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| Israel-Palestine |
| Photo of Palestinian Boy Kindles Debate in France |
| 2005-02-15 |
| Needs registration, whole article. Note that one french-israeli press agency "that gets it" has been instrumental in asking the right questions about the Netzarim shooting, the Metula/Mena (http://www.menapress.com/, in french, a few articles are in english, lot of material about this. Contact is redaction@menapress.com. IMHO there is a real possibility Charles Enderlin is a passive accomplice of a grand palestinian desinformation coup, and might even be more involved, at least in the cover-up; he is France 2 's permanent man in Israel, and the author of a book/documentary that blames the al aqsa war on the israeli side's mismanagements. French media are (mostly) playing possum with this one, and public broadcasting tv channels are very sympathetical to the palestinians, to say the least, following the Elysé's cue : the propaganda (that was recently acknowledged by its author) documentary "Jenine, Jenine", which claimed israeli atrocities, was aired on France 2 or Arte, can't remember which one, Arte also aired "la porte du soleil", a serial that nazified the israeli and set a parallel between shoah jews and palestinians, coverage of actuality is quite unbalanced, the RFI director (?) talked about Israeli 's racial purity ideology, even made a book about it (Can't remember?)etc, etc,... Since the start of the second Palestinian uprising more than four years ago, many children have died in the gunfire. But it is the harrowing image of a terrified 12-year-old boy, shielded in vain by his father, that carries the iconic power of a battle flag. Egypt and Tunisia issued postage stamps of the boy, Muhammad al-Dura, crouching against his father and under attack from a fusillade of bullets in September 2000. Egypt named a street in his honor, and suicide bombers invoked the boy as a martyr in videotaped farewells. Far from Gaza's street battles, in France, the scene is a picture worth a thousand arguments. Here, debate seethes about whether the televised footage of Muhammad al-Dura was genuine, misinterpreted or — as an American academic put it — artfully staged "Pallywood" theater. Battle photographs have long been potent media weapons, and some of the most memorable war pictures have provoked questions of authenticity. At the center of this dispute is the state-run television station France 2 and its Jerusalem correspondent, Charles Enderlin, who says that the fierce criticism about the chain's exclusive footage of the boy has brought death threats against him. Images from the street confrontation in a remote area of Gaza have been dissected in books and in the sharply worded universe of blog commentary. The video has also been explored by a small French-language Israeli wire service, the Metula News Agency, which rented a theater to examine the footage. A 2002 German documentary, "Three Bullets and a Child: Who Killed the Young Muhammad al-Dura?" tried to address lingering questions about whether the boy was killed by Israelis or Palestinians. Last week, the debate gained fresh momentum after a prominent French editor and an independent television producer broke ranks in the country's media circles and wrote a cautious article in the newspaper Le Figaro, expressing some doubt about the photo's authenticity. "That image has had great influence," said Daniel Leconte, a former correspondent for France 2. "If this image does not mean what we were told, it is necessary to find the truth." Mr. Leconte wrote the article in Figaro with Denis Jeambar, editor in chief of the newsmagazine L'Express, weeks after station executives at France 2 allowed the two men in October to see all 27 minutes of the footage shot. But their commentary did not emerge publicly until after they had offered it to Le Monde, which rejected it, according to its new opinion page editor, Sylvain Cypel. He called the entire debate "bizarre" and said it had been propelled by a tiny French-Israeli news agency. When the report was first broadcast, France 2 offered its exclusive footage free to the world's television networks, saying it did not want to profit from the images. The scenes were filmed by its Palestinian cameraman, Talal Abu Rahma, who was the only one to capture images of what Mr. Enderlin characterized then as the killing of a child by gunfire from an Israeli position. Mr. Enderlin was not present during the shooting. Esther Schapira, a German producer in Frankfurt, said she tried unsuccessfully in preparation for her 2002 documentary to see a master copy of the tape and was astonished when France 2 did not share it because European stations commonly exchange material. "If there is nothing to hide," she said of France 2's initial reluctance, "what are they afraid of?" When critical articles started appearing in publications like The Atlantic Monthly in the United States, Mr. Enderlin wrote letters insisting: "We do not transform reality. But in view of the fact that some parts of the scene are unbearable, France 2 was obliged to cut a few seconds from the scene." In many ways, Mr. Enderlin argues, the video has become a cultural prism, with viewers seeing what they want to see. "It's a campaign," he said, "because the video was used as a symbol by the Palestinians as a propaganda tool." Richard Landes, a Boston University professor specializing in medieval cultures, studied full footage from other Western news outlets that day, including the pictures of the boy. "We could argue about every frame," he said. But after watching the scenes involving Muhammad al-Dura three times, he concluded that it had probably been faked, along with footage on the same tape of separate street clashes and ambulance rescues. "I came to the realization that Palestinian cameramen, especially when there are no Westerners around, engage in the systematic staging of action scenes," he said, calling the footage Pallywood cinema. As questions were raised, some France 2 executives privately faulted the channel's communication. Last week, they showed The International Herald Tribune the original 27-minute tape of the incident, which also included separate scenes of rock-throwing youths. The footage of the father and son under attack lasts several minutes, but does not clearly show the boy's death. There is a cut in the scene that France 2 executives attribute to the cameraman's efforts to preserve a low battery. When Mr. Leconte and Mr. Jeambar saw the full footage, they were struck that there was no definitive scene showing that the boy had died. They wrote, however, that they were not convinced that the scene was staged, but only that "this famous 'agony' that Enderlin insisted was cut from the montage does not exist." To counter criticism, France 2 called a November news conference and prepared a frame-by-frame folder of photographs, including blow-ups to respond to skeptics like Professor Landes, who argued that blood was not visible. The station also sent a journalist back in October to film the boy's father, Jamal al-Dura, rolling down part of his pants and shirtsleeves to show scars on his right arm and upper right leg. They compiled footage of the bandaged father in an Amman hospital, where he was visited by Jordan's king. But critics like Luc Rosenzweig, a former Le Monde reporter and radio host, want an independent medical expert's opinion. "It's a crazy story," said Arlette Chabot, the station's deputy general director, about the continuing controversy. "Every time we address one question, then another question surfaces. It's very difficult to fight a rumor. The point is that four years later, no one can say for certain who killed him, Palestinians or Israelis." Earlier in the fall, France 2 filed a series of defamation complaints against some of its critics, but it did not name individuals, labeling them as "X." The station's lawyer, Bénédicte Amblard, says that France 2 followed this strategy because of the difficulties of legally identifying the owners of Web sites, which were particularly harsh in their attacks on the station and Mr. Enderlin. But this has emboldened critics like Philippe Karsenty, who is one of the station's intended legal targets along with the Metula News Agency. Mr. Karsenty runs a small, Paris-based media watchdog group, Media-Ratings that has called on both Ms. Chabot and Mr. Enderlin to resign. "We will offer 10,000 euros to a charity chosen by France 2 if the chain can demonstrate to us and a panel of independent experts that the Sept. 30, 2000, report shows the death of the Palestinian child," said Mr. Karsenty, who has urged French officials to start an inquiry. The Culture Ministry is one agency that has been approached. Privately, a government official said: "We can't take any initiative because it is not our mission or job. The press is independent, especially in the French tradition. |
| Posted by:Anonymous5089 |