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Revisiting ‘Al Durah’ in Time of Iranian Media Control
There's a world of difference between the video coming out of Iran and the infamous footage out of Gaza.
The startling footage of Neda, the 27-year-old woman shot to death in the streets of Tehran recently, has reminded some of the image of 12-year-old Muhammad al Durah:
The footage of a Palestinian man [sic] being shot dead [sic] next to his 12-year-old son, Muhammad Jamal al-Durrah, by Israeli forces in Gaza in 2000 has been etched in the minds of many Iranians, as state television has continually replayed the images to highlight the “Zionist regime’s brutality.”
Now, the Islamic regime itself has become the subject of similar allegations at home and abroad after gruesome footage of a dying young woman during the suppression of an opposition protest on Saturday was released on the internet.
The image of Neda Salehi Agha-Soltan, a 27-year-old philosophy student, bleeding to death on the asphalt road of a Tehran street after she was shot in the chest, has become the rallying cry of the country’s opposition, which is disputing the June 12 election of Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad.
Only al Durah wasn’t killed — not by Israeli soldiers, probably not by anyone, and certainly not “on TV.” These days, while real footage of brutal repression makes it out of Iran, a country where the leaders make every effort to shut down the media, it may be useful to revisit the case of Muhammad al Durah.
With al Durah, we have a case of footage uncensored by authorities coming out of a conflict in which the allegedly repressive regime — the Israelis — provides the most welcoming atmosphere of freedom for journalists. These journalists repay the Israelis for their tolerance by running Pallywood footage staged by the Palestinians, specifically designed to provoke outrage.
And in the case of Muhammad al Durah, the boy behind the barrel at Netzarim Junction on September 30, 2000, the footage was not only staged, but, thanks to the efforts of France2’s Middle East correspondent, Charles Enderlin, it made it around the world with the imprimatur of Western mainstream media. In short order, it became an icon of hatred, provoking outrage, hatred, and violence against both Jews and Israelis — the first blood(less) libel of the 21st century.
On November 14, 2007, France2 presented to the court eighteen minutes of the raw footage that Talal abu Rahmah had shot on September 30, 2000, including the final segment of the alleged shooting of Muhammad al Durah and his father Jamal.
Different people were outraged for different reasons. I, having seen the rushes earlier, was incensed that France2 had cut the footage and removed some of the more ludicrous scenes of “Pallywood.” Others, who knew about Nahum Shahaf’s “red rag” theory, gasped when they saw the high-definition segment when the boy is initially hit in the leg — and the rag is clearly visible. The judges were also outraged by what they saw, given the severe decision they passed down in favor of Karsenty, bluntly critical of France2 and Charles Enderlin.
But Esther Schapira — the most consequential of the non-judicial viewers, as she authored Three Bullets and a Dead Child, the first major documentary on al Durah — was outraged to find that there were only 65 seconds of footage of the al Durahs under fire. When she made her first film, Talal had told her he sent six minutes to his boss, and under oath he had claimed to shoot 27 minutes of the 45 minute ordeal under Israeli fire.
Charles Enderlin at France2 had made much of the footage he had not shown the world, supposedly intolerable footage of the boy’s death throes.
“Charles, where’s the rest of the footage?” she asked Enderlin as he walked brusquely by after his bruising exchange with Karsenty in front of the court. He didn’t deign to look at her.
Dropping the caution that marked her first movie — in which she only argued the minimalist position that the Israelis had not killed the boy — she started to explore what she had always suspected:
A fake.
The results came out a few months ago with her German documentary, The Child, Death and the Truth. Here, she openly embraces the “staged” hypothesis, and even brings in a facial recognition expert who claims that the boy behind the barrel and the boy in the hospital who is subsequently buried are two distinctly different people. The movie recently appeared with English subtitles.
One of the most important revelations in the movie comes from the segments of an interview with Enderlin, in which he comes across as belligerently defensive and contemptuous of evidence. In his replies, in his body language, Enderlin reveals just how insubstantial his case is.
