a Palestinian Dreyfus affair.

    By "fetishizing this one event" you of course mean pursuing the truth. Trust me. My Hamas supporter decoder ring never fails.

    Smooches.

    M 

  • Ismail

    That video was about as informative as those interviews with couples gushing about the new movie they just saw. Could it be that everyone viewing the France 2 footage came away with the same impression, or was this just a typical bit of partisan agitprop?

    The larger point about Al-Dura, of course, is that fetishizing this one event in the effort to make a larger point about the I/P conflict serves only the apologists for terror against Palestinians. You know those holocaust deniers who pounce on a fictitious memoir or an imaginary barbarity to support their deranged beliefs? Same thing here.
    I don't yet know the truth about the Al-Dura incident. But I know that, ultimately, it makes little difference. If one believes that the real story is Israel's numberless well-documented acts of barbarity towards Palestinian children, the accuracy of one instance has little import.
    Salivating over possible misrepresentation regarding Al-Dura is exactly as unseemly and depraved as the enthusiasm racists show when telling you that there was in fact no soap made from Jews, as though this had a particle of relevance to the holocaust or mitigated in any way the viciousness of the Nazis.