An ‘Independent’ Al-Dura Commission in France?
Incredibly, the leading French Jewish group is working on a "compromise" that would effectively sweep the Mohammed al-Dura hoax under the rug.
On Tuesday, France’s leading Jewish organization, the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF), held a press conference in Paris to publicize its call for the establishment of an “independent investigative commission” on the al-Dura affair. The event was held at Paris’s posh Hilton Arc de Triomphe and in the presence of numerous representatives of the mainstream, or “institutional,” French media, including the state-sponsored Agence France-Presse (AFP) wire service. A camera crew from French public television France 2 filmed the entire proceedings. France 2 is the very television network whose contested September 2000 report allegedly showing the killing of the Palestinian boy Mohammed al-Dura would form the object of the commission. Further reflecting the excellent coordination between the CRIF and France’s established “media of reference,” on the same day the daily Le Figaro featured a full-page article on the CRIF initiative and the al-Dura controversy more generally on page 2. A large blow-up of the iconic video frame showing Jamal al-Dura supposedly protecting his screaming child from Israeli fire covers nearly half the page.
The French media interest in the event stands in marked contrast to the “benign neglect” of the al-Dura controversy studiously practiced by the leading French news organizations up until now. Like the CRIF initiative itself, this sudden interest is undoubtedly a consequence of the unexpected turn taken in the affair in May, when a French appeals court overturned an earlier court’s condemnation of media critic Philippe Karsenty for having “defamed” France 2 and its longtime Middle East correspondent Charles Enderlin. As regular PJM readers will know, Karsenty is one of many critics who have called into question the authenticity of the al-Dura report. France 2 and Enderlin have in the meanwhile announced their intention to appeal the latest ruling in turn.
In opening the press conference, CRIF president Richard Prasquier alluded to the ongoing legal battle and summed up what he called the “position of the CRIF” as follows: “The position of the CRIF is very simple,” he said. “We are looking to establish the truth. … We are not for one party or the other.” In both substance and style, however, the rest of Prasquier’s remarks clearly belied this supposedly “simple” commitment to finding the truth and suggested rather a calculated initiative meant to serve essentially political ends: to achieve, so to say, a “negotiated settlement” of the al-Dura controversy. The most blatant giveaway of this political character of the CRIF initiative — blatant, at any rate, to anyone other than a member of the French establishment — was Prasquier’s proposal to have France 2 itself associated with the “independent” commission. Indeed, Prasquier proposed that France 2 should be the co-sponsor of the commission:
My wish is that this expert commission would be a joint decision of France 2 and us [i.e., apparently the CRIF] and that the decisions of this expert commission … the conclusions of this expert commission would be sufficiently contradictory and sufficiently valid to be accepted as what one can at this time most nearly identify with the truth of what happened.
The diplomatic tenor of Prasquier’s remarks is striking — to say nothing of the revealing slip from “conclusions” to “decisions.” The conclusions of the commission should be “sufficiently contradictory” — apparently meaning that they should take into account the viewpoints of all parties — that they can be “accepted” as approximating the reality: apparently meaning “accepted” as well by France 2. This last condition obviously rules out certain potential findings of the commission in advance: for example, that Enderlin and France 2 not only broadcast a fake report, but did so knowingly. Under duress, France 2 and Enderlin might be expected to “accept” the former conclusion, thus leaving the Palestinian cameraman Talal Abu Rahma as the fall guy in the entire affair. The latter conclusion, however, they could not “accept” under any circumstances without incurring not only an obvious knockout blow to their credibility, but indeed, as will be seen momentarily, potential criminal liability as well.
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John Rosenthal writes on European politics and transatlantic relations. More of his work can be found at Transatlantic Intelligencer.
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16 Comments
1. Benson:I wonder what the Jews of France — individuals, rather than faceless numbers somehow “represented” by CRIF — think of this. It seems that the political consequences of the truth are universally considered to be so potentially catastrophic that the facts must now be negotiated. Do all French citizens believe that if Enderlin and France 2 were brought down, that would do intolerable harm to the nation? Are the French really that crazy?
Jul 5, 2008 - 5:08 am 2. Smarty:More Jewicide. More Sonderkommandos. The very few public Jews that would not betray their own people (and their Christian friends) need to put those two words out in public and shame the new generation of SonderKommandos into silence, if not to proper action.
Jul 5, 2008 - 7:08 am 3. Dan Friedman:My understanding is that the CRIF acts like a French government toady, and in fact was silent and uncooperative with Karsenty’s heroic efforts to expose the French media’s hoax. It was only after Karsenty won his victory in court did France’s Jewish organization types finally surface. And then only to place another hurdle in the path of the truth, as if it has not already been established.
Jul 5, 2008 - 7:12 am 4. Chip:L’Affair Al-D(reyfus)ura — some things never change. In the creative Blood Libel game, France won’t come in second to anyone but Russia.
Jul 5, 2008 - 7:24 am 5. Fidel, MD:More BS from the ‘professional joos’, those who live at the public teat by saying exactly what the powers that be want said.
Like the Jews who served the German and Soviet empires in their foundings, such toadys will achieve the same end.
