26 Comments

1. Buddy Larsen:

The thing is, it’s not even a surprise–the MSM craps on the IDF? A deep conspiracy to defraud the public is at the core of it? Where’s the “news”? Nobody but nobody is surprised.

Oct 2, 2007 - 11:26 am 2. Roger:

This is the news - the facts are now being exposed in public for the first time. Time to rub the MSM’s nose in it - but how to do effectively?

Oct 2, 2007 - 11:33 am 3. Michael J. Totten:

Natan Sharansky has a good summary in the Wall Street Journal.

Some important excerpts:

The tape fanned the flames of what became known as the second intifada. The boy Mohammed was the iconic martyr, his name and face gracing streets, parks and postage stamps across the Arab world. His memory was invoked by Osama bin Laden in a jihadist screed against America, and in the ghastly video of the beheading of American Jewish journalist, Daniel Pearl.

and

It is important to note that the al-Dura news report profoundly influenced Western public opinion. When I served in the Israeli government as minister of Diaspora Affairs from 2003 to 2005, I traveled frequently to North American college campuses. I heard first hand how Mohammed al-Dura had shaped the perceptions of young people just beginning to follow events in the Middle East. For many Jewish students, the incident was a stain of dishonor that called into question their support for Israel. For anti-Israel students, the story reaffirmed their sense of Zionism’s innately “racist” nature and became a tool for recruiting campus peers to the cause.

Oct 2, 2007 - 11:41 am 4. Buddy Larsen:

Well, it needs some Brit Hume, for sure–

Oct 2, 2007 - 11:42 am 5. Insufficiently Sensitive:

I regret that I don’t have any brilliant ideas on getting this reverse-of-conventional-wisdom story any significant amount of public attention.

By generally accepted measures, that story is over. It’s old, it’s down the memory hole, it’s retro, it’s done its work and gone on.

Only if the MSM blazoned it across its front pages as a brand new piece of current news - and kept it up for days on end - would those old habits of thought engendered by the original al-Dura hoax begin a metamorphic change.

Of course, once the AFP disgorges the whole archive (if they haven’t already quietly destroyed the inconvenient parts), the new media including Pajamas can be righteously shocked at the old fraud, if there really was one. And continued pressure from this discovery must be applied in hopes of moving the public opinion glacier fractionally in an honest direction.

But be prepared for a deafening push-back from MSM, whose favored ox will be gored by such revelations, and who will therefore do its best to overwhelm any late-emerging truths.

Oct 2, 2007 - 12:02 pm 6. George Atkisson:

Perhaps the government of Israel could bring charges against France 2 as accessories before the fact in all the Israeli deaths during the second intifada, requesting full page apologies in every American, European and Asian newspaper, plus multi-million restitution payments to all surviving family members.

Oct 2, 2007 - 12:34 pm 7. Buddy Larsen:

George, that sounds like a good first step at an impossible–because people died–atonement.

Oct 2, 2007 - 1:09 pm 8. Mike K:

I heard the French web site owner interviewed on Dennis Prager. He speaks excellent English and gave a good interview. It was just before his appeal was heard. He should be a good spokesman once he has the details of the hoax where they can be seen. Appearances on Hannity and other TV shows with the taped proof should be powerful. Even if FP2 has destroyed the out takes, they do have that accidental clip where the boy raises his hand after he is “dead.”

Oct 2, 2007 - 1:19 pm 9. kaffirgal:

How about a full page ad debunking the “iconic” photo in the A section of the NYT? I’m sure PJM would qualify for their deep friends & family discount.

Oct 2, 2007 - 1:45 pm 10. gumshoe:

“Perhaps the government of Israel could bring charges against France 2 as accessories before the fact in all the Israeli deaths during the second intifada…” - George Atkisson

i think George’s suggestion has merit.

the state of the unreleased footage
still concerns me.

what’s the status of the missing film,Roger??

Oct 2, 2007 - 1:49 pm 11. AlanC:

This is yet another example of “fake but accurate”.

Could this be debunked by producing the original? IE Where is Mohammed al Dura?

If PJM could find him somehow that would create a big enough noise to awaken some people, no?

Oct 2, 2007 - 2:23 pm 12. KarenT:

Just a tangental point: For all the American MSM’s faults, at least individual media outlets don’t face government licensing requirements in the way the French press does. Could the relationship between France 2 and the French government be a factor here?

Oct 2, 2007 - 2:32 pm 13. freetotem:

It seems to me the real question is how to get all the people who live in NPR/New York Times Land to see and admit to themselves what a sheltered, twisted little information world they insist on living in. How many friends do you have who still read The New Yorker credulously? Or, even though they live on the West Coast or wherever, refer to “the Arts section” or “the Magazine section,” and just know the listener knows that means the New York Times? This must be ridiculed.

These are the Smart People Who Know Things, and they don’t care whether any one story is accurately reported. They have their worldview. It’s reinforced by their familiar media sources, which all the people in their Cool Kids Club also read, and they haven’t the slightest interest in quaint things like “facts.” What an irrelevant notion in this age of “the narrative” and other poststructuralist/relativist fashion.

