Seeker Blog

In the introduction to this March 2005 Atlantic Monthly piece, James Fallows writes: for the The image of a boy shot dead in his helpless father’s arms during an Israeli confrontation with Palestinians has become the Pietà of the Arab world. Now a number of Israeli researchers are presenting persuasive evidence that the fatal shots could not have come from the Israeli soldiers known to have been involved in the confrontation. The evidence will not change Arab minds—but the episode offers an object lesson in the incendiary power of an icon.

There are a series of iconic images derived from a France 2 videotape filmed on September 30, 2000, the second day of Arafat’s "second intifada". The images are real in the sense they are stills from video taken on that day in that place. What is false is the claim by France 2 that the twelve year old boy was killed by Israeli soldiers.

James Fallows Atlantic piece is a serious attempt to understand what happened that day. If you read only one reference on this tragic story of the world impact of irresponsible media, read the Fallows piece. Excerpts:

Shahaf’s investigation for the IDF showed that the Israeli soldiers at the outpost did not shoot the boy. But he now believes that everything that happened at Netzarim on September 30 was a ruse. The boy on the film may or may not have been the son of the man who held him. The boy and the man may or may not actually have been shot. If shot, the boy may or may not actually have died. If he died, his killer may or may not have been a member of the Palestinian force, shooting at him directly. The entire goal of the exercise, Shahaf says, was to manufacture a child martyr, in correct anticipation of the damage this would do to Israel in the eyes of the world—especially the Islamic world. "I believe that one day there will be good things in common between us and the Palestinians," he told me. "But the case of Mohammed al-Dura brings the big flames between Israel and the Palestinians and Arabs. It brings a big wall of hate. They can say this is the proof, the ultimate proof, that Israeli soldiers are boy-murderers. And that hatred breaks any chance of having something good in the future."

The reasons to doubt that the al-Duras, the cameramen, and hundreds of onlookers were part of a coordinated fraud are obvious. Shahaf’s evidence for this conclusion, based on his videos, is essentially an accumulation of oddities and unanswered questions about the chaotic events of the day. Why is there no footage of the boy after he was shot? Why does he appear to move in his father’s lap, and to clasp a hand over his eyes after he is supposedly dead? Why is one Palestinian policeman wearing a Secret Service-style earpiece in one ear? Why is another Palestinian man shown waving his arms and yelling at others, as if "directing" a dramatic scene? Why does the funeral appear—based on the length of shadows—to have occurred before the apparent time of the shooting? Why is there no blood on the father’s shirt just after they are shot? Why did a voice that seems to be that of the France 2 cameraman yell, in Arabic, "The boy is dead" before he had been hit? Why do ambulances appear instantly for seemingly everyone else and not for al-Dura?

A handful of Israeli and foreign commentators have taken up Shahaf’s cause. A Web site called masada2000.org says of the IDF’s initial apology, "They acknowledged guilt, for never in their collective minds would any one of them have imagined a scenario whereby Mohammed al-Dura might have been murdered by his own people … a cruel plot staged and executed by Palestinian sharp-shooters and a television cameraman!" Amnon Lord, writing for the magazine Makor Rishon, referred to a German documentary directed by Esther Schapira that was "based on Shahaf’s own decisive conclusion" and that determined "that Muhammad Al-Dura was not killed by IDF gunfire at Netzarim junction." "Rather," Lord continued, "the Palestinians, in cooperation with foreign journalists and the UN, arranged a well-staged production of his death." In March of this year a French writer, Gérard Huber, published a book called Contre expertise d’une mise en scène (roughly, Re-evaluation of a Re-enactment). It, too, argues that the entire event was staged. In an e-mail message to me Huber said that before knowing of Shahaf’s studies he had been aware that "the images of little Mohammed were part of the large war of images between Palestinians and Israelis." But until meeting Shahaf, he said, "I had not imagined that it involved a fiction"—a view he now shares. "The question of ‘Who killed little Mohammed?’" he said, "has become a screen to disguise the real question, which is: ‘Was little Mohammed actually killed?’

Lastly, here is the English translation of the statement by Serge Farnel, president of “La Verite Maintenant” (”Truth Now”), accusing France 2. This accusation provides a link to the audio recording of a statement of Arlette Chabot (Information Director for France 2) in French:

I accuse France 2 of having deliberately fabricated the following reading of the scene that became the symbol of thesecond Intifada: “Mohammad Al Dura was killed in the arms of his father by Israeli soldiers”. France 2 thereby made an untruthful public statement as well as a proofless public accusation! The scene it has filmed, edited, then offered to television stations around the world, is a scene associated with comments which have since proven to be lies (”rushes showing the child agonizing”), established on October 22, 2004, and proofless accusations (”the gunshots came from the Israelis”).[declaration made by Arlette Chabot, Information Director at France 2, on Radio J, November 16, 2004.].