From National Review Online, Wednesday, May 21, 2008 by Tom Gross:
In a potentially ground-breaking decision for the way the modern television news media operates, a French court today ruled against the state-owned “France 2” TV network in the long-running libel case surrounding the alleged shooting death of a Palestinian child, Mohammed al-Dura, in the Gaza Strip in 2000.
(Reports from AP, in French, here; and here from The Jerusalem Post.)
The death-footage of al-Dura – the veracity of which has been repeatedly questioned by media watchdogs, one of whom defeated France 2 in court today – became a cause célèbre in the Muslim world. Osama bin Laden referred to al-Dura in a post-9/11 video; the killers of the Wall St. Journal reporter Daniel Pearl placed a picture of him in their beheading video; streets, squares and academies have been named after al-Dura.
Today’s ruling shows there are serious doubts about France 2’s version of events, and that the entire world press – including the American TV networks – were irresponsible in being so quick to take at face value the claims of a local Palestinian cameraman working for France 2, a cameraman who has admitted his partisanship....
...and from Pajamas Media, May 21, 2008 - by Philippe Karsenty:
In a stunning reversal, a French appeals court today dismissed France 2's defamation charges against Philippe Karsenty in the controversial Mohammed al-Dura case.
Today a French court ruled that I did not defame France 2 when I said that its news report was a staged hoax....
...The al-Dura lie is an assault on our ability to think, to criticize, to evaluate, and finally to reject information — especially the right to reject information on which we base our most cherished assumptions.
One of Europe’s most cherished assumptions is that Israel is a vicious Nazi-like entity that deliberately murders Palestinian Arab children. Moreover, polls conducted in Europe have identified Israel as the greatest threat to world peace, greater than Iran and North Korea, Pakistan and Syria.
The al-Dura hoax is one of the pillars on which these assumptions rely....
...Now it is time for France 2 to acknowledge that it created and is continuing to perpetuate the worst anti-Semitic libel of our era. It’s the responsibility of the French government ... to finally reveal the truth.
Philippe Karsenty is the founder and president of Media-Ratings, an agency that closely monitors French media outlets for anti-American and anti-Israeli bias.
1 comment:
...finally, the truth emerges.
How many media outlets will now correct their earlier reports?
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