My own personal campaign includes things like mentioning in discussions with MSM-bound friends a killer fact I know they haven’t heard of—like, say the reports of Al Qaeda being flushed in recent weeks from Pakistan back into Tora Bora and the split between AQ and the Taliban—and porefacing it with something like, “Well, of course you wouldn’t know this because you read the New York Times, but….” Etc.

Oct 2, 2007 - 2:37 pm 14. tim maguire:

Not a bad thought Karen. With Sarkozy in in France and perfectly willing to twist the knife sticking in Chirac…

Oct 2, 2007 - 2:41 pm 15. Buddy Larsen:

freetotem, idea for a website: NUTIN
(N-ews U-nderplayed T-oday I-n N-YT)

Oct 2, 2007 - 2:50 pm 16. neobuzz:

The world doesn’t really know who you are or the truth about this story. Two weeks ago, much of the world didn’t know about MoveOn.org either - that has now changed. With a $60k investment, the world could know all about PJ Media and your al Dura story too. As they say: you’ve got to spend money to make money.

And don’t forget, you’ll need a catchy headline and a picture too.

Oct 2, 2007 - 4:17 pm 17. Barry Dauphin:

In a somewhat related vein, it is interesting that at the very time the security situation in Iraq improves according to various metrics, the MSM runs whole hog with the Blackwater story, which is presented as an open and shut case of private security forces running amok.

Oct 2, 2007 - 4:59 pm 18. Skookumchuk:

All good comments. Natan Sharansky and Michael Totten have said it - the tape fanned the flames. Once we get incontrovertible proof that it is in fact a fake, then you and Pajamas highlight the consequences of France 2 fanning those flames. That would be an uphill media battle, but still worth it. Ultimately, if sufficient pressure is applied, legal action by Israel against France 2 might result. That would be the new news.

But first we need the tape. And we need the tape to show what we think it will show.

Oct 2, 2007 - 5:11 pm 19. scribe10:

Two suggestions:

Get the father of al Dura to admit the truth.

Find the actual Palestinian who shot him, or if he wasn’t shot at all find the child.

Oct 2, 2007 - 6:54 pm 20. Esbiem:

If young Mohammed wasn’t dead he most certainly will be now.

Oct 3, 2007 - 5:47 am 21. Buddy Larsen:

Esbiem is right –the Palis were, during the Second Intifada, running an awful lot of children into the fires which they’d set off.

Oct 3, 2007 - 7:37 am 22. MarkD:

I have no suggestions.

I’ll note the phony attacks on Rush Limbaugh orchestrated by MoveOn, joined by Tom Harkin among others. Tom Harkin, the guy who claimed to have flown combat missions in Vietnam, but didn’t. The one who is still serving in the Senate. The one with no shame, or no sense, or possibly neither shame nor sense. Well, he is an authority on phony.

The MSM doesn’t even pretend to be objective anymore. They are on the other side.

Oct 3, 2007 - 9:55 am 23. David Thomson:

“The MSM doesn’t even pretend to be objective anymore. They are on the other side.”

They no longer even try to fake it out. The MSM has little interest in a story unless it can help Democrats and hurt Republicans. Tom Harkin would have had to resign form the U.S. Senate if he were a member of the G.O.P. The leftist media would run countless stories on him until he exited the scene.

There is only way one the MSM will do anything serious about the Al Dura trial: show them a way that it hurts the Bush administration. Other then that—they could care less.

Oct 3, 2007 - 11:02 am 24. Buddy Larsen:

This country has had a nice big Tom Harkin knife in its back ever since April 1985.

Oct 3, 2007 - 11:55 am 25. George Atkisson:

One further thought: At least in France, you could run it as The Dreyfus Affair (part deux), 100 years of open anti-semitism.

You might have to educate the French public about Dreyfus, and there is no Emile Zola to keep the heat on. Sigh. I’m not sure that the general public (French or not) is really interested in Truth and Justice anymore.

Oct 3, 2007 - 2:49 pm 26. Always right:

I don’t think exposing the Truth will matter to people anymore. They’ve made up their minds about their own world view on either sides. To change that (their own view, i.e their own identity) is literally more difficult than changing spots on a leopard.

Even if the new tape is out, (after how many years of the intifada using that as excuse?) how many more “killings and deaths” resulted from that one fake tape? Any one of these “new” deaths could have been used as an excuse for those people. They are not lacking in finding excuses.

It only says a lot about the europeans and their elitists (both governments and their media). Their own citizens willingly let themselves being led by these few, just so that they can have a cozy life, thinking themselves more “progressive” (meaning superior, more advanced than, I guess, us).

Oct 5, 2007 - 8:48 am

Write a Comment

Name:	(required, displayed)
Email:	(required, not publicized)
URL:	(optional, displayed) remember personal info?
Comments: