The Muhammad Al-Dura Blood Libel

Institute for Global Jewish Affairs ^ | October 6, 2008 | Richard Landes

[mtk1980]

On 30 September 2000, Charles Enderlin, the Jerusalem-based head of the Middle East Bureau of the French television station France 2, presented sixty seconds of footage of what he described as the killing of a twelve-year-old Palestinian boy named Muhammad al-Dura targeted by Israeli soldiers. Enderlin claimed that he had additional film material of the boy's "death throes" that was too shocking to be shown.

The selectively presented photo material, accompanied by the accusation of deliberate murder of a defenseless Palestinian boy, led to mass demonstrations against Israel and the Jews in the Western world. It also contributed to riots by Arabs in Israel in October 2000. It furthermore opened the door to the mainstreaming of comparison of Israelis to Nazis.

In France 2's original showing of the material, Enderlin did indeed cut twelve seconds where the boy, after he was alleged to have died from his stomach wounds, was neither clutching his stomach nor crouched up in a fetal position. Instead he was lying flat out, free hand over his eyes, lifting up his elbow, looking out and then slowly putting his arm down.

The Muhammad al-Dura affair took a dramatic turn in May 2008 when a French appeals court found that Philippe Karsenty was innocent of having defamed Enderlin. Karsenty had claimed that the images shown by France 2 of the killing of al-Dura were staged. CRIF, the umbrella organization of the French Jewish community, has since called upon President Nicolas Sarkozy to launch an investigation into the television broadcast of the alleged Israeli shooting of Muhammad al-Dura. France 2 has recently agreed to such an investigation.

[Anti-Bubba182]

Muhammad al-Durrah

The Palestinians shot this boy and his father and filmed it. They blamed it on Israelis and that stuck for a while until forensic analysis showed the truth.