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Wednesday, March 5, 2003
WHISTLEBLOWER MAGAZINE
Report: 12-year-old Palestinian boy's martyrdom 'staged'
French media complicit in perpetuating 'myth' of Mohammed al-Dura
Posted: March 5, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern
� 2003 WorldNetDaily.com
The "martyrdom" death of 12-year-old Palestinian Mohammed al-Dura at the hands of
Israeli
soldiers � which received widespread international news coverage and spurred on the
current
intifada, inspiring countless "suicide bombers" to attack Israel � was actually a
"staged" piece of
street theater, according to an in-depth report in the current issue of WND's monthly
magazine,
Whistleblower.
The entire world was transfixed as news broadcasts played the sensational video
footage of the
12-year-old Palestinian boy and his father, pinned down in crossfire between Arab
snipers and
Israeli Defense Forces in Gaza's remote Netzarim junction on Sept. 30, 2000. The image
of the
boy crouching in terror behind his father, both of them struggling in vain to protect
themselves
from Israeli gunfire, only to be shot � the boy apparently dying in his father's arms
� became
immortalized in posters that were later plastered up and down the streets of the West
Bank and
Gaza.
Although the Israeli military initially assumed responsibility for the incident, it
soon became
apparent that the IDF could not have shot the boy, due to a large barrier between the
Israeli
military outpost across the remote junction and the location of the boy and his father.
Now, a just-completed, long-term journalistic investigation conducted in France
concludes that
the Mohammed al-Dura affair was actually a piece of Palestinian theater � similar to
the dramatic
Palestinian funeral processions last April after the Israeli incursion into the Jenin
refugee camp.
During that public spectacle, a martyred "corpse" twice fell off the stretcher, only
to hop back up
and retake his place in the procession. The Palestinians had claimed 3,000 deaths in
Jenin � the
actual toll was 52.
The groundbreaking investigation and its conclusions are spelled out in
"Contre-expertise d�une
mise en sc�ne" published by �ditions Rapha�l, and translated into English for
Whistleblower by
Nidra Poller. In the book, G�rard Huber, a psychoanalyst and permanent Paris
correspondent of
the Israel-based Metula News Agency, reports on the investigation conducted by a team
of
journalists, including Huber and St�phane Juffa, Metula's editor in chief.
"What really happened at Netzarim junction?" asks Huber. "One thing is certain: Given
the
position of the protagonists during the firefight it is impossible that the child was
hit by Israeli
bullets. Mohammed al-Dura was not killed by Israelis. And the bigger question remains:
Was
Mohammed really killed?"
Street theater
Whistleblower cites stunning reports of Palestinians playing to the camera, including
Israeli
commentator Amnon Lord's account of the larger scene at Netzarim Junction when al-Dura
was
supposedly shot to death. He describes "incongruous battle scenes complete with wounded
combatants and screeching ambulances played out in front of an audience of laughing
onlookers,
while makeshift movie directors do retakes of botched scenes."
Palestinian journalist Sami El Soudi echoes Lord's observation, who discloses that
"Almost all
Palestinian directors take part more or less voluntarily in these war commissions,
under the official
pretext that we should use all possible means, including trickery and fabulation, to
fight against
the tanks and airplanes the enemy has and we don�t. � Our official press reported 300
wounded
and dead at Netzarim junction the day when Mohammed was supposedly killed. Most of the
cameramen there were Palestinians. � They willingly took part in the masquerade,
filming
fictional scenes, believing they were doing it out of patriotism. When a scene was
well done the
onlookers laughed and applauded."
"It is incredible," says Huber, "how many people were calmly filming the battle of
Netzarim on
September 30th, 2000. Not only professionals � some of them standing no more than ten
meters
away from the al-Dura incident � but amateurs as well.
"The rushes [video clips] are full of surprising incongruities: Children smile as
ambulances go by.
A 'wounded' Palestinian collapses and two seconds later an ambulance pulls up to take
him to the
hospital. It looks as if the driver had been cued in, knew in advance where the
Palestinian was
going to fall, or was waiting in the upper right hand corner just out of the
photographic field
ready to zoom in on signal (there is a scene like this in the France 2 report.)
"In another rush we are startled to hear a Palestinian shouting: 'It's a flop! We have
to do the
whole thing over again!'"
The French close ranks
Even more disconcerting, says the Whistleblower report, is the fact that France 2, the
news
organization that broke the story of Mohammed al-Dura's supposed "martyrdom" at the
hands of
Israeli soldiers, adamantly refuses to release all the raw footage taken by its
Palestinian
cameraman. For instance, journalist Charles Enderlin, who narrated the original story
of the
shooting, claims his employer, France 2, holds onto images of the child�s death throes
� which he
says he took out of his report for ethical reasons � because they were just too
terrible to view.
To this day, says Huber, it remains unproven whether Mohammed al-Dura is dead or alive.
Meanwhile, every French television station to this day refuses to broadcast a film by
German
director Esther Schapira, titled "Three Bullets and a Child: Who Killed the Young
Mohammed al-
Dura?" Nominated for best TV documentary in Germany, it also concludes Israelis did
not kill the
boy. Although she understands why the Palestinians are not interested in further
investigation,
Schapira, a staff filmmaker for German public television, wonders why the West should
be so
resistant to a solid, impartial investigation.
And French author and Whistleblower translator Nidra Poller asks some probing
questions about
the French media's behavior:
"Of course the Palestinians won't allow any investigation on the evidence they hold,"
Poller tells
Whistleblower. "However, France 2 is not the Palestinians. It is a public service TV
station in a
democratic country. And Huber makes a convincing case for the collusion of France 2 in
this
stunt.
"How is it possible that France 2 refuses to cooperate with the investigation? If they
have nothing
to hide, wouldn't it be to their interest to come forth, even partially? Would the
American media
sit back and allow this kind of enormous question to remain in the box? If CNN cheats,
does Fox
News back them up? Well, that's what happens in France."
"The truth," says Huber in the Whistleblower report, "is, first of all, that the child
shown on the
screen is not dead. He plays dead."
But what about Mohammed al-Dura's funeral?
"The badly wounded corpse of a child was shown by doctors at the Shifa hospital in
Gaza," says
Huber. "[That] child was dead, but he is not the child seen in the famous TV newscast."
The sensational 5,000-word report by WND Managing Editor David Kupelian, titled
"Mohammed
al-Dura martyrdom a media myth?" is published in the March edition of Whistleblower.
Subscribe to Whistleblower, starting with the March issue, "MIDEAST REVOLUTION,"
including the exclusive report, "Mohammed al-Dura martyrdom a media myth?"
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