It has been seven years since France 2 Television broadcast the excruciating footage of Muhammad and his father, Jamal, crouching in terror behind a barrel at Gaza's Netzarim junction while, according to the report, under relentless fire from IDF soldiers. The 59-second clip, which ends with the boy apparently shot dead, was presented around the world as an unambiguous case of Israeli savagery.
The tape fanned the flames of what became known as the second intifada. The boy Muhammad 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.
Shortly following the al-Dura incident, however, a series of inquiries cast grave doubt on the accuracy of the original France 2 report. The official IDF investigation concluded that, based on the position of IDF forces vis-à-vis al-Duras, it was highly improbable, if not impossible, that an Israeli bullet hit the boy. Research by The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic and Commentary magazine concurred. Then a German documentary revealed inconsistencies and probable manipulations in the account of France 2's lone journalist on the scene that day, Palestinian cameraman Talal Abu Rahmeh.
And yet France 2 refused to release Abu Rahmeh's full 27 minutes of raw footage. It did, however, agree to let three prominent French journalists view the footage. All three concluded that it comprised blatantly staged scenes of Palestinians being shot by Israeli forces, and that France 2's Jerusalem Bureau Chief Charles Enderlin had lied to conceal that fact.
I really hate to take issue with one point in Sharansky's conclusion. I have read western bloggers and Arab papers who still maintain, contrary to all physical evidence and vociferously, that the Jenin massacre actually happened.
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