December 4, 2008

Texte repris du New Jersey Jewish News (NJJN) Bureau Chief/Central

Many people — even Israelis and American Jews — apparently would prefer to forget the shocking videotape from September 2000, shot in the early days of the Second Intifada, that claimed to show a Palestinian child huddling in terror behind his father during a clash in Gaza.

Moments later, so the story went, the boy was dead, a victim of the IDF’s indifference.

Philippe Karsenty is determined to expose the video as a hoax. For six years, the French Jew has been battling to get public recognition that the story was “the worst blood libel” against the Jewish people, “worse even than the Protocols of Zion,” the notorious early-20th-century anti-Semitic tract.

On a visit to the United States this past week sponsored by the Zionist Organization of America, Karsenty accepted a last-minute invitation to speak at the Wilf Jewish Community Campus in Scotch Plains on Nov. 23. He waived the offer of a fee, saying his priorities are to make the facts known and to engage others in supporting his struggle.

The talk was organized by Conrad Nadell, chair of the Israel Support Committee of Congregation Beth Israel in Scotch Plains, Temple Beth-El Mekor Chayim in Cranford, Temple Beth O’r/Beth Torah in Clark, and Temple Emanu-El in Westfield. Despite the late announcement, his talk drew an audience of around 40 on Sunday morning.

Karsenty discussed his legal victory this past May, when a French appeals court essentially accepted his evidence casting doubt on whether 12-year-old Mohammed al-Dura and his father, Jamal, were even wounded, and his assertion that the original story by Charles Enderlin, the French-Israeli journalist, was misleading The court overturned the libel charge brought against him by Enderlin and France 2, the channel that aired his story.

The picture of Mohammed and Jamal al-Dura that was used to stir anti-Israeli sentiment around the world.

Since the court victory, Karsenty said, he has been receiving a bit more support.

“People like a winner,” he said, but still many “make me out to be a crazy right-wing extremist nutcase and compare me to the Holocaust deniers or the 9/11 conspiracy people.

“I am not an extremist,” he said. “I am just a self-appointed truth-fighter.”

The image of the cowering father and son took on an iconic value — somewhat like the photograph of a naked running child in the Vietnam War or the soldiers erecting the American flag at Iwo Jima during World War II.

The image was featured on posters, huge public murals, and postage stamps in Arab countries throughout the region. “Osama bin Laden used it to recruit thousands of terrorists,” Karsenty asserted. The image was used, he said, to convey the message: “The Jews are killing children for no reason — just for the pleasure of it.”

No sign of blood

At Sunday’s gathering, as he did at various other venues in the region, Karsenty laid out his case. The film footage of the shootout at Gaza’s Netzarim Junction was shot by a freelance Palestinian cameraman working in Gaza. The cameraman supplied it and the supposed facts of the story to Enderlin, who is very highly regarded as a journalist in Israel.

The video in question shows Mohammed and his father cowering in terror while trying to shelter themselves from gunfire. The film then cuts to the boy, slumped and motionless in his father’s lap.

Immediately after the story was broadcast, the Israel Defense Forces apologized for shooting the boy and began to investigate how it happened. They discovered that the angle of the bullet holes in the wall behind the pair didn’t appear to match the position of any Israeli soldier.

Karsenty also noted that, despite the thousands of rounds of bullets fired during the clash, with three allegedly hitting the boy and 12 hitting his father, there was no sign of blood.

In Scotch Plains, Karsenty showed parts of the original footage shot by the cameraman, as well as a later interview with him in which he contradicts his own account of the events. Karsenty also showed footage taken by other photographers from different angles. People can be seen running and ducking, but others are quite calmly standing around watching or casually cycling by, as the father and son were allegedly pinned down.

Footage shot after the boy was supposedly dead (and not shown in the broadcast section) shows him looking around and lifting his legs.

Karsenty, who heads up a media watchdog website, pointed out that the sound track of rattling gunfire might also be fake. “You don’t watch TV; you listen to it,” he said. “The sounds tell you what you are going to see.”

In an interview months later, the father shows a deep scar on his arm. He says it was from the Israeli gunfire, but an Israeli doctor testified that the scar is from treatment in 1994 at a hospital in Tel Hashomer for wounds caused when he was tortured by Palestinian militants who accused him of collaborating with the Israelis. That torture might explain why he played whatever role he was asked to on Sept. 30, 2000.

Karsenty was alerted to the disputes behind the footage by a German documentary aired in 2002. A 2006 ruling found Karsenty guilty of libel for claiming France 2 TV’s report was “pure fiction.”

France’s current president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has rebuffed appeals to speak out about the hoax. Karsenty asked that anyone with the appropriate contacts urge the French leader to reconsider.

Even since the court verdict, Karsenty has battled without success to get Enderlin or France 2 to acknowledge that the story was untrue. Even more hurtful, he said, have been the efforts by some Jewish leaders to stifle his campaign. Even Israeli officials have seemed reluctant to reopen the topic.

Karsenty suggested that they might not want to ruffle feathers, or disrupt carefully forged alliances, or to look as if they were in favor of suppressing media freedom.

Asked why he took on this long battle, Karsenty said he was fortunate to be able to put his career in finance on hold. “The facts seemed so clear, I thought it would be quick. And then it happens one day, one day,” he said. “You don’t know how long it is going to take.”

An audience member, Maxine Levy of Springfield, suggested that this case was actually an easy one to expose. “Next time, they will be more clever and better” at creating a false impression, she said.

Karsenty acknowledged her point, but insisted that the media battle is crucial for Israel. A German documentary about the court case is to be aired in Europe next spring and might help. Like the walls of Jericho, he said, “this wall of lies” will be brought down by public pressure.

Elaine Durbach

© New Jersey Jewish News

Mis en ligne le 4 décembre 2008, par M. Macina, sur le site upjf.org