THE TRUTH ABOUT A BOY'S DEATH?

You'll notice that this BBC online article about child casualties in the second intifada leads off with a photo of Muhammed al-Dura, the 12-year old killed in Gaza in 2000. As James Fallows wrote in The Altantic two years ago (subscriber-only link) the video images of the boy's final moments have become a symbol of Palestinian suffering :

Through repetition they have become as familiar and significant to Arab and Islamic viewers as photographs of bombed-out Hiroshima are to the people of Japan—or as footage of the crumbling World Trade Center is to Americans. Several Arab countries have issued postage stamps carrying a picture of the terrified boy. One of Baghdad's main streets was renamed The Martyr Mohammed Aldura Street. Morocco has an al-Dura Park. In one of the messages Osama bin Laden released after the September 11 attacks and the subsequent U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, he began a list of indictments against "American arrogance and Israeli violence" by saying, "In the epitome of his arrogance and the peak of his media campaign in which he boasts of 'enduring freedom,' Bush must not forget the image of Mohammed al-Dura and his fellow Muslims in Palestine and Iraq. If he has forgotten, then we will not forget, God willing."

Only this month, AFP reported that the tape of the shootings had been incorporated into Abel Ferrera's new film Mary, starring Matthew Modine and Juliette Binoche.

But what if the pictures are not what they seem? Fallows laid out disturbing evidence that the footage may have been part of propaganda stunt. Curiously, though, his story received little mainstream coverage. It re-emerged last year, as I mentioned on my old blog. Now comes Nidra Poller's long and detailed analysis in Commentary, supplying more details about the conduct of France 2, the state-run channel that transmitted the original report. Her description of how militants staged some battle sequences for the cameras would be comical if the case weren't so tragic:

Palestinian stringers sporting prestigious logos on their vests and cameras are seen filming battle scenes staged behind the abandoned factory, well out of range of Israeli gunfire. The "wounded" sail through the air like modern dancers and then suddenly collapse. Cameramen jockey with hysterical youths who pounce on the "casualties," pushing and shoving, howling Allahu akhbar!, clumsily grabbing the "injured," pushing away the rare ambulance attendant in a pale green polyester jacket in order to shove, twist, haul, and dump the "victims" into UN and Red Crescent ambulances that pull up on a second’s notice and career back down the road again, sirens screaming....Split seconds of these ludicrous vignettes would later appear in newscasts and special reports...

This is a strange, strange story. Neo-Neocon, Melanie Phillips and Mick Hartley have their own take on it. In his Atlantic piece, Fallows talked of the "Rashomon effect" that resulted from the overlapping eyewitness accounts. Fact and fiction become one.

Comments

[Robert Sharp]

You ask: "But what if the pictures are not what they seem?" I find it hard to see how this media manipulation makes the Israeli occupation of the West Bank any less appalling. The death of a child in Palestine is hardly a rare occurrence, unfortunately.

[Clive Davis]

That's slightly beside the point, isn't it? I accept that children are being killed. See this report from Tuesday's Guardian, for instance: http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1563255,00.html
But we're talking about an incident that's become a prime symbol of the conflict.

BTW, I just realized that the whole of the James Fallows piece is available at Front Page:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=7861

[Robert Sharp]

I guess my point is that the hatred of the occupation - and the governments that are perceived to be facilitating it - precedes 30th September 2000. Al-Dura is not a symbol like 9/11.

The linked articles imply that the incident provoked a hatred that wasn't already there. Fallows rightly says that "It won't change Arab minds". But this is because they can point to countless other injustices, not because of an uncorroborated prejudice, which is only validated by the shooting in question.

This is in contrast to 9/11 - I think for most people in The West (including the Neo-neocon blog, I see) those attacks were the Damascean, opinion forming moment.

These are minor points though, and it is not to say that the article by Fallows is not interesting. Nor do I say that such misreporting should be in any way condoned.