One of Enderlin’s favorite arguments is the following: “look, if there were any substance to these allegations, the Israelis would be all over me and Talal. The fact that they’ve done nothing is proof that we’re right, and Talal is ‘as white as snow.’” He most recently repeated these arguments at his blog.
So let me suggest a counter-argument: If there were any substance to Charles Enderlin’s defense, he would have informed himself of the details of the evidence.
Instead, he continues to remain supremely ignorant of all the telling problems with both Talal’s account and his own.
His performance in the interview with Schapira shows us precisely the kind of know-nothing folly that first inspired the term Pallywood, which came not from evidence of Palestinian fakes — I’d already seen many — but from Enderlin’s complacent response to having them pointed out:
“Oh yeah, they do that all the time. It’s a cultural thing.”
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Richard Landes is a Professor of History at Boston University. He blogs at The Augean Stables, and maintains The Second Draft as an archival site for all matters pertaining to Pallywood and al Durah. The Second Draft has recently been reorganized and relaunched with new features.
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14 Comments
1. Blackwater:It was pretty clear that the kid was never shot. But the conviction on the face of the “journalist” who shot the video was so convincing. The propaganda that has come out of the anti-Israel islamist groups is incredible. They’d make the Nazis proud.
Jun 23, 2009 - 3:03 am 2. Yaacov Ben Moshe:Excellent, Richard!
Jun 23, 2009 - 5:35 am 3. Adina Kutnicki,Israel:President Obama told the Iranians “The World is Watching”, but is he and “the world” really learning anything?
Not without clarity and accuracy from the media, unfortunately.
http://breathofthebeast.blogspot.com/2009/06/iran-where-blood-is-real-and-world-is.html
In the same manner in which technological/scientific advances can be used for good or evil, so too can the iconic images of Neda and Al-Dura be used for good or abused for evil.
While on the face of it both are images which circled the globe after clashes between opposing forces,
however, this is where the similarity ends.One is a non doctored image of Neda,an on the spot visual, the other is a staged ‘murder’ of Al-Dura, with the COLLUSION of the MSM.
IF not for the dogged and heroic efforts of Landes and Karsenty this colossal travesty of injustice towards Israel would never have been exposed.
Even now there are many who refuse to connect the dots, albeit for their own anti-zionist/anti-semitic proclivities.
When a lie gains legs it is nearly impossible for it to die.You tell a lie often enough and enough people will believe it, them’s the facts.
Regardless, ALL people of conscience owe a debt of gratitude to the dynamic due of Landes & Karsenty.
Kudos!
Jun 23, 2009 - 6:21 am 4. Notre Dame de Sion:And where are the world-wide demonstrations and rallies, with Neda’s photo, against the crimes of the Iranian regime? Where are the posters “Pasdaran=SS” and “Mullahs=Nazis”?
Jun 23, 2009 - 6:26 am 5. Marie Claude:Oh, it isn’t the Zionist army. Nothing to protest.
tiens, that’s funny, one has nothing else to chew at the moment !
Jun 23, 2009 - 6:30 am 6. Richard Landes:good point, Notre Dame de Sion. the response to al durah was ferocious.
Jun 23, 2009 - 7:55 am 7. njcommuter:The man is a moral cretin. But what is appalling is the silence of the MSM in this country.
After Abu Ghraib, the US Army brought the perpetrators to trial and punished them. As Bill Whittle put it in his “Pope John” essay “Power policed itself.” This was something unseen in that country. Since when has the MSM policed itself? And as long as it is in bed with the Left, it will never police the Democratic party. Nixon’s Watergate brought down a presidency, but the repeated theft of elections by the Democratic machine, including perhaps the one that Nixon lost to Kennedy, were never front-page news.
This a profound, terrifying danger to human freedom everywhere. For without the truth you can never be free.
