Dura-ble Myth: "Bullet Wounds" Suffered By Jamal Al Dura Actually Received Eight Years Earlier At Axe-Blades of... Palestinian Militia

This is the seminal fraud that sparked the current Intifada.

And nothing at all about it is true.

The wounds purportedly sustained on September 30 2000 by Jamal al Dura “target of gunfire from the Israeli positions”—in the words of France 2 bureau chief Charles Enderlin—were in fact incurred in 1992. Jamal, identified as the father of the shahid [martyr] Mohamed al Dura, is one of the two living witnesses to the incident that triggered the “Al Aqsa Intifada.” The al Dura news report has been the subject of controversy for seven years.

...Jamal al Dura declared on medical records in 1992 that Palestinian militia had attacked him with axes. Doctors at Gaza’s Shifa Hospital* were able to save his life but he lost the use of his right hand because they could not repair a ruptured tendon in the forearm. Palestinian doctors referred Jamal to Tal Hashomer hospital in Tel Aviv in March 1994. Dr. Yehuda performed reconstructive surgery, grafting a tendon taken from the foot, and restoring almost normal use of the hand. The medical record of that operation also refers to the removal of “foreign bodies,” suggesting that other instruments besides axes were used in the 1992 attack.

The cool thing about maiming someone with axes is that, years later, when you ask him to lie, he's probably going to agree, huh?

This is now old-ish, but I never mentioned it. The Al Dura footage is the cause of litigation in France -- the reporter (ahem) sued someone for defamation for daring to say it was fake, a Pallywood production. Unbelievably he succeeded.

A court has compelled this guy and his TV station to release the full, unedited Al Dura footage... and they haven't complied, turning in more edited footage and claiming, I think, the dog ate the unedited tapes. (As if you'd throw out such important raw footage.)

And this seems to bother the judge not at all. He's copacetic with the redacted footage and apparently buys the claim that a TV station lost its most historically-portentous footage ever.

Thanks to CJ.

posted by Ace at 04:00 PM

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