Friday, September 21, 2007

Break-through in the al-Dura case

Why do we keep writing about the case of Mohammed al-Dura? Because, in our opinion, it is turning into the trial of the century, despite the deliberate lack of attention paid to it in the MSM. Just as with the original “trial of the century”, the Kravchenko case, briefly described in the posting, so with the war we are fighting now: it is a war of ideas as well as of bullets. In fact, the war of ideas and of propaganda may well turn out to be more important now as it did in the Cold War.

That being so, it is worth recalling that our media is not necessarily on our side; it has an agenda of its own and that agenda needs to be perceived quite clearly. In this war we have a certain advantage – the internet. The MSM, as we have pointed out ad nauseam, no longer has everything going its way. In other words, this may not be the World War II situation as far as the media is concerned but neither is it the Vietnam situation. Too many journalists find that hard to understand.

The Mohammed al-Dura and France2 case is absolutely crucial in this battle. As we have said before, the picture of the little boy crouching behind his father and the story that the wicked Israelis kept shooting at the two until the boy was dead and the father severely wounded have done wonders for the Palestinian cause (or did wonders until Fatah and Hamas fell out among each other).

It put the Israelis badly in the wrong, led to violent anti-Israeli and, often, anti-Jewish demonstrations and attacks in the West, and once again took attention away from the terrorist activities of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Al-Aqsa.

The pictures and the story were distrusted from the very beginning but, somehow, France2 managed to get away with not releasing the rushes, despite more or less admitting that 90 per cent of the supposed 27 minutes was staged. Or maybe not, as they sometimes said.

Anyway, as we wrote under a fortnight ago, the case is back in the public eye, though you would never know it from the media or, for that matter, much of the blogosphere. Thankfully, Nidra Poller attended the trial and posted reports of it.

The first important report came two days ago when she wrote that
For the first time the court has ordered France 2 to produce the original tapes that could prove the whole enterprise a fake.
Obviously, that is not how the judge phrased the request, which is near enough a demand, but it seems to have been taken very badly by France2 and their lawyer. In her second report Nidra Poller describes the events in court, slightly breathlessly but very amusingly.
Maître Bénédicte Amblard, representing Charles Enderlin and France 2 in their libel suit against Philippe Karsenty (Media Ratings) dropped her pencil and lost her composure when presiding judge Laurence Trébucq, overriding the opinion of the Avocat Général, firmly demanded handover of the 27-minute unedited film shot by Talal Abu Rahmeh at Netzarim Junction in the Gaza Strip on September 30, 2000. The Maginot Line of France 2 collapsed then and there. From here on in, anything is ossible.
It will be interesting to see what happens next. According to Nidra Poller:
If the footage is not turned over voluntarily by the 3rd of October, the court will issue a formal request. The next hearing is scheduled for November 14th … to view the said footage. A relay hearing is scheduled for January 16, and the case will be heard in full on the 27th of February.
At present, the footage is held by the legal team of France2 but seemed to be unavailable when Maître Amblard tried to find it. Could it be, as one person on the forum suggested, at the bottom of the Seine? If it is not, will France2 finally produce it for all to see? Another interesting development might be President Sarkozy’s possible involvement. As France2 is a state-owned TV station, he has the right to order it to comply with the court’s request. After all, “a letter of praise for Charles Enderlin from then president Jacques Chirac weighed heavily in the case against Karsenty” and what is sauce for the goose …..

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