I’ve managed to get a lot of my family members to immigrate from that pestilential hell-hole, Paris. They come to America (legally, mind you) and start contributing (via rather high) income taxes right away.
The rest of the family there, unfortunately, are the rather slow ones.
Jul 5, 2008 - 9:27 am 6. JK:I live in Paris (I’m an American expat) and was recently amazed to see a television ‘documentary’ purporting to present the history of Zionism. The more I watched, the more the subtext of this little gem became clear: Zionism and the Jews are the root of the problems in the Middle East.
The author?
Yep, none other than the same Charles Enderlin who brought you the al-Dura affair.
I understand that Enderlin himself is Jewish. After seeing his film, I can only conclude that there’s something seriously wrong with him: only an enormous amount of self-hatred could explain his deformation of history and established fact - in short, what’s normally called the truth.
The amount of damage an individual like Enderlin is capable of doing is also enormous, and I have to ask myself why he’s being allowed to do it.
Jul 5, 2008 - 1:52 pm 7. Smarty:Enderlin does it because he is mentally ill. I suspect most Jews are. I don’t know if it is chronic Jewish guilt Syndrome ™, or some sort of cultural inbreeding, or what, but the sad fact is evgey time we turn around there is some Jew playing Sonderkommando to the Muslims playing of the SS.
He is allowed to do it because he suits the Muslims’s purpose, he suits the Euro-Leftist anti-semite’s purpose, and he suits the purposes of the “Jewish Elites” who are just as suicidal as he is.
Jul 5, 2008 - 2:55 pm 8. JK:“Enderlin does it because he is mentally ill. I suspect most Jews are.”
With people like you making generalizations like that, Enderlin suddenly seems like small potatos.
Other than yourself, who’s acceptable in your book?
Jul 5, 2008 - 4:54 pm 9. Smarty:We have defined suicidal tendencies as a mental illness or pathology, right?
So what else do you call a group of people who are so unified in their suicidal tendencies? When Jews suck up to Muslims, do the propaganda work for anti-semitic socialist it is nothing short of an expression of mental illness.
Jul 5, 2008 - 7:51 pm 10. Javelin:Or would it have been normal for Christians to raise funds for treating sick Roman lions, or for blacks to argue for why slavery really wasn’t such a bad deal, and should be tried again? Perhaps Indians should make PSAs for how small pox blankets actually help the environment by cutting down on the numbers of pesky natives?
Smarty, you ain’t!
Jul 5, 2008 - 9:56 pm 11. JK:Sweeping generalizations based on race or religion (Enderlin mentally ill = most Jews are) are the substitute for thought and the justification for the very attitudes you seem to condemn.
These are difficult times: it’s not always easy to distinguish one’s friend and ally from the person taking advantage of the breaches in sanity and civilization opened by an Enderlin and those of his ilk to advance even more perverted agendas.
In your case, I’ll presume that such is not the case and that I’ve simply misinterpreted what you’re really trying to say.
Jul 5, 2008 - 10:32 pm 12. Benson:Sheesh — it begins to look to me as if the Jews DON’T control the media, set international banking policies, mandate poverty and wealth, and dicate to governments. They can’t even agree on something as simple and important as the (crude, obvious) Al Dura hoax.
But I still don’t understand the French.
Jul 6, 2008 - 12:13 am 13. Evelyn:Smarty was just getting exasperated with some crazy people I think — The Jewish Council of Germany is suffering from the same malaise, they are bending over backwards in order to look reasonable, often when no-one expects them too, but when getting angry would be a normal and healthy reaction they appease and handwave like demented hippies. And when you hear that the Jewish leadership is swapping dead bodies of war crime victims for prisoners who have killed and will kill again; when you see them faff around with Shalit’s freedom, you begin to despair.
If the Jews were as ‘evil’ as everyone says, the Palestinian problem would no exist. It does and the reason appears to be that being too ethical is a recipe for eternal hubris and slow suicide.
Jul 6, 2008 - 5:36 am 14. JK:@evelyn:
Bravo; well said, well put.
Being a Jew myself makes me fiercely protective of the very idea of Isreal and of Jews in general.
The truth of your analysis - as tragic as it is, or perhaps because of its innate element of tragedy - touches me profoundly…
Jul 6, 2008 - 6:32 am 15. Azores:I am no Jew, at least as far as I know, but the following sequence of events always puzzles me.
Jul 6, 2008 - 3:44 pm 16. Al-Dura Affair « Harry Rock:1) A Palestinian suicide bomber blows a bus full of schoolchildren.
2) Palestinians in the streets commemorate this “victory” dancing, singing and firing Kalashnikovs.
3) Two Israeli helicopters come and gun the celebrating Palestinians.
Why does 3) never happens?
To placate the international public opinion? But anti-Semitism is and will be rampant almost everywhere.
The show the humanitarian side of Israelis? But who cares?
I really cannot understand and I would happy to get some explanation for a type of behaviour that we find rather often. For example, a group of so-called rightwing French attacked Jewish shop owners in a street of Paris; we know that some retaliation, some broken heads, would bring wonders, but we never see this happening
[...] story which won’t go away however is the ‘al-Dura affair’. A classic case of an attempt to manipulate the [...]
Jul 8, 2008 - 7:50 am