This is a full transcript of HonestReporting’s interview with Mideast analyst and media expert Tom Gross about the Mohammad al-Dura affair. Click to view the interview.
The Mohammed al-Dura case dates back to September 2000 and many people say it actually sparked the second Palestinian intifada, which then lasted for several years.
A little boy was supposedly shot and France 2, a state-owned French TV channel, got hold of some film and not only broadcast it, they took the highly unusual step of making copies and handed video cassettes to rivals like CNN and the BBC. France 2 correspondent Charles Enderlin said that, first of all, the boy had died and secondly, that Israel had killed this boy. In fact, it later transpired that Charles Enderlin had not even been in Gaza that day – he was in Ramallah, and a freelance Palestinian cameraman had given Charles Enderlin the film.
Almost immediately there were questions about who shot this boy. Later on, there were questions about whether the boy had actually been shot at all. The angle the boy appeared to be shot at did not come from the direction of where Israeli soldiers were stationed. How could Israeli soldiers be responsible for shooting this boy when they weren’t positioned in the line of fire, people asked?
And whether the boy had actually been shot at all is not clear. It soon transpired that the Palestinians that day deliberately play-acted many other scenes for the cameras. We know that because film taken by Reuters cameramen shows various such scenes: for example, Palestinians being carried into Red Crescent ambulances looking like they were seriously injured and then, minutes later, getting out of the ambulance laughing and so on. So it is known that other scenes were staged at the Netzarim Junction that day. The film France 2 provided was very inconclusive.
A court action has been going on for some time in Paris that will hopefully be resolved soon.
In the last hearing, in November, France 2 had been ordered to produce the raw footage of the “al-Dura” film which they had previously said lasted 27 minutes. But when he came to court, Enderlin only produced 18 minutes i.e. only two-thirds of the film. The judge was quite surprised. Enderlin mumbled some excuse about not having all of the film and losing it; it certainly raised great suspicions. And in the film they did play, al-Dura, appears to move his arm after he’s been “shot dead” and then opens his eyes again.
Al-Dura has become a poster child for the intifada and beyond. For example, Osama bin Laden referred to al-Dura in his post-September 11 video; the killers of Daniel Pearl placed a picture of al-Dura in their beheading video; streets, squares, academies and so on have been named after al-Dura throughout the Muslim world.
The al-Dura case goes to the very heart of media coverage in the modern age.
What you have are freelance photographers and cameramen, who are often partisan, filming in a local conflict, editing the film, and sending it to an international station like France 2. Because of the pressure of 24/7 television today, stations like France 2 immediately broadcast it before anyone examines the film and its authenticity.
In the Hizbullah-Israel war, in the summer of 2006, certain visual images taken by both Reuters and the Associated Press in South Lebanon were faked, and Reuters sacked some of their local Shi’a Lebanese photographers.
But it was too late. By the time Reuters carried out an independent investigation and found they had been duped by their local Lebanese stringers, the photos had appeared all over the place, in thousands of publications, big and small, throughout the world.
So, going back to the al-Dura case, it launched the intifada, in the sense that without the inflammatory film being rebroadcast time and again, the intifada may have been a localized disturbance that lasted a few days with limited casualties.
Instead, it inflamed the population, which is what the Palestinian Authority presumably wanted, by repeatedly showing the film on TV. A few weeks later two Israeli reserve soldiers were lynched in Ramallah by a mob chanting al-Dura’s name. You may recall one of the Palestinians stuck his hands out of a window dripping in blood. The intifada soon spiraled out of control.
So, in a sense, France 2 may have blood on their hands too in that the intifada may never have happened if it had not been for their repeatedly airing what may well be fake video of a boy called al-Dura dying.
We now have a conflict between Israel and the Palestinians which is worse than prior to the al-Dura incident. It’s irresponsible journalism to broadcast such pictures without being sure that these pictures were authentic. What the legal case has shown so far is that there is reasonable doubt.
Others will go further than me and say that they’re sure they’re staged. I’ve looked at the pictures, examined the case carefully; I’m not a forensic expert, and I’m not working as a lawyer. But as far as I can see, there are very reasonable doubts that the film footage is authentic, and even if the boy died there are very reasonable doubts that Israel was responsible for his death.
So, for France 2 to tell the world that Israel, in effect, murdered a helpless child, and then provide film footage to international TV networks when it wasn’t true, is very inflammatory.
In France, they were attacks related to Middle East violence in the years following the al-Dura case – French Jews such as Ilan Halimi and others were murdered. The atmosphere may have been generated by the France 2 footage.
The Israeli government has been very slow to take up the al-Dura case. It’s been left to independent organizations such as HonestReporting to investigate this case properly. I think the Israeli government has been somewhat slow to understand how important media is in modern diplomacy and conflict.
In the past, Israeli politicians like Moshe Dayan said that Israel doesn’t have a foreign policy; it only has a defense or security policy. Shimon Peres, around the time of the 1993 Oslo Accords, who was then Israel’s Foreign Minister, said that if you have a good policy, you don’t need public relations and if you have a bad policy, public relations won’t help.
I’m afraid that’s not true – whether Israel has good or bad policy is almost irrelevant in the public relations field. If the critics of Israel want to attack, they will do so.
Every country in the world has to be aware of public relations with 24/7 media. I think Israel has fallen far behind in the battle for public relations vis-à-vis not just other countries, but even behind militia groups, such as Hamas, Hezbollah and similar organizations.