Jun 23, 2009 - 10:06 am 8. Oscar the Grump:If you search the sites google and yahoo, you can find further explanations of the Pallywood setup. There is an excellent one of Talal pointing to the area where the shots were coming from, “they were coming from directly behind me.” and he points with his thumb. Directly behind him were the Palestinians. Another major point is that if you look closely there is a tripod about six feet behind them. The whole scene was being filmed from behind. That film man was standing “in the line of fire” the whole time. His films were never included and he was never shot. Had the Israelis shot at him, he would have been a dead man. Other Pallywood sequences are also shown and shown to be fraud. Bob Simons is seen making one or his famous Sixty Minutes broadcasts stating that at least 30 people were killed there by the Israelis. That lie was never brought out by Sixty Minutes, explained or apologized for. Bob Simons helped the lie of al Dura have legitimacy.
Jun 23, 2009 - 12:43 pm 9. bubblehead:The French have always been notorious anti-Semites! The idea that a French news organization would behave this way does not surprise me in the slightest.
Other news outlets will continue to lie until this incident begins to turn up in schoolbooks as an example of Jewish brutality against the Arabs. By then, it will be established as fact forever.
Everyone is able to look themselves in the mirror by repeating the lie “It is an accurate representation of what was happening all over the region at the time. The Jews were brutal occupiers and we simply showed their true faces.” That, after all is the defense they used!
MERDE!
Jun 23, 2009 - 1:58 pm 10. Notre Dame de Sion:bubblehead
If it’s French anti-Semitism, they found their useful Jew(s), Enderlin being the first and foremost one. But, as Oscar the Grump points out, it’s a world-wide phenomenon. And the double standards are only too visible when compared to media and public reactions to the current Iranian Intifada.
Jun 23, 2009 - 2:15 pm 11. Don:Speaking of selective editorializing, consider the NY Times keeping the fact secret that one of their journalists was kidnapped by the Taliban. Apparently their is some criticism over the NY Time’s motives; did they keep the secret to reduce the risk of the journalist’s killing or to keep the ransom cost down? Be that as it may, the more interesting observation is that when it’s one of their own the NY Times has no problem with news blackouts and keeping a secret; they only have a problem with news black outs and keeping a secret if it is Gitmo or enhanced interrogation pictures or releasing intelligence gathering sources and methods, because then only the troops get their throats slit. It does provide a reportable event however, also known as a revenue source. If it bleeds it leads is also an instance of pragmatism too, the favorite philosophy of realists.
Jun 23, 2009 - 2:30 pm 12. Oscar the Grump:See these sites, there are plenty of others.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_B1H-1opys
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzsCBFhCsyY
Jun 23, 2009 - 3:37 pm 13. Richard Landes:i don’t think it’s anti-semitism (which i define as the paranoid belief that if you don’t exterminate the jews, they’ll exterminate you), so much as moral Schadenfreude or the thrill of being able to say, “you jews, 2000 years you were oppressed by others and the minute you get power, you turn around and do it to the palestinians. you’re just as bad as everyone else.” and then of course there’s the moral sadism of taking the next step: “in fact you’re worse, you’re like the nazis, you’re even worse than the nazis because you should know better.” that last position is moving rapidly towards anti-semitism. post-modern anti-judaism fuels muslim pre-modern anti-semitism, and there’s no better illustration of the destructive relationship than the imbecility and corruption surrounding the al Durah affair.
Jun 23, 2009 - 8:21 pm 14. Steve:Whether the Al Dura matter is a manifestation of French anti semitism or not, the larger picture is colored by the fact that active antisemitism is on the rise in Europe. Its manifestations include physical attacks on Jews throughout Europe. Even more dangerous is the acceptance of antisemitic narratives among the elites. To say you don’t like Jews is much more acceptable now than it was 20 years ago. Acceptance of anti Israelism (and its accompanying antisemitic references) among academics is so widespread that to defend Israel is an act of courage. The Al Dura photos and accusations of Jews as child-killers certainly accelerated the outing of these sentiments and made them much more mainstream. An official refutation of Enderlin’s work might be back page news, but it would help reduce the sting.
Jun 24, 2009 - 6:46 am