This Wall St. Journal staff-ed strikes the right tone about the Dura trial:
Judge Laurence Trébucq did more than assert Mr. Karsenty’s right to free speech. In overturning a lower court’s ruling, she said the issues he raised about the original France 2 report were legitimate. While Mr. Karsenty couldn’t provide absolute proof of his claims, the court ruled that he marshalled a “coherent mass of evidence” and “exercised in good faith his right to free criticism.” The court also found that Talal Abu Rahma, the Palestinian cameraman for France 2 who was the only journalist to capture the scene and the network’s crown witness in this case, can’t be considered “perfectly credible.”
The ruling at the very least opens the way for honest discussion of the al-Durra case, and coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in general. French media could stand some self-examination. The same holds for journalists elsewhere . . .
We don’t know exactly what happened to Mohammed al-Durra. Perhaps we never will. But the Paris court ruling shows that France 2 wasn’t completely open about what it knew about that day. It suggests the Israelis may not have been to blame. It makes it plausible to consider — without being dismissed as an unhinged conspiracy theorist — the possibility that the al-Durra story was a hoax.
