hasbara . rewriting reality

Israeli report on al-Dura case is vengeful and ‘surreal,’ says Haaretz — but ‘NYT’ treats it as gospel

by Philip Weiss on May 20, 2013 45

Famously, 12-year-old Muhammad al-Dura was killed in the second intifada, during a shootout in Gaza in September 2000; haunting footage of the boy's cowering with his father, first broadcast on French public television, became a symbol of the brutality of the occupation. But this weekend the Israeli government produced a report asserting that the boy and his father may well have escaped the shootout unscathed.

The Guardian emphasizes the political stakes for Israel in making this assertion:

Yuval Steinitz, the minister of strategic affairs, who presented the report, described the affair as "a modern-day blood libel against the state of Israel … The France 2 report was utterly baseless."

But the French reporter who first broadcast the footage on France2, says that Israel didn't even interview the boy's father, Jamal, and that witnesses to the killing are willing to undergo polygraph tests. Charles Enderlin:

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It is interesting that Times reporter Isabel Kershner's husband, Hirsh Goodman,working for Israel's Institute for National Security Studies, 3 years ago called on Israel to mount a "public diplomacy" offensive to get out its side of such stories: "in the context of post-Goldstone realities and the concerted campaign to besmirch Israel and de-legitimize the country, it is probably as important, if not more so, than the conventional battles Israel faces."

http://mondoweiss.net/2013/05/israeli-interview-neither.html